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Well-known film director Gautham Menon is quite excited that his film 'Varanam Aayiram' has bagged the National award for the best regional Tamil film. 'Though I have done several films, this is my first award. And to get a prestigious award as your first award is something to cheer about. I am very happy that the National Award jury recognised the merits of the film and selected it for the honour,' Menon, 34 told, IANS. He is considered as one of the top most Tamil film director and has proved his mettle by directing tasteful films like 'Khakka Khakka', 'Minnale' and 'Vettaiyaadu Vizhaiyaadu'. All these films have combined aesthetics with commercial values and proved to be hugely successful at the box office. Compared to his previous films, 'Varanam Aayiram' was an average success. But the film was critically acclaimed for its brilliant screenplay, top class performance from the lead actor Surya and high-class technical values.

Tamil director Bala, who has been adjudged best director at the 56th National Film Awards for his latest offering 'Naan Kadavul', has dedicated it to his mentor - director Balu Mahendra. 'It was Balu Mahendra who had groomed me and Akila Balu Mahendra had taken care of me like a mother - they are the reason behind such an honour. Without them I would have not achieved this feat,' Bala, who has so far directed four films, told IANS. Though this is Bala's first National Award as a director, his film 'Pithamagan' had fetched best actor National Award for its lead actor Vikram. Bala is, however, disappointed that Ilayaraja, Arya and Pooja, who had worked in 'Naan Kadavul', haven't got any award. 'I was quite confident that they would get the awards,' he said. He also says that he is happy about winning the coveted award, but insists that he doesn't make films for awards.

Bollywood producer Pahlaj Nihalani, credited with launching actors like Govinda , Chunky Pandey and Suniel Shetty, says the profit-driven attitude of multiplexes is leading to the downfall of quality cinema. 'Multiplexes are gradually eating away good cinema and new talent. They are charging exorbitant ticket prices and show only those movies that have strong cast. Other movies with fresh and experimental subjects wither away after just one or two shows,' Nihalani told IANS here. He added: 'The public is getting less and multiplexes are earning more. In fact, this is a big jolt to the entertainment industry and a major reason why most of the movies are not doing well these days. Once a movie reaches the multiplexes, a distributor or producer, who treats a movie like his own baby, has no say.' Nihalani also demands a ceiling on the ticket prices of multiplexes. 'A middle class person is totally out of reach of a multiplex screen. State governments should com

The 56th National Film Awards for year 2008 were announced today. Priyanka Chopra bagged the Best Actress Award for her role in Fashion . The actress who is currently in New York shooting for her forth coming film Anjaana Anjaani posted an obvious thank you speech on Twitter saying, "Thank you Madhur, Ronnie, Kangna, Mugdha, Arjan, Arbaaz and the cast and crew!! A huge shout to my team and all of u!! God is kind!!! Yaaaaayyy!!" Upendra Limaye is awarded the Best Actor award for the Marathi film Jogwa and Arjun Rampal the Best Supporting Actor award for Rock On . Madhur Bhandarkar must surely be a happy man, as the Best Supporting Actress Award has gone to Kangna Ranaut, again for his film Fashion . While the award for the Best Popular Film has gone to Dibakar Banerjee's Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye ! Rahul Bose-starrer Bengali film Antaheen is named as the Best Film and is also selected for Awards in Best Cinematography, Best Lyrics and Best Female Playback Singer catego

It's a waiting game that trailed off on a reverse track. Kangana Ranaut was asked to report early on the sets of director Anand Rai's 'Manu Weds Tanu'. And R Madhavan was asked to report late on sets, since the rivetting Ranaut would require ample time to slap on the greasepaint. But, guess what, Kangy managed to finish her make up in a jiffy …. and there was no sign of Maddy. The actor showed up….. an hour later, citing traffic hassles even as a hassled Kangy muttered under her celeb breath. Director Rai must have felt like an 'Idiot'!

