Upcoming Bollywood Movie

January

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
Jan 6	Players	Abhishek, Sonam, Bobby, Bipasha, Neil, Omi Vaidya	Abbas-Mustan	Thriller, Action
Jan 13	Chaalis Chauraasi	Naseeruddin Shah, Atul Kulkarni, Kay Kay Menon	Hriday Shetty	Comedy, Crime
Jan 13	Ghost	Shiney Ahuja, Sayali Bhagat	Puja Jatinder Bedi	Horror
Jan 13	Sadda Adda	Karanvir Sharma, Rohin Robert, Bhaumik Sampat	Muazzam Beg	Drama
Jan 13	Tutiya Dil	Suzanna Mukherjee, Sidhant Kapur, Nikhil Sabharwal	Amit Khanna	Drama, Romance
Jan 26	Agneepath	Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Sanjay Dutt, Rishi Kapoor	Karan Malhotra	Action, Drama

February

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
Feb 3	Staying Alive	Anant Mahadevan, Saurabh Shukla, Chandan Sanyal	Anant Mahadevan	Social
Feb 3	Gali Gali Chor Hai	Akshaye Khanna, Shriya Saran, Mugdha Godse	Rumi Jaffery	Comedy, Drama
Feb 10	Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu	Imran Khan, Kareena Kapoor	Shakun Batra	Romance, Comedy
Feb 17	Ek Deewana Tha	Prateik Babbar, Amy Jackson, Omi Vaidya	Gautham Menon	Romance
Feb 24	5 Ghantey Mien 5 Crore	Meera, Abhishek Kumar, Shawar Ali, Rashid Khan	Faisal Saif	Horror
Feb 24	Jodi Breakers	R Madhavan, Bipasha Basu, Omi Vaidya	Ashwini Chaudhary	Romance
Feb 24	Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya	Riteish Deshmukh, Genelia D'Souza	Mandeep Kumar	Romance, Comedy
Feb -	Shanghai	Abhay Deol, Emraan Hashmi, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Kalki Koechlin	Dibakar Banerjee	Thriller, Romance
Feb -	Tukkaa Fitt	Mahaakshay Chakraborty, Rajpal Yadav, Mahesh Manjrekar, Vaishali Desai	Shawn Arranha	Romance

March

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
Mar 2	London, Paris, New York	Ali Zafar, Aditi Rao Hydari	Anu Menon	Romance, Comedy
Mar 9	Chaar Din Ki Chandni	Tusshar Kapoor, Kulraj Randhawa, Anupam Kher, Om Puri	Samir Karnik	Romance
Mar 9	Kahaani	Vidya Balan	Sujoy Ghosh	Thriller, Drama
Mar 9	Paan Singh Tomar	Irrfan Khan, Mahie Gill	Tigmanshu Dhulia	Crime
Mar 23	Agent Vinod	Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor	Sriram Raghavan	Suspense
Mar 23	Blood Money	Kunal Khemu, Amrita Puri	Vishal Mahadkar	Thriller
Mar -	It's My Life	Harman Baweja, Genelia D'Souza, Nana Patekar	Anees Bazmee	Drama
Mar -	Life Reboot Nahi Hoti	Rajat Barmecha, Meiyang Chang, Jennifer Winget	Avinash Nanda	Thriller, Romance

April

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
Apr 5	Housefull 2	Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Riteish Deshmukh, Asin, Jacqueline	Sajid Khan	Comedy
Apr 6	Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum	Tusshar Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh, Bipasha Basu, Angela Jonsson	Sachin Yardi	Comedy
Apr 20	Bittoo Boss	Pulkit Samrat, Amita Pathak	Supavitra Babul	Comedy
Apr 27	Ferrari Ki Sawaari	Sharman Joshi	Rajesh Mapuskar	Sports
Apr 27	Jannat 2	Emraan Hashmi, Randeep Hooda, Prachi Desai	Kunal Deshmukh	Crime, Thriller
Apr 27	Tezz	Anil Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Mohanlal, Kangna Ranaut	Priyadarshan	Action

May

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
May 11	Luv U Soniyo	Tanuj Virwani, Neha Hinge	Joe Rajan	Romance
May 18	Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana	Kunal Kapoor, Huma Qureshi	Sameer Sharma	Comedy
May -	Gangs Of Wasseypur	Manoj Bajpai, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Piyush Mishra, Shabana Azmi	Anurag Kashyap	Crime
May -	Ishaqzaade	Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra	Habib Faisal	Romance
May -	Rock The Shaadi	Abhay Deol, Genelia D'Souza, Preeti Desai	Navdeep Singh	Comedy, Romance

