Muvie Geek

Trailers of Om Shanti Om - Bhool Bhulaiya - No Smoking

2007-09-01T13:57:00.000+05:30

Chak De India- First Look

2007-07-05T10:58:00.000+05:30

Hey there guys... like always, I've been "underground" and totally out of sight... been very busy like usual. Theatre and my job barely spare me any time for blogging. I guess my next post will be a review of "Awarapan"... one movie I'm dying to watch as I'm really curious to find out what it has in store... Rox3n's music as it is has already rocked it... Anyways here's Chak De India's theatrical trailer... Njoi!

Black Friday Review: An Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind- 9/10

2007-04-21T19:52:00.000+05:30

I Finally saw Black Friday on DVD today and here I am, reviewing it. In the past few weeks, I've really seen some quality cinema and it wouldn't be wrong to say that Black Friday sort of falls in that category. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Black Friday is one of the best films you'll ever see... it may be far from that but that does not take away from Black Friday what it is, a masterpiece in its own right.

I don't want to give anything away about the movie but there's not much to give away about it anyways. Black Friday is based on a book by the same name written by journalist Hussain Zaidi after having done immense research on the Mumbai Bomblasts that took place in 1993. The movie unfolds gradually with every chapter... laid out almost exactly the way the book has been written. Black Friday almost captures the real incident the way it took place featuring real footages from news channels which were aired in 1993. It shows reality exactly the way it is- harsh and bitter. What is more astounding about this movie is the way it presents most of the characters involved. Sometimes you might think that there are certain which aren't really required but eventually you realize why they were shown on the first place. It more or less follows the Mumbai police as they interrogate the people responsible for the Mumbai bomb blasts, it then goes on to see things from the police's point of view and then the bomber's point of view.

Black Friday could be divided into four parts about the Mumbai Bomblasts-

What happened
How it happened
What it lead to
Why it happened

Black Friday is rather a documentary than a movie. At times, it really gets annoying and boring as the reality doze gets a little too much and a little too boring to digest. It is really commendable the way 1 film old director Anurag Kashyap (Paanch) has handled a topic as sensitive as this one and instead of making something people would have wanted to see, he has chosen to make something that was real, without the distorted facts which many would have preferred had it been there.

I can clearly see why it took Black Friday so long to get released and get passed by the censor board, its because it shows a side of India not many people want to see... the communal side which not many people want to know about but it does exist. It does justice to all the characters and shows exactly how different things can be if only the point of view is changed. I'm really glad that unlike a movie where Bal Thackeray becomes Bala Thakur, the names out here have been the real names.

Coming to the performances, I can't believe the fact that these people out there were performing. Part of the credit does go to the director Anurag Kashyap to have presented things so realistically that you'd rather believe its real than fake. The performances were so good that not for a single moment did I feel that the people in the film were performing and Kashyap, very clearly kept on putting in real footages to mix reality with fiction dressed as reality and one can't really tell the difference between the two. Kay Kay Menon as the cop and Aditya Shrivastav as Baadshah Khan are two performances to watch out for but when it comes to stealing the show, it is Pawan Malhotra all the way as Tiger Memon, the mastermind behind the whole Mumbai Bomb blasts! Simply marvelous! Why doesn't Bollywood give this guy what he deserves? Better roles! Kay Kay Menon doesn't let down either and Aditya Shrivastav (the guy who plays Abhijeet in the TV Show C.I.D) are so good its not even funny! In fact I'd like to say that ALL the actors have done their parts brilliantly!

The music, of course gives that final finishing touch to the movie and more than Indian Ocean, the group behind the tune and the voice of the song "Bande", I'd like to congratulate the lyrcisit Piyush Mishra whose words are undoubtedly the soul of the song and the movie too.

On a whole, Black Friday is not recommended for people who don't really like slow movies or movies which get a little boring but if you really like documentaries and interesting facts presented exactly the way they are... watch Black Friday, if for nothing else, than atleast for the fact that there are those in the Indian Film Fraternity that have the balls to be different.

An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind
- Mahatma Gandhi

9/10

Shahrukh-Amitabh War... gets even bitter

2007-04-20T19:25:00.000+05:30

It's not easy to pin down Shah Rukh Khan. But because he makes such exciting copy, you want to go that extra step. He's on my mind as I head to Film City.

He's also on the mind of the cab driver in front of my car, judging by the huge sticker on his cab's rear windshield that screams the actor's name in bold letters.

At the end of the marathon interview that begins in SRK's van (on the sets on Om Shanti Om) and concludes at his mansion in Bandra (close to dinnertime), I discover varied facets to the 'Demented Pathan', as he likes to call himself.

He's as normal as the friendly guy next door, but the only difference is that SRK looks 15 years younger than his actual age. He's also a proud and protective papa, ready to spring like a lion if you offend his babies.

I watch him as he instructs his driver to halt the white and black BMW at the corner of the road to pick up a helmet for his son.

I watch him as he plays with his dogs when he reaches home, looking lost because Gauri and the kids are out for the evening.

And then I see him as the undisputable people's superstar when he steps out on the bungalow's terrace to wave out to numerous fans standing outside.
The best part about SRK is that he has no boundaries.

'Ask me anything, and I will answer', is his motto. In the end, as I drive back home, I realise that when he is charming you for three hours ' be it on the big screen or in person ' he is at his very best right till the last byte.

KBC is rocking and you look pleased. You were asked to host the show earlier too, so what made you say yes this time?

I didn't refuse KBC the first time around; Star just asked me if I'd be interested in doing it. At that point, they were not sure if they wanted to continue with KBC or do another programme. KBC was just one of the shows we discussed.

So you were always open to television?

Only if time permitted. That year, I was very busy. We had discussions for ten days about different shows, and zeroed in on one other show we'd do in case I could not do KBC, which I would do only if Mr Bachchan was not.

At that point, I was also talking to Zee for a show with them. Zee offered me more money, but even they couldn't come up with a suitable format.

Would you be open to reality shows, which are all the rage these days?

Never. I am much too shy for that. I am very guarded about my personal life, even though that may not come across. I would never be able to do a show like Bigg Boss.

I am uncomfortable around too many people. I am a little anti-social sometimes. I am also very particular about where I sleep, and who I sleep with! My bathroom should also be in a certain way. I am peculiar like that.

You spend a lot of time in the bathroom, don't you?

That the family joke! I like to spend a lot of time in the bathroom because I don't like taking calls when I am at home. I hardly even answer anybody's phone, be it on the landline or the mobile, unless it is imperative. That's been a rule for years now.

It would be unfair to my family if I spent time at home talking on the phone. As you know, I can keep talking since I have a lot of people to talk to! Now, I've made a sort of office in my house that I walk across to when I have to and feel, 'okay, I am not in the house'.

You've said before that your mother passed away because she worked too hard. Does that ever play on your workaholic mind?

My mother passed away because she was working against the world. I am working with the world. I work hard, but the results pay me ten times more than I deserve.

She didn't get even one-tenth of that for everything she did, that's why she passed away. She got tired. I don't get tired because my films do well, I get paid well and work is great.

I've got every kind of recognition that God could perhaps give me. It's never been at the expense of something else. It's a dream run. The world has been kind to me, so I won't die of over work.

How would you rate yourself as a host?

It's not up to me to rate myself. The only change I see is that I get to interact with a lot of people that I otherwise wouldn't get to meet. It has made me realise that magnanimity is not enough.