This is a blog story by Glen Allsopp who writes about viral marketing . A few months ago, I received an email from Deelip Khanal (who runs this site), asking if I would share my story with the readers here. At first, I was a little hesitant as I’ve shared most of my blogging advice in a lot of interviews recently, but then I had an idea. Instead of me sharing my biggest tips about blogging, I just want to show you what is possible. After all, you can read tips on writing scannable content, creating killer-headlines and promoting your blog posts anywhere. However, at times all we really need is a little inspiration from somewhere who has been there and done that to get us going again. If you’re losing a little bit of motivation for blogging or don’t really think you can achieve what you want to, then this post is for you. Allow me to start this story with a little of my background. In school, I absolutely hated writing. Despite being in the ‘high flyers’ class which meant that myself

The Internet has created many unique opportunities for social interaction. One particularly popular form of this online interaction is the message board, or forum. This is a guide intended to help you survive and thrive on a forum, and it assumes you have some familiarity with forums. If you have no clue what a forum is, find one on your favorite website and explore how to use a forum. First, before posting on a message board, make sure that you have an idea of the particular niches and peculiarities of the forum. Figure out what people like and don't like. Make sure that you choose a name that will not annoy people. Once you have an acceptable username, read around for a while before posting. Don't immediately spam the board with all of your thoughts and ideas. Find out who is the "big cheese" of the board, and who the members whom everyone dislikes are. Also, make note of who you should stay on good terms with. Once you have "lurked" for a bit, feel free t

Just a week ago the projection was $200 million. Of course, unless you’re an GE/NBCU auditor, the final number will be completely buried in the GE financials, so no one will ever know what it ends up being. General Electric Co. said Friday that it would lose more than previously indicated — about $250 million — on its coverage of next month’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver. via latimes.com .

I’m posting this only because of the ratings smack talk and not because of any of the other content covered. I care far more about my coffee shop being out of artificial sweetener than who won an election 2,500 miles away in Massachusetts. Still, with regard to FNC’s ratings the night of the election , “that’s not a victory, it’s a massacre” is a great line.

Numbers are based on Live+Same Day ratings

Presumably, when you want to rehabilitate your reputation there’s no better place to start than Oprah. Winfrey said on her talk show Friday that she was going to Los Angeles for a “one-on-one” interview with Leno to air on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on Thursday. via washingtonpost.com . Oprah’s also extended an invitation to Conan O’Brien. No word on his acceptance.

ABC’s “20/20” ranked No. 1 during Friday’s 10 o’clock hour in Total Viewers (6.4 million) and across all key Adult demos : AD18-34 (1.0/4), AD18-49 (1.5/5) and AD25-54 (2.0/6). “20/20” beat out its NBC newsmagazine competition in the time period, topping “Dateline” by 1.4 million viewers and by 11% in the key Adult 25-54 news demographic (“Dateline” = 5.0 million and 2.0/6). The ABC newsmagazine has finished as the No. 1 regular program during Friday’s 10 o’clock hour on 10 of its last 11 telecasts among Adults 18-49 . ABC News’ “20/20” aired a live broadcast from New York, following the “Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief” telethon, bringing viewers a wrap-up of the telethon and Hollywood’s rescue effort to help the people of Haiti. The newsmagazine also featured Barbara Walters’ interview with breakout star Lady Gaga, an eye-opening report by Brian Ross on sexual harassment involving teenagers in the workplace and a report from Deborah Roberts on

Scoreboard Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 1.3/4 1.3/4 0.9/3 0.6/2 0.3/1 Total Viewers (million) 5.22 4.65 4.20 1.75 .85 All the broadcast networks we track aired the Hope for Haiti Now telethon last night between 8pm-10pm. At 10pm, ABC’s 20/20 won vs Dateline NBC and a repeat of Medium on CBS. On the five major English language broadcast networks that telecast the telethon it averaged just over 16 million viewers and a 4.3 rating with adults 18-49 between 8pm-10pm. Hope for Haiti Now aired on a lot of cable networks (I’ve seen reports of over 50 networks between broadcast and cable, not to mention the digital distribution) and the ratings below are just for ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and The CW. I imagine that Nielsen will issue consolidated ratings information for the benefit, but if it does it might not happen before Monday. Those wondering how the Caprica premiere did we won’t see any cable results before Monday

