Bolly’18: Wedding bells ring

Aamir Khan: It is a rare event when you have seen superstar Aamir Khan is apologizing to his fans for the debacle of his movie. Yes, this happened in 2018 when Aamir’s much-awaited Diwali re-lease Thugs of Hindostan bombed at the Box Office and left millions of his fans disheartened. Aamir, who is known for making hit movies like Dhoom3, Dan-gal, PK, had to apologise for the mov-ie’s poor show and hopefully we will not see another such disaster from his bag in future.Akshay Kumar: Akshay Kumar started off with Padman where he was seen enacting the role of Lakshmikant Chauhan. The movie is based on the short story named “The Sanitary Man of Sacred Land” from Twinkle’s book “The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad”. In-fact, it is the life of Tamil Nadu-based Arunachalam Muruganantham, who created affordable sanitary napkins for the women of his village, who has been the main driving force behind the tale. Akshay portrayed the central character beautifully. The movie released in Jan-uary and entered the Rs. 100 crore club easily, based on its strong content and storyline. With the film Gold, Akshay once again turned his patriotic button on when he played the character Tapan Das, who brought the Indian team to-gether to win the first Olympic gold as an independent nation. In 2019, he will be seen in movies like Kesari and Mis-sion Mangal.Ayushmann Khurrana: Ayushmann had a perfect 2018 with all his movies- Andhadhun and Badhaai Ho- rocking at the Box Office. While, Andhadhun gave Ayushmann a chance to move out from his boy-next-door characters to play the perfect protagonist in the thriller, he was once again back in his usual cute avatar with Badhaai Ho. The Dusshera release was loved by people across In-dia and the movie emerged as one of the biggest hits of the year. Ayushmann will soon be seen in Dream Girl. The announcement about the movie was made recently via an interesting video which the makers created specially by keeping in mind the impact Ayushmann is making in recent times.Aishwarya Rai Bachchan: Ash, the Bachchan bahu, was back on the silver screen this year with Fanney Khan. After a long time, she was seen pair-ing with her old onscreen partner Anil Kapoor. The movie, however, failed to impress fans much and did average business at Box Office.Anushka Sharma: 2017 was a major year in her life as Anushka, the poster girl of Bollywood, tied knots with In-dian cricket team captain Virat Kohli. This year, Anushka came roaring on the big screen with a horror movie named Pari. The posters of the film, which was released in 2017, had created much thrill among fans. Pari finally released during Holi and Anushka surely im-pressed people with her experiment of playing a scary-yet-lovable Pari. She then arrived as the autobiographer in the biopic based on actor Sanjay Dutt’s Life-Sanju. Anushka was praised for her small yet significant role in the movie. Anushka will end the year with the release of her much-awaited movie Zero where she will once again pair with Shah Rukh Khan and Katrina Kaif, her co-stars in 2012 movie Jab Tak Hai Jaan. The Anand L Rai movie has already created lots of anticipations among fans who are expecting to see a firecracker at the Box Office at the end of the year. Mrs. Kohli also paired with Varun Dhawan for the first time in her career to deliver another hit of her mov-ie life- Sui Dhaaga- in 2018.Alia Bhatt: Apart from her love af-fair with Ranbir Kapoor making the headlines in the year, actress Alia Bhatt impressed her fans with perhaps one of her best performances in Raazi. The Meghna Gulzar directorial Indian spy movie provided Alia the perfect plat-form to perform strongly the character of Sehmat Khan. The movie was ap-preciated both by fans and critics and surely provided the much needed mo-mentum to Alia Bhatt’s glowing career. Away from Raazi, she was engaged in shooting for her upcoming movies which include Gully Boy, Brahmastra and Kalank. The announcement was also made about Sadak 2, in which film-maker father Mahesh Bhatt will direct his daughter Alia for the first time.Ajay Devgn: Ajay Devgn’s major activity in 2018 was his appearance in the movie Raid. Directed by Raj Kumar Gupta, the film is inspired by the real life income-tax raid conducted