At the stage in which I am right now, I can be doing a lot more. And not by just giving away watches. These are material things and I do it so that certain contestants don't get disappointed. Like with my kids ' when we are playing and they lose, I still give them toffees.

The prize is the same. The whole idea is that if you guys do this, I'll take you to Baskin Robbins. And if you lose, I'll still take you to have ice cream.

Some contestants would rather have your watches than the prize money.

I gave away two watches even after we finished shooting that particular episode.

I felt that those people deserved it. One was a 20-year-old boy. I took him out and told him to choose a watch from my collection. I do this often with youngsters. I feel their loss.

I feel touched sometimes when someone loses. And no, it's not a publicity plug for the watch company (Tag Heuer). These are my personal watches so I give away whatever I am wearing at that time. I don't like to give away my watch when people ask for it, though. If I feel like giving it to you, I will. To be very honest, sometimes I don't feel the contestant's loss at all. I am not being mean, but I cannot play the game as if it's charity. It's a game at the end of the day.

Amitabh Bachchan says you are fine as a host.

It doesn't matter. People keep harping about my performance, but I think I am just fine. Like you asked me earlier how I would rate myself as a host, I'd say I'm fine.

I'll tell you very selfishly that people's opinions don't matter. I'm not being pompous, I am saying this with a lot of humility. As much as I may seem a public figure, I am very clear: only people who matter, matter.

With Bachchan, can you honestly say that there's nothing wrong between the two of you? You can't sense something amiss?

If sensing is through what is written in print, then you can declare this a war. But I don't believe everything I read because I know that when I say certain things, they will sound different when written about.

You can write 'Amitabh's opinion does not matter' and it will come off sounding rude, even though I don't mean it that way.

Are you averse to criticism?

I'm not. But I realise when things are not good and make changes. I don't like myself on screen or anywhere else. I see a million more things that are wrong with me than what other people see. So even before anyone tells me, I know.

I get embarrassed when someone tells me good things; the bad things I already know. I am very, very confident about the work I am doing, but I am not confident about the result.

I may look like someone who doesn't take criticism well, someone who doesn't listen to anyone's opinions, but if someone mentions something... like my make-up man Subhash says, 'Dada, aap massage mat do' (referring to the massage he has given certain KBC contestants).

There is an Indian mentality where if you are a big star, how can you give a massage? So I do pay attention to what people say, but I'm already aware of most of the negative opinions I'm going to get. I'm like, 'Tell me something I don't know.'

Amitabh has said that Guru made more money than Don and KANK.

I know Don has made a lot of money. I honestly don't know how much money Guru made. I would not know about Guru's collections.

Do Amitabh's comments bother you?

No. I haven't read what he said, I saw it on TV. I am not the producer of either KANK or Don. I don''t know what any film's collections are. I've never followed collections.

If it's a hit film, it's a hit film. I'm not bothered with paanch kiska jyaada tha, das kiska jyaada tha. I can't compare my films to others. And if Mr Bachchan says that and if that is an achievement, that is also a good thing.

But why compare only your films to Guru?

I take these things as 'my films as an actor'. But it's possible that Mr Bachchan is referring to a Karan Johar film or a Farhan Akhtar film compared to a Mani Ratnam film.

If that's not the case and if he's just referring to me, then I'll think of myself as a standard for stardom. A lot of people say I am the Badshah of Bollywood, so it's okay if someone else's film has done better than my film.

That makes Krissh and Munnabhai better than my films. And Guru too, which is okay (laughs). I mean I'll try and do better than them next time!

So you don't get caught in the 'mine is bigger' game?

I've been told that Krissh and Munnabhai were the biggest hits in terms of money. So be it. I think Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and Don also did good business, though they were not the biggest hits.

Karan wanted to put an ad for KANK, but I said no. I told him to put the

zeroes and say that the figures are still being counted. It's smarter. I don't like quoting figures.

It's like you asking me about my salary. I won't tell you that, so how can I tell you the salary of my film? That's stupid.

Your character in KANK was not appreciated.

I knew that it would not be appreciated. I told Karan this right in the beginning, but he didn't think the reactions would be as strong as they turned out to be. It was as strong as I'd expected it to be. But I work with directors I like.

I don't do films because I really like the script and stuff like that. So if you make a choice like, that you've got to have full faith in whatever the director chooses to make. I have full faith in Karan.

You didn't win any awards this year.

That doesn't bother me. But I personally felt I did very well in KANK. I liked what I did in it. I've got five extra awards in my career. I think people confuse great roles for great acting, so I've gotten some awards for great characters.

In KANK, I think the role lost out to the character, which is okay. But I felt KANK was very good. No disappointments there.

Were you prepared for comparisons with the original Don?

I speak for Farhan (Akhtar) and everyone when I say that we loved their Don more than our Don, which is why we made it. We like our version and what we did with it, but Farhan and I love the old Don more. We've grown up on it.

You said somewhere that you started believing you are a superstar only five years ago. Why so?

It was purely from a commercial point of view. I suddenly realised that films with very high stakes were being made with me.

A lot of money started riding on me. Most of my films sell well, most of them do well. When you sit with the distributors, you start finding out cold, hard facts. They are very mean about actors.

If you tell them that you want to cast a particular actor, they will tell you, 'Chhod na yaar, woh nahin chalta hai.' If you tell them that he is a very good actor, they will tell you, 'Solo nahin bikega, sir' They are the buyers.

Whoever they feel is the safest bet is a star. So five years ago, business-wise, I started understanding these things from distributors, producers and my production house.

There is a certain safety that I offer distributors universally, even though people say that I am just an overseas star.

How do you cope with competition?

In these 17-18 years that I have been in the industry, not once have I had a negative thought about anyone. I am not wishing your film well, but I am not wishing it does badly either.

I wish your film to be the greatest, and mine a little better. So I think of it very positively. Just the other day someone asked me, 'How come you look so young?' I genuinely believe it's because I never think negatively.

People think I have a clique, that we sit down together and bitch about people. It is never done to bring someone down. I would never do that. I've never had an iota of ill will towards anyone, which is why people come on KBC when I call them. I do a film shoot and they all come.

I have a huge amount of goodwill because I have never taken advantage of people. Strangely, I don't watch anybody else's films. I get confused when it's not good and it does well. I get confused if it doesn't do well and is good. I only end up seeing my films once at the trial. Then I don't even see my films.

Your dig at Amar Singh at an recent award function created quite a furore.

It's silly. I have been hosting that show for many years with Saif (Ali Khan), and we've always made fun of people, including Hrithik (Roshan), Sanjay Dutt, Yash Chopra, Aamir Khan, Binod Pradhan and even myself. I am very clear about this: there is genuinely no malice in what I say.

I mostly pick on my friends, who understand my sense of humour. My whole idea of that awards function was to go indoors and do it like the Oscars, so let's have fun. I am no Billy Crystal or Ellen DeGeneres or whatever.

But I have a sense of humour, and if we can all laugh at each other, then why not? Yes, it is important to laugh privately, that's why I didn't enjoy it as much in the open. We are making fun of each other in front of a lot of other people, not just the fraternity.

Amar Singh took offence.

Within the fraternity, we don't take these things personally. and I would imagine that anyone who is at an awards function is from the fraternity.

If you come to an awards function, you become part of the fraternity. And if by virtue of that fact I see you at every awards function, you'd better be ready to take a joke.

Amar Singh's supporters protested outside your house after your comment.