June

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
June 1	Talaash	Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Rani Mukerji	Reema Kagti	Suspense, Drama
June 15	Rowdy Rathore	Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha	Prabhu Dheva	Action
June 22	Teri Meri Kahani	Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra	Kunal Kohli	Romance
June -	Dangerous Ishq	Karisma Kapoor, Rajneesh Duggal	Vikram Bhatt	Thriller

July

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
July 6	Bol Bachchan	Ajay Devgn, Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, Asin, Prachi Desai	Rohit Shetty	Comedy
July 13	Barfii	Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Ileana D'Cruz	Anurag Basu	Comedy
July 13	Cocktail	Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone	Homi Adajania	Romance
July -	Student Of The Year	Siddharth Malhotra, Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt	Karan Johar	Drama

August

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
Aug 10	Ek Tha Tiger	Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif	Kabir Khan	Thriller, Romance
Aug 17	Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai 2	Akshay Kumar, Ileana D'Cruz, Sonakshi Sinha	Milan Luthria	Crime
Aug 30	Joker	Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Shreyas Talpade, Minissha Lamba	Shirish Kunder	Sci-Fi
Aug 31	Raaz 3	Emraan Hashmi, Jacqueline Fernandez, Bipasha Basu	Vikram Bhatt	Thriller, Suspense

September

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
Sep -	2nd Time Lucky	Prateik Babbar, Ahana Deol	Shoojit Sircar	Romance
Sep -	Heroine	Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Arunoday Singh	Madhur Bhandarkar	Drama

October

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
Oct 26	Lootera	Ranveer Singh, Sonakshi Sinha	Vikramaditya Motwane	Romance, Period
Oct -	Department	Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Anjana Sukhani, Rana Daggubati, Naseeruddin Shah	Ram Gopal Varma	Action, Crime
Oct -	Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani	Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone	Ayan Mukerji	Romance

November

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
Nov 30	Race 2	Saif Ali Khan, Anil Kapoor, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone	Abbas-Mustan	Thriller, Suspense
Nov 30	Son Of Sardar	Ajay Devgn, Sonakshi Sinha, Sanjay Dutt, Juhi Chawla	Ashwani Dhir	Action
Nov -	Khiladi 786	Akshay Kumar, Himesh Reshammiya, Paresh Rawal, Ileana D'Cruz	Ashish R Mohan	Action, Comedy

December

Release Date	Film-Title	Star-Cast	Director	Genre
Dec -	Dabangg 2	Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha	Arbaaz Khan	Action, Romance

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Ladies vs Ricky Bahl

Ladies vs Ricky Bahl

Language: Hindi
Critic Rating:  (3.0/5)
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Release Year: 2011
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma, Parineeti Chopra, Aditi Sharma, Dipannita Sharma 
Producer: Aditya Chopra 
Director: Maneesh Sharma 
Music Director: Salim Merchant,Sulaiman Merchant 





Don’t we love Anushka Sharma for her sass and sensuality, for how she turns from an adorable Aphrodite to a bindaas belle in a mere wink? Don’t we just gawk with admiration when she dances with abandon, as if it’s her last dance and she must milk out all her Jazba into every move she makes? And don’t we get brainwashed of all the talk about her skeletal frame when she peels off to flaunt a body tailormade for bikini (not vice versa). I, at times, do, and so went to watch Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl all game to be happily clean bowled by Anushka again. But I was stumped by another girl.


Parineeti Chopra. This hitherto anonymous girl with ordinary features and no acting background emerges from the marketing wing of the YRF and takes to acting like she was born and bred for it. Playing a feisty Delhi girl, Parineeti is impudent, crass, bluff, and all moony over her man, a con he may be. Though her role isn’t chunky, she leaves you wanting to hear more of those funny lines (finely penned by Habib Faisal) that only she, with her natural flair and Punju accent, could have mouthed. 


In a film populated by four ladies, it’s hard for a man to hold his stead, but Ranveer Singh just about manages that with a subdued charm, boyish smile, washboard abs and some talent too. He plays Ricky Bahl, a conman who exclusively targets girls. Assuming varied guises like that of a clothes merchant, gym instructor or art dealer, he woos the ladies, wins their trust, and when the iron is hot, bang and poof! he’s gone with their lakhs safely stuffed in his briefcase.