THIS TOPIC MARKS THE SHOW CONAN HAS BEEN ENDED PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS HERE

Conan’s last turn as host of The Tonight Show garnered a 4.8 rating with adults 18-49 in the 25 local markets with Nielsen people meters. If those numbers hold up, not only is it a series high with adults 18-49 it’s 85% higher than the previous series high set Thursday night (2.6 rating), it’s over 40 percent better than the 3.4 rating with adults 18-49 Jay Leno got in his not-so-final Tonight Show after all on May 29. Leno’s not-so-final episode also scored nearly 12 million viewers. Viewer numbers for last night’s episode won’t be available until late next week. Not only was it better than all the late night and primetime competition on Friday — not really a huge feat with most networks broadcasting the Hope for Haiti Now benefit between 8p-10p, it was also a better 18-49 rating than any show got on Thursday night. Update : the previous series high, at least in final numbers (again the numbers above are preliminary) was a 3.8 rating with adults 18-49 for Conan’s Tonight Sho

If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me… The show ends with Conan and guests singing “Free Bird.” Here are the opening and closing monologues: Ladies and Gentleman, we have exactly one hour to steal every single item in this studio. We’ve a had a lot of fun being here these last 7 months, but like everything in life, the fun has to come to an end a decade too early. The terms of my settlement say that I can’t host another show for 7 months. So next week look forward to the “Andy Richter show” with his sidekick, me! As I set off for exciting new career opportunities, I just want to make one thing clear to everyone listening out there: I will do nudity. Now that this mess is almost behind me – I just have one last request: HBO, when you make the movie about this whole NBC late night fiasco, I’d like to be played by Academy-Award winning actress Tilda Swinton. People have been asking me what’s going to happen to our studio after we’re gone. There are actually a few p

It kind of felt like watching a wake. Here’s the full episode. Sorry to our friends outside of the USA if it doesn’t work for you, but you can read the transcript of his monologue and closing speech.

If you are a blogger then you must have some knowledge and information about blog posting and its importance. The blog posts should be interesting enough so that your audience and visitors remain attracted towards your blog for a long period of time. However, it is a secondary issue that for what reason you are blogging, may be for earning money or just for fun; but the prime importance always should be attracting more and more visitors towards your blog. Following are the few things that you must know in order to make the blog post interesting and effective for your visitors. 1- The blog post should not be lengthy because the reader doesn’t have time to read the whole lengthy blog post but to the point and brief post will make him/her satisfy and get the knowledge or information whatever he/she wants from the posted content. So make sure that the blog post should always be brief and to the point. 2- Preparing the content or post ahead of time will surely make your work much easier and

Sonu Nigam recently recorded two songs free for Krishan Chaudhery & Sunil Thadani's upcoming film Joker . The film, to be directed by debutant Vikram Tuli, deals with a father-son relationship. When Sonu heard the script of the film he got very emotional and returned the cheque due for his song recordings. The recording took place at Spectral Harmony Studio in Andheri on January 17, 2010 and the two songs he recorded were ' Shukriya ' and ' Loorie '. Joker will see Rajeev Khandelwal and Prachi Desai in lead roles. The film goes on floor in February and it will be Bollywood's first film to be shot start to finish in New Zealand.

Till yesterday, she was the queen bee of the Box-Office. A few unfortunate Fridays and she was almost out of the rat race. Not just that, she also got slotted as an 'exclusive' YRF heroine. No prizes for guessing that we are referring to the one and original Rani Mukherjee, who now seems all set to be back with a bang. Even though her last few of releases didn't quite work at the BO, Rani seems ready for a comeback and has signed up for an important role in UTV Spotboy's No One Killed Jessica , which also stars Vidya Balan, and is directed by Rajkumar ' Aamir ' Gupta. The film, which has its music composed by the Amit Trivedi, is expected to go on the floors in February. Talking about the film, Vikas Bahl, Chief Creative Officer, UTV Motion Pictures said, "It's our pleasure to announce that Rani along with Vidya has also agreed to be a part of a story we really want to tell. When you have actors like Rani and Vidya by your side, the joy of creating cha