by the officers of the Income Tax Department under the leadership of a courageous and upright Indian Revenue Service officer in the 1980s. The movie earned positive reviews from critics and fans. Deepika Padukone: The Bollywood beauty finally said ‘Yes! I do’. The dimple-cheeked B-town queen, per-haps one of the most successful actors of this generation, tied the knot with another tinsel town heart-throb Ranveer Singh. In a wedding that could even give a tough challenge to the beauti-fully scripted marriages of Bollywood, Deepika and Ranveer skipped media at-tentions to land in Italy to be the perfect man and woman forever. ‘DeepVeer’ perhaps became the new word that emerged in the world of social media following the marriage. Images of the wedding went viral on the internet as the entire nation rejoiced and wished the couple a very best of luck for their new innings in life.On the working front as well, Deep-ika and Ranveer paired together for Padmaavat. Amid controversies and opposition by some Hindu activists, the movie was released amid positive reviews across the country. Hrithik Roshan: Hrithik Roshan did not appear on the silverscreen for a sin-gle time this year but anticipations over his 2019 release Super 30 is already quite high. The Indian actor will be seen playing the character of a teacher. Away from his glamorous roles in movies like Dhoom 2, Hrithik has been portraying a simple look with a beard in the movie.Irrfan Khan: Karwaan and Black-mail were perhaps two movies in which Irrfan appeared this year but it was the news of his cancer detection which left fans shocked across the globe. A Twit-ter post earlier in 2018 by Irrfan Khan had left his well wishers silent as the actor said that he was suffering from neuroendocrine tumour. Irrfan has been receiving medications for the disease in the UK and has been away from India for a long time now. Jacqueline Fernandez: Bollywood’s Sri Lankan diva Jacqueline returned onscreen with his Kick co-star Salman Khan in Race 3. The Eid release made reasonably good business at the Box Office. The actress also tasted some social media trolls and criticisms over her move of experimenting to recreate Madhuri Dixit’s iconic Ek Do Teen song in her own way. The attempt left most of her fans disappointed. Comparison with Madhuri Dixit and the original number from 1988 movie Tezaab even made situations tough for the Sri Lank-an actress. The Baaghi 2 song remained one forgettable moment of the year. John Abraham: Bollywood’s hunk returned onscreen in his kickass avatar with two movies- Satyameva Jayate and Parmanu: The Story Of Pokhran. Both the movies performed reasonably well at the Box Office and John made his presence strongly felt in the Bol-lywood arena with his power packed performance. Satyameva Jayate will be specially remembered for the item number Dilbar. The recreation of the iconic Bollywood number of the 90s earned appreciation from moviegoers. Kareena Kapoor Khan: Kareena was back in action with Veere Di Wed-ding this year. The poster of the movie had earned attention of fans in 2017 and this time the movie also grossed well though it was disliked by critics. Kareena shared screen space with other ladies in the film like Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania. Katrina Kaif: The Barbie Doll of Bollywood made a poor start to the Box Office this year with her highly anticipated Diwali release Thugs of Hindostan doing poorly. While the movie boasts of a cast like Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan it failed miser-ably at the Box Office, disappointing fans and critics alike. Katrina will end the year with another probable major movie of her career- Zero. The film will see her unite with her old Jab Tak Hai Jaan co-stars Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma. Katrina’s sizzling av-atar in Husn Parcham song from Zero wowed her fans as they are going gaga on social media. In 2019, Katrina will be back with Salman Khan once again with their Eid release Bharat. Priyanka Chopra: India’s interna-tional star had the most memorable 2018 as she tied the knots with US singer Nick Jonas in Jodhpur. Nick and Priyanka married just days after Ranveer and Deepika wedding, giving Indians a chance to celebrate two ma-jor Bollywood marriages