Among his pretty victims is the gullible Dimple (Parineeti Chopra) from Delhi, a shy and reserved Saira (Aditi Sharma) from Lucknow and a suave executive Raina (Dipannita Sharma) from Mumbai. The three ladies gang up to give the slicker a taste of his own medicine and hire a smart, clever salesgirl Ishika (Anushka Sharma) to trap the Bloody Kameena (as they call Ricky Bahl) and beat him at his own game. Will the swindler bite the bait and be hoist by his own petard? Or will he pull a fast one on the ladies again when they least suspect?


For one, the film has an interesting plot and director Maneesh Sharma doesn’t let your interest wane for the first half. Ricky Bahl’s exploits with the three ladies aren’t cerebral, but they make for a fun watch. The trouble starts in the second half, when Anushka and Ranveer are made to loiter around Goa more than a taut script should have offered, and the pace slackens thereon. It’s also hard to stomach the fact that a clever conman like Ricky Bahl could so easily be made to shell out lakhs with nothing much to offer for his confidence than a website of a business empire whose heiress he hopes to ensnare. And it’s a droll but unconvincing sight to see the ladies buying ersatz goodies from roadside stalls at bargain-basement prices and pasting them with the labels of high-end brands like a Gucci or Fendi while Ricky Bahl happily foots the bill. Also Anushka Sharma’s role ought to have more meat. Just when one expects her to outfox Ricky Bahl, she’s a weak, lovestruck girl, a mere shadow of her former self.


But credit to the ladies for putting up good performances. Anushka and Parineeti steal the show, while Aditi Sharma and Dipannita Sharma chip in well for their part. Aditi makes for a believable picture of a bashful small-town girl, while Dipannita is her diametric opposite: a city-bread, tough taskmaster and a go-getter. 


The music by Salim-Sulaiman is plain ordinary but the cinematographer Aseem Mishra shows an eye for the detail. Director Maneesh Sharma bookends the story well but lets it go limp in the middle. And sometimes that’s where things matter the most.


All in all, Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl is a fun one-time watch. Just don’t go expecting the moon, and you’ll come out smiling.


Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5

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The Dirty Picture

The Dirty Picture

Language: Hindi
Critic Rating:  (3.5/5)
Genre: Drama, Musicals
Release Year: 2011
Cast: Vidya Balan, Emran Hashmi, Tushar Kapoor, Naseerudin Shah, Anju Mahendroo 
Producer: Ekta Kapoor,Shobha Kapoor 
Director: Milan Lutharia 
Music Director: Vishal Dadlani,Shekhar Ravjiani 





Sex and substance rarely go together. The former unfailingly dominates the latter. So it’s a given that when a woman plunges herself headlong into an unabashed display of her femininity and pulls down her necklines to the eye-popping glances of deprived souls (not few in number by any count), one isn’t interested in looking beyond. What for? 


Vidya Balan flips this seemingly cardinal rule on its head. By dint of her unalloyed talent, she makes you look up from that ‘Grand Canyon’ cleavage and pneumatic orbs, and into those eyes that speak tons in silence. Into those quivering lips, those bleary eyebags, at that lofty brow and pursed forehead and thereby into the insides of the tormented character she plays. In these rare moments of brilliance, she provides a sliver of substance behind sex. It’s like watching a kamasutra pose and being hit by a flash of light inside your head that makes you look beyond those coiled bodies and at the aesthetic beauty and the greater union beyond. To be able to do that in a Bollywood film is no mean feat. And Vidya Balan pulls it off with flying colours. In short, she makes the dirty SUBLIME.


She plays the unapologetic, fiercely ambitious siren with few scruples and a troubled past. Her character Silk ploughs her way through the dirty world of showbiz, on the way willingly succumbing to the lust of a superstar (Naseeruddin Shah), to the affection of an admirer (Tusshar Kapoor) and the hatred of an arthouse film director (Emraan Hashmi). And out of it all she emerges scarred and sexploited, a woman drowning her loneliness with alcohol, puffing off her failure with cigarettes, and finding love a little too late.


Though it’s a story with lots of skin, there’s sorrow at its heart. The dazzle of Silk’s rise to fame is offset by her spiraling decline as her life fall apart, piece by piece.