She came, she saw and she conquered... only to realize that she wasn't what she was...but she was what she wasn't! Well, this is what everyone who saw the Brazilian supermodel Giselle Monteiro in the smash hit Love Aaj Kal felt. For starters, Giselle Monteiro is the same PYT who played the role of the typical Punjabi kudi Harleen Kaur in the film so well and so convincing that it came as a bolt from the blue when everyone 'discovered' that leaves alone the fact that she wasn't a Punjabi, she was not even an Indian! Well, it is the same Giselle Monteiro who has now been signed up as the brand ambassador of the newly launched Movil Mobiles. According to Bollywood Hungama 's confirmed sources, the said company signed up with Giselle because they felt that she fitted the brand to a 'T', and that they were happy with the fact that she has a very universal face appeal! Seems like Giselle is going to have long innings in Bollywood as well as in the ad world.

The American press has gone ga-ga over Anil Kapoor. The Los Angeles Times writes, "The most promising (actor) this season is Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor), president of the Islamic Republic of Kamistan, who is negotiating a peace treaty with U.S. President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones). He's regal and decent." Says the Entertainment Weekly, "The dapper Hassan, played by the wonderful Anil Kapoor, who really should go by the name of Fantastic Sam because of his incredible head of hair..." And the Hollywood Reporter just can't get enough of our Kapoor. "The best addition (to this season's episodes) is Anil Kapoor, best known stateside for his role as the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" host in Slumdog Millionaire ." He plays an idealized version a Middle East leader with an Elvis-style pompadour on the verge of signing a historic peace agreement. It's a painfully standard 24 part, yet he owns each scene he's in." Anil Kapoor

Was Ayesha Takia spotted in a burqa after marriage? Have her in-laws clamped down on her freedom to act in films? These are the rumours that one hears in the film industry. Ayesha Takia is more amused than exasperated by the attempts being made to put her into the retired-actress' bracket after marriage. The word being spread is that Ayesha has married into an overly conservative family where acting is perhaps not permitted. "I'm amazed at the games people play. The other day someone asked me if I've started wearing a burqa after marriage," laughs Ayesha. "Far from feeling clamped I now have the freedom to do a lot more things than before. My parents-in-law are cool about my business ventures with my husband and my film career." "And that's so ridiculous," says Ayesha with a laugh. "Farhan and I went around together for five years before marriage. So there goes the conservative card. Suddenly after we make it official, I hear all kind

This pair was just waiting in the wings to happen, as he is the Gen-Next Superstar whereas she is the Gen-Next Cinderella. We are indeed talking about the fresh pairing of Ranbir Kapoor and Genelia D'Souza. While everyone has been waiting with bated breath for some filmmaker to cast the two, they have been signed up by a huge brand for endorsement! As per our sources, Telecom major Virgin Mobile has lapped up this pair as their brand ambassadors to promote their GSM services. Apparently, the pair has been signed up for an astronomical sum of money. Our source also added that the responsibility of making the TVCs for the same have been assigned to one of the topnotch names in the industry. We are sure that everyone out there is waiting with bated breath to see the chemistry between this ' Saawariyaa ' and Jaane Tu 's Aditi, even if it is for an ad!

Abhishek Bachchan's game show Bingo goes on air tonight (Saturday), but the channel Colors was in a panic till few hours back. They were running around trying to put together the proposed inaugural episode featuring the host with his 'Pa' - Amitabh Bachchan. According to channel sources it was touch-and-go, what with the senior Bachchan being busy with the promotion of his new film and the junior Bachchan trying to juggle dates for his movies with his television recordings. Abhishek admits it has been a hectic time for both his father and him. In fact the channel had another episode ready as the inaugural episode in case the episode with the two Bachchans did not work out finally. Says Rajesh Kamat CEO Colors, "We've a bank of episodes ready. But we really wanted the two Bachchans to be together to kick-start Abhishek's show. However, coordinating their dates was a big problem. Both of them are exceptionally busy. We finally got them to come together just a