back-to-back in one year. Priyanka appeared for one last time in the third season of her inter-national TV series Quantico. She also worked in international movies like A Kid Like Jake and Isn’t It Romantic? Movie lovers are eagerly waiting for their release. However, despite opting out from Bharat, Priyanka is currently busy with her much-awaited Bolly-wood return- The Sky Is Pink. Ranbir Kapoor: After a poor show in 2017, Ranbir returned with a bang this year as ‘Sanju’. The biopic on actor Sanjay Dutt helped Ranbir shine at the Box Office. His transformation from Ranbir to Sanjay Dutt had become the talk of the town this year and Sanju remained one memorable film in his career. Fans will be looking forward to see Ranbir Kapoor once again when he will unite with his real life love Alia Bhatt for Brahmastra. The fantasy film will also feature Amitabh Bachchan. Ranveer Singh: Officially scheduled for release on Dec 1, 2017, controversy surrounding his Padmaavat movie had forced makers to delay its release till 2018. The movie finally released this year amid protests, violence and even ban on release in several states. How-ever, Padmaavat and Ranveer as Alaud-din Khilji shined on the big screen. The movie became a smash hit and Ranveer earned appreciation from both fans and critics for his strong performance onscreen. He will once again be back on the silverscreen as the tough cop in Simmba. Ranveer pairs up with young Sara Ali Khan for the Rohit Shetty di-rectorial film that will try to compete with Shah Rukh Khan’s Zero at the end of the year. Saif Ali Khan: Saif Ali Khan is a happy father in 2018 as his daugh-ter Sara made her Bollywood debut with Kedarnath. Sara will also feature in Simmba, opposite Ranveer Singh. On the work front, Saif’s two movies Kaalakaandi and Baazaar released this year. The movies performed moder-ately at the Box Office. But the biggest takeaway for Saif this year is probably Netflix’s web series Sacred Games. Salman Khan: The blackbuck poach-ing case came haunting Salman Khan in 2018. After spending two nights in jail, the Bollywood superstar, who is convicted in the 20-year old Black-buck poaching case, was granted bail by a Rajasthan court in April this year. The actors were accused of poaching a blackbuck, an endangered species pro-tected under the Indian Wildlife Act, in Kankani village of Jodhpur during the shooting of film Hum Saath Saath Hain in September, 1998. Khan was con-victed under Section 51 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972. In his career, Sal-man featured for the first time in Race movie series with Race 3 and the Eid release once again did not fail to enter-tain fans. Salman once again made a special appearance in 2018 movie Zero for a special song Isaaqbaazi. Salman and Shah Rukh Khan could be seen en-tertaining their fans with their signature dance steps in the special Christmas gift for their fans. Salman will be seen back with his Eid release Bharat next year. He is pairing up with his old colleague Katrina Kaif for the movie. Salman also hosted popular TV shows 10 Ka Dum and Bigg Boss this year.Sushant Singh Rajput: Onscreen MS Dhoni was back with one special year end release Kedarnath where he was seen romancing Saif Ali Khan’s daughter Sara Ali Khan. It is time to see how he delivers at the Box Office after a dry 2017 where his only release Raabta failed miserably.Shah Rukh Khan: He started 2018 with a teaser and now he is ending the year with the whole movie-Zero. So far, the teasers, trailer and even the songs of the movie, where SRK is playing the character of a vertically-challenged per-son, has left his fans quite impressed. Khan has paired up with director Anand L Rai and actors Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif with the promise of de-livering one major hit at the end of the year. In 2019, SRK’s Kolkata Knight Riders will be back once again on the field with the aim of winning the title for the third time. Sunny Leone: Sunny Leone remained absent from the Bollywood screen for the entire year. She was last seen in 2017 released movie Tera Intezaar which had failed miserably at the Box Office. However, it was her biopic that made headlines in 2018. Titled “Karen-jit Kaur – The Untold Story of Sunny Leone”, it was an original web-series by