I had to cancel my shoot and rush home four hours early because my six-and-half-year old daughter (Suhana) was crying. People were screaming and shouting outside my house.

My eight-year-old son (Aryan) wasn't crying, but he was made to stay in the house just in case someone decided to throw something or scream abuses. That scares me to the extent of not having any fear at all.

If you scare me by saying that you will harm me, I will be scared, because if I die, who will look after my kids? But if you threaten my children, I will not be in self preservation mode.

I can give my life for my kids. Come on, there are only women in my house. My wife wasn't there, my sister is not well and my little daughter was crying. I don't like it! I am a Pathan and I am very, very, very, very protective about my family.

Did you think of calling Amar Singh?

No. I wouldn't. My wife will be very scared when she reads what I am about to say, but if I'd been there' if I'd reached before the cops cleared the protestors' I would have made them all cry for making my daughter cry. And that's the promise of a Pathan.

I would not have spared them. You don't make my children cry. If you have a problem, talk to me. I know where that crowd came from, but now I am being told that Amar Singh did not send them.

Twenty fans of his came from all over India to protest. It's okay. Maybe he didn't send them. I'd like to give him the benefit of doubt because I never lie, so I assume that no one else would either. But don't you scare my harmless kids.

Would you think twice before cracking a joke again?

Like I said, I joke with my friends. If I don't joke with you, you are not my friend. So the next time, I will see. I've been very disturbed after this incident. My daughter crying is not a joking matter.

I take it very seriously. How seriously I take it depends on when I come face-to-face with the people responsible. I wish they'd been there when I arrived, but the cops took them away as soon television channels got there.

What I said was a joke. If you can't take a joke, don't come for these events. They're meant for the fraternity. You make a big issue and ask my wife to apologise? Balls. My wife will not apologise to anyone.

Amar Singh has said he will humiliate you in public too.

Let me just say that it is not in my nature to humiliate anyone. I have never done that. I am too educated, too apolitical and too courteous. You know, in all comic acts, the guys sitting in the front row get picked on.

Come on, it's a joke and one should not try to make it more serious. There are a lot more serious issues that the association of 20 people who came to my house can look into rather than scare my daughter.

I take that very personally. And I am not even the kind of guy who expects an apology for this. It depends how I feel the next time. Just remember, I am a demented Pathan.

How will you react when you come face-to-face with Amar Singh now?

I don't know. I don't think in advance. I will not joke with him, that's for sure. Amar Singh said somewhere that 'Shah Rukh makes jokes publicly and apologises privately.'

I have privately apologised to no one. I would apologise publicly if I felt I had done something wrong. The only thing I do privately is meet friends. I find that whole drama outside my house a little over-the-top, and there are a lot of stories about why it happened.

It could be because elections were on, the publicity factor, whatever,so they did it as my cost. It's okay. I am a public figure. People use me for everything. You can use me too. But don't bring people to my house knowing fully well that my kids are alone. I don't like that. I have not said anything to your kids, neither will I do that. I would only wish children well. It's in my nature to wish children well.

You have no actor friends. Is that deliberate?

If it wasn't for my wife, I don't think I would have any friends at all. I am little bit of a recluse. I don't spend too much time with people. I like being at home. Now, all my director friends ' Farah (Khan), Karan (Johar) and Farhan (Akhtar) ' are acting, so you cannot say that I don't have actor friends.

Coming to your problems with the Chopras'

It's very strange ' this whole thing about my problems with the Chopras. We are friends. It's embarrassing to explain.

At one time, they only worked with you. Not anymore.

That is because they are doing six films, and I can't and won't do all six of them. I've worked with several directors and the Chopras have never questioned me about it. You know, when they put up their studio, Adi came to me and said, 'I need to get the money we borrowed for the studio.

There are films that I'm starting and I don't know if they'll do well. I am just taking a shot. I know one film that will pull me through is Veer-Zaara, so I need your dates now.' I was like, 'We'll shoot whenever you want.'

I was shooting Swades then, and I shot for Veer-Zaara in between. That's the kind of relationship we have. Fortunately, Hum Tum, Veer-Zaara and Dhoom happened in the same year and all did very well.

Isn't Chak De India the project that brought you back together?

Adi wanted to make Chak De. I told him, 'I don't have time; you know my dates.' He went to other actors, but that didn't work out for whatever reasons. One night, he came over to my place at 2 am.

He said, 'Ab kab karega tu? Tu bas haan kar de.' He asked me to SMS his director and my writers, so that they'd get charged and then work on choosing the leading ladies. So I said yes and I sent the SMSes.

Then I told him, 'Don't talk to me about Chak De till August.' On August 25, Adi called me and asked, 'Can I trouble you with Chak De?' Our relationship is like that. We've never discussed business.

I don't have to tell Adi that he's made a good film, neither does Adi have to tell me that my performance in so-and-so film was good.

Today, when I do budgeting and other things for my production house (Red Chillies Entertainment) my understanding comes from Adi. He knows the business and also guides me. He yells at me, 'Mat kar yeh picture.' He's a very close friend.

Any Chopra films you wanted to do?

There are certain films for which I call Adi and say, 'Main karta hoon, yaar.' Like Bunty Aur Babli; I liked the title. I've also known Shaad (Ali) for many years, so I wanted to do it. Adi said, 'No, it's not of your stature.

You need to do films of your stature. It has to be new people.' I think he meant it had to have a younger actor. I call the Chopras for roles and they tell me to go to hell. Like Dhoom:2.

I wanted to do the villain's role, which Duggu (Hrithik) did. I said I'd do it if it was 20-25 days before starting KANK. Adi said, 'No. It has get-ups and all and you'll lose patience.'

They also know that I like to work in a certain atmosphere. They know I'll get irritable with make-up and get-ups and all that jazz.

Unlike other actors, you've not signed any multi-crore deals.

You can't woo me with money. I do films because I want to do them. I've done 50 films till now and I've never done them for money. Except for one or two, when I wanted to buy a house. so I signed Baazigar and Guddu.

I will never be able to sign deals for 'x' amount of crores. I'd rather dance at a wedding and make that money.

Will you work till you are 60?

I would not like to work till I am 60, though my son tells me that I have to. I tell him that I will work till he becomes 18-years-old, and that I don't want to work beyond that, but he has other ideas. For me, the logic is quite simple: I'll work as long as I get work.

Do you see anyone worthy of your crown?

I'm a little confused. Am I really the guy who wears the crown? Every other day, I am told there are other people who are now wearing that crown, so I don't know.

As for who I would choose to replace me ' whoever is honest, hardworking and has a sense of humour. A sense of humour is very important. If they don't have a sense of humour, they won't be where I am.