Director Milan Luthria and writer Rajat Aroraa have come up with a finely crafted film, but how one wishes they had put a leash on the dialoguebaazi. The characters speak in the language of Salim-Javed dialogues, often spinning out innocuous metaphors about things as mundane as a cigarette pack or a car-gear lever. Even the song where Silk and new siren Shakila compete could have been edited short.


These foibles apart, The Dirty Picture has its share of gripping moments. For instance, the night of subdued intimacy between Vidya and Emraan, or the sequence where Silk dances publicly on a car bonnet to spoil the party of a critic, or Silk’s incisive award-acceptance speech.


The performances by the male cast are spot on. If Naseer is every bit the cocky, smug, vain superstar, Tusshar is the bashful younger brother with a soft spot for Silk. Emraan plays a somewhat complex character of a man who doesn’t know if he loves to hate Silk, or hates to love her.


But taking the cake is the lady herself -- Vidya Boombat Balan. The character of Silk might have turned into an image of vulgarity if played by a lesser actor. Of course, there’s nothing great in stripping. Even Poonam Pandey does that. But it takes Vidya Balan to stir your thoughts, not just testosterone.


Go watch The Dirty Picture for Vidya Balan. 


Rating: 3 stars out of 5

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Desi Boyz

Cast: Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone, Omi Vaidya, Rajat Barmecha, Danny Anson Jones, Chitrangda Singh, Sanjay Dutt

Language: Hindi
Genre: Action, Comedy
Release Year: 2011
Producer: Krishika Lulla, Vijay Ahuja
Director: Rohit Dhawan
Music Director: Pritam Chakraborty



Nonsense, besides sex, sells! And two beefy hunks, one in late thirties and the other in mid-forties, ripping their shirts off and showing off their finely waxed chests hardly make for an eye-pleasing sexual content. Not for the male lot this raunchy display of the ageing beefcake, I’m sure, sexual orientations notwithstanding. With sex scratched out, we are left with nonsense, something that director Rohit Dhawan, having inherited a good chunk of genes from his dad David Dhawan, can be veritably relied upon to be at home with.

And home with it Rohit Dhawan indeed is. For he manages a laugh out of situations like John Abraham and Anupam Kher rubbing against each other and looking into each other’s eyes, before the latter declares “Don’t get ambitious”. To Rohit’s credit he wrings out a few comic moments from the otherwise wooden John. Catch John absolutely nonplussed when his fiancé (Deepika Padukone) and her father (Kher) show up at his pad while he’s having a raunchy party with a bunch of eager-to-strip guys and girls.

Where Rohit Dhawan falters is in his bid to squeeze in melodrama where none was needed. The sequences involving Akshay Kumar and his orphaned nephew whose custody the latter is about to lose are aimed at leaving you moist eyed. They don’t. More embarrassing is a scene where a maths professor scoffs Indians as harebrained and Akshay spiels about the contribution of great Indians: from Aryabhatta, the contributor of ‘zero’, to Sabeer Bhatia the cofounder of hotmail. Worse still, Rohit filches an idea from an advertisement and turns it into a full-blown scene when Akshay makes a show of being beaten up by his interviewee to scare away the other contenders for the job. That’s lame! If anything was left, we have Sanjay Dutt who runs a male escort agency Desi Boyz and claims to be the purveyor of happiness to the womankind.

The story of Desi Boyz is pretty slim. Two best friends find themselves scrounging for a decent living in London after being hit by recession. Jobless but not hopeless, they must find something to make ends meet. Nick has a fiancé Radhika (Deepika Padukone) who craves for a perfect wedding while Jerry is trying to come good to gain the custody of the nephew he dotes on. Pushed to the wall, the two become male escorts, which involve stripping for women at bachelorette parties and even fulfilling their fantasies in the bed.

But this job turns their already derailed lives topsy-turvy. So the two Desi Boyz set out to make amends and get their lives back on track.

The movie’s pace is bumpy for the most part of the first half. The second half begins on a promising note with the introduction of Chitrangada Singh as the hot Economics professor who has a crush on her overaged student, Akshay Kumar. Chitrangada doubtlessly looks prettier and hotter than Deepika. There’s a scene where she offers to strip layer by layer for her student Akshay if he answers the economics questions correctly. The scene is almost exploitative, but Chitrangada makes it work. In comparison, Deepika’s character is reduced to looking sulky. Akshay Kumar and John Abraham are the two lifelines of Desi Boyz and they just about deliver the goods.