ZEE5. The series narrates her jour-ney from a middle-class girl in Canada to becoming India’s most googled ce-lebrity. Sunny and her husband Daniel announced the birth of their twin boys, born through surrogacy. They named the boys Asher Singh Weber and Noah Singh Weber. Varun Dhawan: After completing a successful 2018, Varun Dhawan ap-peared in two movies this year-October and Sui Dhaaga. While October passed away silently, it was the other movie, which also featured Anushka Sharma, that made some bang at the Box Office. Both critics and fans loved the simple story of hopes and aspiration that made Sui Dhaaga one big hit of the year. Special mentionsNeha Dhupia: Away from Deepika and Priyanka, bold and beautiful ac-tress of Bollywood-Neha Dhupia- also tied the nuptial knot with actor An-gad Bedi in 2018 and the couple was blessed with a baby girl Mehr Dhupia Bedi in November. Neha appeared in two important releases this year- web series Lust Stories and Kajol’s come-back movie Helicopter Eela. Bhumi Pednekar: Another uncon-ventional Bollywood actress, who had made her debut with Dum Laga Ke Haisha in 2015, returned with the bold step of performing in a web series-Lust Stories. Bhumi and her bold performance in the storyline proved strong enough to attract netizens to watch it online. Her fans will surely look for-ward to her releases in 2019. Shraddha Kapoor: Stree and its suc-cess as a horror movie would not have been possible without Shraddha, The movie emerged as one surprise hit of the year and Shraddha competed hard to match with the skills of Rajkummar Rao in this movie. Her mysterious char-acter and that too without a name left viewers spellbound. She was also seen in other major release of the year Batti Gul Meter Chalu, opposite Shahid Ka-poor, but it remained mostly unnoticed. Radhika Apte: You cannot ignore Radhika when it comes to content driv-en movies and her eye catching per-formance in making the characters go alive onscreen. From Akshay Kumar’s Padman to Ayushmann Khuranna’s Andhadhun, Radhika left her presence strongly felt in all of them. She was also seen in Saif Ali Khan’s Bazaar. With three big releases and her notable appearance in web series Lust Stories, Radhika dominated the world of Bolly-wood in her own ways in 2018. Not to forget Netflix web series Sacred Games, in which Radhika made her mark.Sonam Kapoor: Sonam Kapoor fi-nally said Yes when she tied the knots with Anand Ahuja in May this year. The first fat Bollywood wedding of 2018 was followed by two more as Deepika-Ranveer and Priyanka and Nick also tied the knots in the fag end of the year. In the working front, Sonam worked in three popular movies-Padman, Sanju and Veere Di Wedding. Mr Consistent of the Year Rajkummar Rao: There was a strong competition this year between Bareilly Ki Barfi co-stars Ayushmann and Rajkummar Rao when it was time to find the consistent performer of the year. But it was probably Rajkummar Rao who once again who stole the show with the variety of characters he played all through the year. From a serious role in Omerta to the ghost hunting village simpleton in Stree, Rajkummar did it all to entertain his fans. He also appeared in two other major movies this year- Love Sonia and Fanney Khan. #MeTooFollowing Hollywood, #MeToo movement had also created ripples in Bollywood this year. The cam-paign began with actress Tanushree Dutta’s allegations of sexual miscon-duct against Horn Ok Pleassss co-star Nana Patekar. Following Tanushree’s claim, several actresses belonging to different generations came out in pub-lic to share their experiences of sexual harassments and assaults. One of the allegations, which raised storm, was brought by writer-director-producer Vinta Nanda against onscreen ‘San-skari’ actor Alok Nath. Nanda alleged that Nath had sexually violated her years ago.RIP Sridevi: The Bollywood screen goddess, who ruled the hearts of her fans for decades, passed away in Dubai. When the news of her death broke, generations of Indians were too shocked to digest it. Sridevi, who died due to ‘accidental drowning’, was just 54. Sridevi, who left a strong impres-sion in the minds of Indian cinegoers with her films like Mr India, Sadma, Chandni, English Vinglish and Mom, had gone to Dubai to attend a wedding ceremony. (IBNS-TWF)