Source: MidDay
Online Source: IndiaFM.com

The Train- First Look + Music Download

2007-04-20T18:26:00.000+05:30

Amazing Amazing Amazing! Mithoon Sharma seems to be really hitting the right notes. For someone who started off his career by mixing Aatif's track Woh Lamhe in the movie Zeher, he continued to compose the music for albums like Bas Ek Pal and Anwar. Now here comes another, The Train starring Emraan Hashmi, Geeta Basra and newcome Sayal Bhagat. Emraan Hashmi is really a lucky man when it comes to kissing hot Bollywood babes but he's even luckier with the tracks that are picturizes on him. His track record has been marvellous! Right from Murder, his movies Zeher, Aashiq Banaya Aapne, Kalyug, Chocolate, Jawaani Diwani, Aksar, Gangster, Dil Diya Hai and now The Train, all these movies have had excellent music. Here's a video clip from the song "Woh Ajnabee":

And here's a clip from the track "Mausam / Zindagi Ne Zindagi"

When I heard "Mausam" from The Train, I was amazed and I said- Whoa! Mithoon & Aatif have done it again! How wrong was I? It turned out that it was Mithoon all the way! The composer who has turned singer in his third album sounds so much like Aatif that its not even funny! I was shocked to see how beautifully this composer has sung his renditions. I'd give an 8/10 for this album! Anyways, for those who are wondering where you could find this album. Its avalaible in all leading music stores but for those who just wanna hear it before getting it, I'm posting a link to download all the tracks from The Train in RM Format. You'll be needing either Real Alternative or Real Media Player to play them.

Beete Lamhein K.K. , Kshitij Tarey

Beete Lamhein (Lounge Mix by Goldeyy) K.K.

Mausam Mithoon , Kshitij Tarey

Mausam (Club Mix by Akbar Sami) Mithoon , Kshitij Tarey

Mausam (Progressive Mix by Goldeyy) Mithoon , Kshitij Tarey

Teri Tamanna K.K. , Zubeen , Shilpa Rao

Teri Tamanna (Club Mix by Akbar Sami) K.K. , Zubeen , Shilpa Rao

Teri Tamanna (Euro Mix by Goldeyy) K.K. , Zubeen , Shilpa Rao

The Train (An Inspiration) Shaan , Kshitij Tarey

Woh Ajnabee Mithoon , Shilpa Rao

Woh Ajnabee (Club Mix by Akbar Sami) Mithoon , Shilpa Rao

If links don't work, please download it from the main site itself. Here's the link for that: http://www.bollyexpress.com/album/1218/The-Train.html

Is Salman Khan the son of a Hindu mother or a Muslim Father?

2007-04-19T22:02:00.000+05:30

Now here's a very old but a rather very interesting article on Mr. Salim Khan, famous script writer and the father of Salman, Arbaaz & Sohail Khan.

Understandably, the same sort of reaction came from Salman at beginning. But Salman never resented me. It's all conjecture. People assume baab bete ki banti nahin. He doesn't smoke in front of me out of love and respect, not fear. He meets me before he leaves for shooting, comes over in the evenings. I never go to his place. I've given him that much freedom. I don't sit there advising hero."

"I firmly believe that if you want to learn to swim you must go into the water, you can't learn it in your drawing room. For instance, when this Subhash Ghai thing happened (a drunken fracas between Ghai and Salman), I only asked my son, are you happy miserable about it. I asked him, secondly, do you think you could've handled it better? He said, "Yes, daddy, I could have. It wasn't my house where the party was happening. I shouldn't have asked him to get out, I could've withdrawn, I didn't." Lastly, I asked him, do you want the press to go on a picnic with this? He said, that's the last thing I want. So I picked up the phone and told Subhash Ghai, I can't say who was in the wrong, I wasn't there. But I'm sure you'd both like to forget it. I said, bachcha hai, galti ho gayi. He was very gracious and he said, I'm also feeling very bad about it, woh mera bhi bachcha hai. I called him over for dinner and said, let's wash it all away with whisky. We sat togethertil 5 in the morning, dringing and talking. Within 12 hours we'd solved the problem!"

The peaceful coexistence of two wives in his life (separate homes thhough) and Salman's complete, public acceptance of a second mother in the family may make debatable conversation. But undeniably, there's envy too. Salim has been very lucky to have pulled off such a compatible scene.

"God has been very kind to me," he agrees."From time immemorial, man has always wanted to amass or conquer land, jewellery, wealth. According to me, the most interesting being, more than land or any wealth, is a woman. But the problem with women is that if you hold onto one, the other leaves you. In my case, I have been fortunate enough to hold onto both women. Wherever I go, I'm asked, what is your recipe for this good fortune? I say, nothing but sincerity. A writer who wrote a whole book on how to win people and influence them, wrote pages and pages on do this , do what. It's a bible on human relationships. But at the end of it all he said, none of this will work if you don't have sincerity. That is the key word."

It's not just the way the two women have got together. The complete acceptance by Salman and the other kids (of Helen) never fails to amaze.

"As kids they had their hostility, "Salim comfesses,"But they reacted the way their mother did. As I told you very honestly, it wasn't as if Salma accepted the relationship happily straightaway and thanked me for it or said, you deserve an Oscar for it. So at that time there was hostility from the children. But they've all realised that Helen is a wonderful person, the children have realised that she's as good as their mother, They feel, daddy likes her, our mother likes her, we also like her, she's family. Now Salman will give his life for Helen.
On Mother's Day, or any time he buys anything for Salma, Salman will always buy two of the same thing, always one for Helen too. It's not just Salman. But then Salman is a star, he can afford to buy such presents. Sohail has just started working, Arbaaz is still struggling to make it. But it's the gesture that's most important and in thier own way, all of them show the same affection for Helen. Daughters are so possessive of their fathers. But both my doughters love Helen as much as they love Salma."

"On my part, I altermate betweeen Helen and Salma. It was that way when we started our relationship too. It was on the quiet earlier but out in the open since 1976. Last night I was home with Salma. Today, immediately after this interview, I'll be going straight to Helen, having dinner with her and staying over with her until tomorrow morning. We follow this pattern except on the odd day when the children have called somebody over. But then they call Helen too and there's no problem."

It's not a judgemental right or wrong about this situation that's importaant. It's the fascination of how he's done it that surfaces. And it is a recorded truth that the Salim Khan family is thick as thieves. So thick that even Salman's changing scenario of women is always supported by his forks. From Sangeeta and Somy Ali to Aishwarya Rai, how come the girls feel so welcome?

"That's a good question," he answeeres,"I learnt that from Mr.Rajendra kumar. When his son, Bunty fell in love with his first girlfriend (we'll leave her unnamed since all of them have happily settled down in thier lives), Rajendra Kumar had objected and said, she should never step into our compound. So what happened? He lost his son because Bunty moved out and went to stay with his girl!.
Similarly, if I object to any girlfriend of his, Salman will simply leave and go to her house. What do I achieve in the bargain? He's not going to leave the girl. So the sensible approach is to just let him be and let him realise whether a relationship is growing apart or they're growing together. You must have realised that everytime there was a breakup, the girl would go out and talk about it. But have you ever herad Slaman talking against or talking about any of his girlfriends?"
But he doesn't to the press talk anyway!

"Even if he did, he would never utter a word about any of his girls. That's his training, his culture, to keep the sanctity of a relationship."

Yes, all of you were at Sangeeta's wedding to Azhar.

"We have nothing against Sangeeta,"Salim asserts."She did the right thing. If she and Salman had got married, they'd have been unhappy because they were growing apart. They didn't have major differences but Salman and she could never take that crucial step towards a commitment, they always stopped short of making a commitment to each other. She was right in marrying someone who could give her security, make a commitment to her, marry her at such a wonderfully attended function."
"You can't force a commitment", he remarks.
Salim's theories on love have a screenplay of their own.