The film’s music by Pritam is below par. Cinematographer Natarajan Subhramaniam cans a few interesting shots, particularly one where Akshay and John are shown sitting on the ledge of their penthouse. In the dialogue department, Milap Zaveri comes up with some lines that leave you grinning.

All in all, Desi Boyz is a film that’s not a laugh riot but just about a tolerable one-time watch. Its humour may be irreverent, facetious and even crass, but it works at times.

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5

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Rockstar

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Diana Penty, Nargis Fakhri, Shammi Kapoor Director: Imtiaz Ali  Producer: Ronnie Screwvala Music: A. R. Rahman Sound: Dileep Subramanium Lyrics: Irshad Kamil Cinematography: Anil Mehta Editing: Aarti Bajaj Story/Writer: Imtiaz Ali Costume: Aki Narula, Manish Malhotra

All the rockheads who have been expecting Imtiaz Ali’s film Rockstar to be a follow-up to Rock On!! here’s the bubble-burst. Rockstar isn’t about rock music. It’s a love story, and not a great one at that. In his bid to move beyond the Bollywood mush, Imtiaz Ali tries to weave a love story with spiritual undertones, but ends up with a cobweb of his own creation: a film that tries to be profound but knows not what point to make.

A film that’s made with passion but still lacks the heart of an entranced Sufi or the grace of a whirling dervish. Yes, there are a few epiphanic moments when a glimpse of something from the beyond flashes through, but that’s just about it. The film is a story of an uncouth Delhi lad Janardhan Jhakhar (Ranbir Kapoor) who idolizes Jim Morrison but doesn’t have in him what it takes to make a cut. Pain, he’s told by a stocky canteen manager (Kumud Mishra), is the grist of creativity. So he seeks pain in the heartbreak by proposing the most beautiful girl in the college, Heer Kaul (Nargis Fakhri). But pain, like joy, is hard to come by. And it takes a long and outstretched relationship -- beginning with hate, turning into friendship and blossoming into love -- before our hero Jordan and his much married Heer are left with a shattered heart and an amputated soul, scarred enough to shuffle off their mortal coil. You play with fire, you get burnt. And our hero is the one to willingly stick his neck underneath a guillotine suspended by a silken thread. All for musical inspiration. But here’s the catch.

Imtiaz Ali never taps into the maturing musical genius of the protagonist, never making music the vehicle to cleanse, so to speak, the doors of perception to a place beyond the right and wrong. Rather, he sticks only to LOVE, as if music and love were one without the other. And what comes through is just the pain of two separated lovers, with no greater calling than to just be united. So if you are digging for some profundity from this love story extraordinare, you’re digging a dry hole, my friend. For despite all the seething rage our protagonist pumps into his music and performances, Rockstar strictly remains a sexed up version of Devdas. The film could well have been called Devdas Learns To Rock. Having said that, Rockstar is not a film to be pooh-poohed dismissively.

For one, it has an entertaining first half with moments aplenty of light humour. The camaraderie between Ranbir and Nargis makes for a fun watch even though the latter is a non-actor. It’s in the second half that the film goes for a toss, and keeps veering between a drunken and jilted rockstar’s self destructive streak and his guilt-ridden ladylove’s paranoia. Nargis has been saddled with the most complex character in the film, and given her halting Hindi and lack of experience in acting, you really feel for the girl. She struggles to slip into the skin of her character, her expressions wavering between pretty smiles and exasperation. Ranbir Kapoor comes up with a solid performance that sees the transformation of his character from the crass Jat boy Janardhan to a sullen, snappy, yelling, tortured soul, Jordan. Kumud Mishra and Aditi Rao Hydari (playing a journalist) lend support from the sidelines, and the late Shammi Kapoor sprinkles his charisma in a few scenes.

 A R Rahman’s music remains a formidable backbone of Rockstar, most notably the song “Saada Haq”, the best the rock anthem to have come out of Bollywood to date. Anil Mehta’s cinematography is excellent, particularly the shots of the concerts. Imtiaz Ali had a darn good story on his hands but he makes a hash of it in the second half and concludes on a rather predictable note. There’s no burning out. No fading away. This story of Jordan rotten ends suspended in a Rumi “field” beyond the right-doing and wrong-doing, where the lovers are forever united. By then you are already looking at The Doors to exit.

 Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5

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