"Who am I to dictate who my sons should fall in love with?"He answers,"Is there any bio-data that should he scrutinised before you fall in love? You hear a voice within you and you heed that. I too have been attracted to hundreds of women, I married two of them. Because I felt they were commitments I could fulfil for the rest of my life.
If all his sons have settled for marital bliss but the eldest, Salman hasn't, is there a reason for his restlessness? His dad's not perturbed as he observes,
"You have to be very sure before you get into a permanent relationship. If you're not sure you have no right ot enter into commitment hesitatingly. I met Salma in 1958 but I married her in 1964. WHen I met her father, a renowned doctor, he said, 'We have no objections, you're fine boy, you give us all the respect and God willing, one day you will make it in life.' But Salma was a Maharashtrian, a Hindu. There was the question of religious differences. I told him, 'Doctorsaab, I'll have 17, 042 defferences with her but there will never be fight over religion.' I was wrong. I had 18, 740 differences with Salma but still religion was never one of them!
The absence of communal feelings is not just for public exhibition, it genuinely exists in our house, "he underlines,"Everybody has been welcomed. Arbaaz married Malaika, a Catholic. Helen is a practising Catholic, Salma, from a conservative Hindu family. Sohail's wife Seema, a Hindu. Can you get a better example of nathional integration than this, can you find so many cultures under one roof? I'm not showing off, it really has happened in our family."
But Salma converted herself! She had to change from Sushila to Salma!
There's a lot of revelation from Salim on this.

"That change in her name was only a technical formality required for hte nikkah. She's still got a mandir for herself inside out house. She goes to her family poojas. What you have in herited at birth from your mother, how can that be taken away from you? On our farm too, come along and see, Salma's got her little temple. She sits there, there's a diya lit there all the time. Helen also goes to church on Sunday, she observes all the Ash Wednesdays, Maundy Thursdays. She observes Lent."

It's starange, sadly so. Salim got married in 1964, almost 40 years ago. There were small problems over religion then. But today, people still give a communal angle to Salman's relationship with Aishwarya Rai.
And Salim is only too aware of it.

"Let me tell you, the communal feelings that exist today are much stronger than they were during the Partition," he observes accurately."People lived together in harmony, we never thought of religious differences. We are born Muslims, Islam is our religion. But culturally, how are we different from the Hindus? We have more in common with the Hindus here than we have with the Muslims in Pakistan or with the Konkan Muslims or Muslims in the South. What do we have in common with them? We have more in common with the Hindus here than with those in Pakistan."
Why has the communal angle crept in the Salman-Ash relationship?
"People who talk about this don't even know that Salman's mother is Hindu." argues Salim. "During a riot, if anybody were to beat up Salman Khan, who would they be hitting? The son of Hindu mother or the son of a Muslim father?"
Salim reverts to the topic that obviously rankles-the image his son has got.
"People who write against the family or against Salman remind me of something I read in Rajnish's book. A man on the 10th floor would regularly meet a man who would spit on him and get off on the 8th floor. This happened every day until the intrigued liftman asked the man on the 10th floor, what's the problem sir, you don't say anything when this man spits on you every day? The man on the 10th floor said, what's it to me? I can go home and wash my face. But what is the man on the 8th floor going to do? He's got so much venom in him, hi's the one with the problem, not I !
So the people who're regularly writing what they don't believe in, are the ones with the venom. Can a journalist really believe it when he writes that Salman does black magic? That he fixes matches? That he beats up his girlfriend every day and twice on holidays? I saw that he has a relationship with Aishwarya today. Let them be. Allow it to grow or to fizzle out. Does anybody in the world have the powere over love? If there is love, it will survive. If there isn't, no powere can bring two people together. The only charge the press has not made is that the ISI had a hand in the love between Salman and Ash!"
Black magic may be far fetched. But it is believable that Salman has been drinking too much."Yes, I too have talked to Salman many times about his drinking," Salim admits."Drinking is somehting that you can have control over only after many years. It's the same with anybody who drinks, whether it is Dharmendra or Rajesh Khanna or Raj Kapoor or even Salim Khan. Salman is not an islated case. The kick you get out of drenking, the 'one more, one more' tendency of drinkers, is something that you understand only after many years of drinking. How much to drink, in which company you must drink. A poet had once written, Piyo to kam oiyo, Piyo to dheere dheere piyo, Piyo to khubsoorat company mein piyo.
I'm not one of those who 'll say that snything written about Salman's drinking is a wrong allegation. I admit, sometimes he has done it in the wrong company, he has overstepped limits. It took me time to understand the rules of drinking. Now I don't even answer the phone when I'm drinking."
But Salman is not a child any more.

"Experience is a very big factor. Thjeree is the story of an 80-year-odl blind man. He was once asked how he became blind. And he said, 'When I was 20 years old, my employer left me to look after his bungalow, jewellery, cash and wealth and went off on a holiday. By the time he returned, I'd gambled, womanised and finished it all. Punishment for my crime was either to be put to death or to be blinded. My employer was kind so they didn't kill me, they only blinded me. All these years I was grateful to my employer. I thought he was right and I was wrong. But at 80, I realise he was the one who was wrong. Why did he leave so much temptation to a 20-year-old?'
You have no idea what kind of adulation the stars get. These boys have the best of temptations thrown at them. The best looking women, people falling all over them, women throwing themselves at them. It's very difficult to take it. This happens to sportsmen, it happens to film stars. Besides the temptation, they also start feeling insecure wondering how long all this will last, when it will slip out of thier hands, stars fear age. One day an actress asked me when I was going ot start working again. I said I will, in good time. And she said, oh yes, you don't have to fear the apperanace of wrinkle or a gray haier, we fear this all the tim. A writer matures, a heroine gets old. But Salman has definitely started realising that he has to keep his drinking in check."

That, according to Salim, still doesn't excuse the media (oh yes, we're back to it!) for playing up Salman's drunken banging on Ash's door.
"It's no big deal if he went and banged on her door. This sort of thing happens in every love affair! Everybody should look into his own life before talking about Salman. Haven'T we all done this sort of thing? Breaking a glass out of anger, that feeling of possessiveness, trying to hold on to a woman?"
The answer to the Salman enigma is, according to his dad, "That Salman is a natural person, he is not cultivated. He wants to live life naturally, he doesn't want to pretend, he doesn't want to manipulate. Have you ever heard of Salman manipulating anythingin his life and career? Has he ever manipulated that this will be the heroine, this will be the director, juggle his dates, hold back a film's release? No, he completes every film, if it doesn't do well, okay."
"When he comes to the farm he raoms around in his shorts, he doesn't want any attention. He loves his anonymity, he doesn't want adulation all the time."

But as a celebrity, isn't it up to him to observe some decorum?
"You're right. But when a man has 1000 sterling qualities, you can't keep on only about his few flaws. You can't snatch away his bottle as punishment. You can only talk to him nicely and ask him not to drink too much. When he drinks, he doew feel ashamed about it. But you have to allow him to grow, realise his mistakes himself."

Remember the Somy Ali incident when he poured Thums Up over her head?
"Did that happen, I don't know, I wasn't there," Saim bigins, "But let me tell you that I also feel very upset in a relationship where I've trusted and been let down. For instance, if your woman tells you she's not smoking and you see her doing it on the sly, you feel cheated. Loyalty is not just in physical terms. It also means, if you don't do something in front of me, you don't do it behind my back too. If a woman does that it troubles you. But I probably won't pour Thums Up over her head, I won't waste the Thums Up, it's pretty good drink. I'd rather drink it than pouuur it over somebody's head and spoil it!"

A stronger charge today is the feeling that Slaman will soon he arrested.
"What has Salman done?" demands his dad.

"How he murdered anybody? Has he extorted money from anybody? If a telaephonic conversation where you receive a threat (whether it is on you or your father) and you talk nicely to the other party, call him bhai, in a bid to defuse the situation, is a crime, then more than half the industry has committed it! If trying to get rid of a problem, shether it is over doing a particular film or working with somebody or giving dates or overseas rights is a crime, if that is called a nexus, then more than 90 per cent of the successful people in this industry have committed this crime. Koyikhushi se nahin karta hai, nobody likes to be pressurised into doing anything, I saythis ono behalf of ths film industry and not on behalf of Salman alone. WHoever has succumbed to this has only done it because kaun inke saath panga lega?"

"With all the police protection, you're not safe if you take panga with them. They will either terrorise or make a killing but they wil always give you the feeling that they're very near you.
Like actors need one hit per year to survive, the underworld also needs one het per year to keep the fear element alive! One hit-Rajiv Rai, one hit-Gulshan Kumar, one hit-Rakesh Roshan, they need one hit per year to survive!"
Has Salman too gone in for protection now?
"Salman has such a bad reputation now that it looks as if people need Z category security from Salman!" his father wisecracks.

There was no humour, however in the report that Salman had terrorised Ash's folks, that he and she have got married on the quiet.

"That's absolutely baseless. Why should they hide a marriage?"he's incredulous."Has Arbaaz hidden his marriage? Has Sohail hidden his marriage? I ahve had not one but two marriages! You can hide an affair but not a marriage. When you get married you make a commitment, there is sanctity in it. Bar mein jaane ko hide nahin karoge, masjid mein jaane thodi hide karoge aap!"
But that's because Ash's parents are reportedly not in favour.
"Their attitude, their point of view, I won't blame them for it. I'm not being diplomatic. If I were to hear the kind of things one reads and hears about Salman, I too would be wary as a parent. Even if they weren't to believe all the thins said about him, just the fact that he has such a reputation must be difficult to take.
But once you come close to someone and his family youchange your view about them. probably Sohail's father-in-low had the same opinion earlier. But now when he meets us he says he couldn't have got a better family for his daughter!"
When I married Salma, her father didn't see my face for seven years. They didn't even meet Salma or come to see the children when they were born. The first time my father- in-low broke that ice was when he came to see Sohail but he didn't even look in my direction. Gradually, all the animosity disappeared. Much later, I did my bit for him and when he was on his deathbed, my father-in-low who was 92 years old told me, 'Putra, I've led a very simple life. Still, I must have made many mistakes in my life shich I don' regret. But the one thing I can never forgive myself, even Bhagwan mujhe maaf nahin karega, for those seven years when i didn't speak to you!'
So feelings are not in anybody's control. Whether it is Aishwarya Rai's parents or Salman Khan's parents, never try to control or restrict somebody else's feelings. If the feelings exist, no powere on earth can stop it. And if the feelings are not there, no power can get them together. It's all in their kundali, in their horoscope, their kismet. Wwhat has to happen in their lives will happen."

How does Salim like Ash as a daughter-in-law?

"I like whoever my son approves/chooses. The day Salman and Ash, it is not just his choice but her decision too, the day they tell me, daddy, we want to get married, I'll wear my suit and get ready. To this day, they haven't. But it's their choice, It's not like our Hindi films where the parent stands on the staircase and says, khabardaar, yeh saadi nahin ho sakti. Who could stop my marriage? Sohail woke me up at 5 in the morning and said, we want to ge married. And I said, don't give me these shocks at my age!
It's bewaqoofi, childishness to try and stop somebody's marriage. Whether it is Ash's parents, Salman's parents, or anybody else's parents, the contradiction lies in the fact that from the time a child is born, the parents want to teach him to stand on his own feet. he must start walking on his own.
Send him to school so that he can think for himself. Give him the best of college education, give donations to get him in, to make him grow as an individual. The whole process is to make them think independently for themselves. But the contradiction is that when a child starts thinking on his own, the parents say, we don't accept it, we don't like it!
You send your child to Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge. It starts from school in Scottish Orphanage which you may not even be able to afford. The whole process is to make your child independent minded so that she can take life's decisions on her own. But when she does make her life's most important decision, she says I want to marry this person, the parents turn around and say, you're a child, you're mad, you'r an idiot, you don't know anything!"

If there's humour and deep thought moving hand in hand in Salim's answers, it comes up again at the mention of Salman's reportedly large heart.

"He's got the second largest heart in the world." He thumps his chest(you know by now who has the largest!) "Now don't go and write what that magazine did!

But by God's grace, all of us have a large heart. There's always food cooked for20 to25 people. There's always whisky for everybody. When the income-tax people raided us, I told them one thing you wil find in this house wil be 110 bottles of whisky!
This family has lived together, ridden out together the worst of times and we're together in the best of times too. All of us beleive that God has given us the courage to play on all kinds of wickers. We have played together on a turning wicket, on a wet cricket, on a crackd wicket, on a slow wicker. Right or wrong, or even foolish, we as a family can live even without oxygen!
All this probably disturbs the world outside. We're happy when there's money, we're happy even when things are not working out. When my partnership (Salim-Javed) broke, I didn't have work for four years. Imagine, after seeing those heights of success where we as sreters were paid more than any star, to sit at home without work for four years. But we had the same spirit then too. I never went to anybody's house with a script in my hand."

Lately, Salim, whose responsibilities have grown with his children's problems, hasn't got down to any writing of his own '"My responsibilities have become a fulltime job"). But doew he doctor Sohail's work? Did he guide him during the flop Hello Brother?

"They were aware that it wasn't my kind of film at all. When they showed me the film they didn't even ask me my opinion because they knew it wasn't my kind of humour. Sohail has his own sense of humour, each one has his own brand of it. We let Sohail make the film the way he wanted to make it. Even Salman allowed it, he didn't interfere with it. Once Salman agrees to do a film, he might give a suggestion, you're not a dummy, but he doesn't interfere.
When he was shooting the climax of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Salman telephoned me and said, 'Daddy, Sanjay plans to shoot it this way but I think it should be done another way.' I told him, you stop thinking and allow the director to make the film on his conviction. Put your point across but don't interfere. And that's what he did."

That's just what we did too-left Salim Khan's answers largely undisturbed. And Salim didn't let us down-his interview was a resounding Sholay, success in other words.
Thanks Salim, you haven't lost your winning touch!

Article Source: Moviemag International March 2001
Online Source: http://lovelovesalman.tripod.com/lovesal/mmag/engmmag4.html

MGIFA - Muvie Geek Indian Film Awards 2006

2007-04-15T14:48:00.001+05:30

So its finally here! Been in my head for the past two-three months now and I haven't had the opportunity to really post this due to exams and other priorities. So, here it goes. The whole purpose of having "MGIF Awards" is to do justice to the ones I feel have been wronged. The Indian Film Fraternity has always been about big money, big stars, big names, big publicity and no brains. The ones that have dared to be different have always paid the price for "being different". The reason this is called The Muvie Geek Indian Film Awards is because here, I aka The Exinator aka Muvie Geek am the Judge, Jury and the executioner. The Awards are being given out for the year 2006. I know its weird when none of these people are really gonna read this but the point is to get my point across especially because I can afford to do so because I have the medium for fulfilling my purpose. So here it goes, the nominations and the awards. You, the readers, of course have the right to comment on how just or rather unjust, according to you, MGIFA was but of course the whole idea of having this thing is to satisfy my ego lol... and award those who I feel, actually deserve or rather deserved it. So without wasting any more time of either of us, here we go- straight to the point.

A rule I'm sticking with, thanks to Maja is that I will not nominated a person twice in the same category, therefore only his "best attempt" will be considered for nomination.

Most Promising Debut Director

Dibakar banerjee (Khosla Ka Ghosla)
Kabir Khan (Kabul Express)
Naseeruddin Shah (Yun Hota To Kya Hota)
Saket Chaudhary (Pyaar Ke Side Effects)
Homi Adajania (Being Cyrus)

Joint Winners: Homi Adajania - Being Cyrus
Joint Winners: Dibakar Banerjee- Khosla Ka Ghosla

Most Promising Newcomer

Kangana Ranaut (Gangster, Woh Lamhe)
Alice Pattern (Rang De Basanti)
Siddharth (Rang De Basanti)
Geeta Basra (Dil Diya Hai)
Vinod Sheravat (Gafla)
Upen Patel (36 China Town)

Winner: Kangana Ranaut -Gangster, Woh Lamhe

Best Action

Dhoom 2 (Allah Amin)
Don (Sham Kaushal)
Krrish (Tony Ching Siu Tung, Sham Kaushal)
Fightclub (Abbas Ali Mogul, Mahendra Varma, Vikram Dharma)

Winner: Sham Kaushal - Don

Best Choreography

Shiamak Davar, Vaibhavi Merchant- Dhoom 2
Ganesh Acharya - Omkara
Ganesh Hegde- Don
Remo- 36 China Town
Santosh Thundiyil, Piyush Shah - Krrish

Winners: Shiamak Davar, Vaibhavi Merchant- Dhoom 2

Best Art Direction

Aradhana Seth- Don
Sabu Cyril- Jaan-e-mann
Sharmishta Roy- Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
Samir Chanda- Omkara, Rang De Basanti
Navin Kenkre- Being Cyrus

Winner: Navin Kenkre- Being Cyrus

Best Cinematography

Mohanan- Don
Tassaduq Hussain- Omkara
Binod Pradhan- Rang De Basanti
Vikas Sivaraman- Humko Deewana Kar Gaye
Jehangir Chowdhury- Being Cyrus
Anil Mehta- Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

Joint Winners: Anil Mehta- Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
Joint Winners: Mohanan- Don

Best Editing

Akib Ali- Gangster
Rajkumar Hirani- Lage Raho Munnabhai
P. S. Bharathi- Rang De Basanti
Anand Subaya & Jon Harris- Being Cyrus
Hina Saiyada- Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota

Winner: P. S. Bharathi- Rang De Basanti

Best Special Effects

Alag (EFX - Prasad)
Dhoom 2 (Tata Elexi – Pankaj Khanpur)
Don (Red Chillies VFX)
Jaan-E-Mann (Prime Focus Ltd. – Merzin Taveria)
Krrish (Marc Kolbe, Craig Mumma – USA)

Winner: Pankaj Khanpur (Tata Elexi)- Dhoom 2

Best Dialogues

Rajkumar Hirani- Lage Rahe Munnabhai
Vishal Bharadwaj- Omkara
Prasoon Joshi & Renzil D' Silva- Rang De Basanti
Girish Dhamija- Gangster
Kersi Khambata & Homi Adajania- Being Cyrus

Winner: Vishal Bharadwaj- Omkara

Best Screenplay

Anurag Basu- Gangster
Rajkumar Hirani & Abhijit Joshi- Lage Raho Munnabhai
Rensil D Silva & Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra- Rang De Basanti
Kersi Khambata & Homi Adajania- Being Cyrus
Nagesh Kukunoor- Dor
Kabir Khan- Kabul Express
Vishal Bharadwaj- Omkara

Winner: Vishal Bharadwaj- Omkara

Best Story

Mahesh Bhatt- Gangster & Woh Lamhe
Kersi Khambata & Homi Adajania- Being Cyrus
Nagesh Kukunoor- Dor
Jaideep Sahani- Khosla Ka Ghosla
Rensil D Silva & Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra- Rang De Basanti
Rajkumar Hirani & Abhijit Joshi- Lage Raho Munnabhai

Winner: Jaideep Sahani- Khosla Ka Ghosla

Best Background Score

A. R. Rahman- Rang De Basanti
Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy- Don
Salim & Sulaiman- Krrish, Dor & Being Cyrus
Vishal Bharadwaj- Omkara

Joint Winners: All

Best Overall Lyrics

Gulzar- Omkara
Prasoon Joshi- Fanaa & Rang De Basanti
Mir Ali Hussain- Dor
Javed Akhtar- Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna & Don
Swanand Kirkire- Lage Raho Munnabhai

Joint Winners: Prasoon Joshi- Fanaa & Rang De Basanti
Joint Winners: Gulzar- Omkara

Best Overall Music

Vishal Bharadwaj- Omkara
A. R. Rahman- Rang De Basanti
Jatin-Lalit - Fanaa
Himesh Reshammiya- Aksar
Anu Malik- Jaan-e-Mann
Preetam- Ankahee

A. R. Rahman- Rang De Basanti

Best Male Playback Singer

Mohit Chauhan- Khoon Chala from Rang De Basanti
Sonu Nigam- Sau Dard from Jaan-e-mann
Shaan & Kailash Kher- Chand Sifarish from Fanaa
A. R. Rahman & Naresh Iyyer- Roobaroo from Rang De Basanti
Aatif Aslam- Tere Bin from Bas Ek Pal
Vishal Bharadwaj- O Saathi Re from Omkara
Daler Mehendi- Rang De Basanti from Rang De Basanti
Zubeen Garg- Ya Ali from Gangster
Shafaqat Ali Khan- Yeh Honsla from Dor
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan- Naina from Omkara
K. K.- Tu Hi Meri Shabd from Gangster

Winner: Sonu Nigam- Sau Dard from Jaan-e-mann

Best Female Playback Singer

Sunidhi Chauhan- Beedi Jalayile from Omkara
Shreya Ghoshal- O Saathi Re from Omkara
Rekha Bharadwaj- Namak from Omkara
Alka Yagnik- Tumhi Dekho Naa from Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
Sadhna Sargam- Humko Maaloom Hai from Jaan-e-mann
Lata Mangeshkar- Lukka Chuppi from Rang De Basanti

Winner: Shreya Ghoshal- O Saathi Re from Omkara

Best Actor in a Comic Role

Arshad Warsi- Lage Raho Munnabhai
Shreyas Talpade- Dor
Govinda- Bhagam Bhaag
Uday Chopra- Dhoom 2
Rajpal Yadav- Chup Chup Ke
Dino Morea- Tom, Dick & Harry
Sharman Joshi- Rang De Basanti
Tushar Kapoor- Golmal: Fun Unlimited
Ranveer Shorey- Khosla Ka Ghosla

Winner: Rajpal Yadav- Chup Chup Ke

Best Actor in a Negative Role

Shahrukh Khan- Don
Saif Ali Khan- Omkara
Aamir Khan- Fanaa
Esha Deol- Ankahee
Dino Morea- Aksar
John Abraham- Zinda
Emraan Hashmi- Gangster
Shaad Randhawa- Woh Lamhe
Gulshan Grover- Gangster

Winner: Saif Ali Khan- Omkara

Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Siddharth- Rang De Basanti
Atul Kulkarni- Rang De Basanti
Rajit Kapoor- Deadline: 24 Ghante
Dilip Prabhavalkar- Lage Raho Munnabhai
Nana Patekar- Taxi No. 9 2 11
Arshad Warsi- Kabul Express
Abhishek Bachchan- Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
Arshad Warsi- Lage Raho Munnabhai

Winner: Arshad Warsi- Lage Raho Munnabhai

Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role

Kirron Kher- Rang De Basanti
Soha Ali Khan- Rang De Basanti
Shabana Azmi- Umrao Jaan
Konkona Sen Sharma- Omkara
Sandhya Mridul- Deadline: 24 Ghante
Gul Panag- Dor
Dia Mirza- Lage Raho Munnabhai

Winner: Konkona Sen Sharma- Omkara

Best Director

Anurag Basu- Gangster
Homi Adajania- Being Cyrus
Nagesh Kukunoor- Dor
Rajkumar Hirani- Lage Raho Munnabhai
Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra- Rang De Basanti
Dibakar Bannerjee- Khosla Ka Ghosla
Vishal Bharadwaj- Omkara

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra- Rang De Basanti

Best Film

Kumar Mangat- Omkara
Ronnie Screwvala & Rakeysh Omprash Mehra- Rang De Basanti
Ronnie Screwvala- Khosla Ka Ghosla
Vidhu Vinod Chopra- Lage Raho Munnabhai
Ambika A Hinduja, Dinesh Vijan, Raman Macker & Munish- Being Cyrus
Rajeshwar Naresh Raja- Deadline: 24 Ghante
Mukesh Bhatt & Mahesh Bhatt- Gangster
Sahara One, Percept Picture Company & SIC Productions- Dor

Winner: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra- Rang De Basanti

Best Actress

Kangana Ranaut- Woh Lamhe
Kareena Kapoor- Omkara
Bipasha Basu- Corporate
Alice Pattern- Rang De Basanti
Konkona Sen Sharma- 15 Park Avenue
Ayesha Takia- Dor
Kajol- Fanaa
Vidya Balan- Lage Raho Munnabhai

Winner: Kareena Kapoor- Omkara

Best Actor

Aamir Khan- Rang De Basanti
Irfan Khan- Deadline: 24 Ghante
Shiney Ahuja- Gangster
Sanjay Dutt- Zinda
Ajay Devgan- Omkara
Saif Ali Khan- Being Cyrus

Winner: Shiney Ahuja- Gangster

Worst Film

Dharmesh Darshan- Aap Ki Khatir
T L V Prasad- Naughty Boy
T L V Prasad- Ek Se Mera Kya Hoga
Rakesh Sawant- Hot Money
Raj Sharma- Rafta Rafta
Mustafa Engineer- Chand Ke Paar Chalo
Chakravarthy- Darwaza Bandh Rakho
Deepak Ramsay- Aatma
Shrey Shrivastav- Men Not Allowed
Ravi Chopra- Baabul
Saawan Kumar Tak- Saawan: The Love Season
Karan Razdan- Souten
Harry Baweja- Teesri Aankh
Suneel Darshan- Mere Jeewan Saathi
B H Tharun Kumar- Love Ke Chakkar Mein
Omprakash Makkar- Mr. 100%: The Real Player
Imtiyaaz Khan- Husn: Love & Betrayal

Joint Winners: TLV Prasad for his remarkable attempts in both Naughty Boy & Ek Se Mera Kya Hoga
Joint Winners: Rakesh Sawant for giving us such an enjoyable (hot???) movie at the cost of his sister becoming a porn star.

Worst Actress

Ameesha Patel- Mere Jeewan Saathi
Ameesha Patel- Teesri Aankh
Preeti Jhangiani- Chand Ke Paar Chalo
Payal Rohatgi- Ek Se Mera Kya Hoga
Amriena (Miss Chandigarh)- Aatma
Celina Jaitley- Tom Dick & Harry
Celina Jaitley- Jawaani Deewani
Amrita Arora- Fightclub
Saloni Aswani- Saawan: The Love Season
Rakhi Sawant- Hot Money
Nauheed Cyrusi- Rockin' Meera

Worst Actress- Rakhi Sawant for Hot Money... sadly Celina Jaitley lost out to Rakhi Sawant by very minute differences but I guarantee if Celina Jaitley continues to perform the way she always has, next year she'll win this award, pakka se!

Worst Actor

Kapil Jhaveri- Saawan: The Love Season
Prashant Agarwal- Chumban: The Kiss
Abhishek Bachchan- Umrao Jaan
Zayed Khan- Fightclub
Aashish Chaudhary- Fightclub
Saahib- Chand Ke Paar Chalo
Akshat Bhatia- Love Ke Chakkar Mein

Winner: Abhishek Bachchan- Umrao Jaan

So there is my final judgement which I must say was really really tough as is evident from my picking joint winners in several categories but trust me, I tried to be as honest as I could. For those wondering why Water has not been nominated in a single category, well, I'm yet to see the movie and more importantly it didn't release in India in 2006, it came out a month back I think. As for Zinda not being nominated in other categories, well you could plagiarise a story but the performance is something that always comes from within. Sadly there were hardly any original scenes in Zinda due to which I am unable to give Sanju Baba an award for a performance which was definitely better than even his portrayal of Munnabhai.

As for Shiney Ahuja winning the Best Actor's award... Im' quite sure a lot of people will disagree with me especially because as of now he is not a big name but c'mon I tried to be as HONEST as I could and I thought of it in terms of performances... my justification for my decision would be that to me its not really how big a part is but how it is portrayed in the movie. For some one like Shiney Ahuja, who was only 3 films old when he did Gangster, to give such a moving performance without saying a freakin word (ref: ***Warning: Spoilers from Gangster*** the scene where Kangana Ranaut's character betrays him), it had to be my final choice. So that's that, do let me know how much you agree or rather disagree with my decision regarding the awards :). It took me a nice 4 hours digging up the details and all and another half an hour making the award ^_^ but that's that! Thank you for attending the MGIF Awards 2006. Have a good day and a good life!

Aamir's Sequel to Lagaan, Aamir's directorial venture and Aamir's "creative differences"

2007-04-14T15:18:00.000+05:30

If Aamir's plans of getting a sequel made to his critically acclaimed 1999-released masterpiece, Sarfarosh was not enough to set the fire rolling, here's more for you. According to Star News, Aamir Khan is now planning a sequel to Lagaan as well! Lagaan which got nominated for the "Best Film in a Foreign Language" at the Oscars in 2001 and lost out to "No Man's Land" is also one of Aamir Khan's biggest hits. Aamir Khan is currently looking for a director for this "untitled project" which makes it clear that Ashutosh Gowariker will not be directing it, -_- which is sad to say the least. Unlike other bad sequels, I hope they don't call this one "Lagaan 2".

Anyways, this makes it third in a row with Sarfarosh and Andaz Apna Apna already lined up for their second installments respectively. Personally I don't think that there should be a sequel to Lagaan as it was one story very well told. Getting a sequel to it means that a story is being forced onto it but seeing how Aamir & Crew handle it will be interesting. More than a sequel, I believe, a prequel to the movie could work very well in its favour.

Also, Andaz Apna Apna's sequel is very much on shaky grounds and chances of it being made. There seems that there is no progress in the making of a sequel to Sarfarosh either, although, personally I believe Sarfarosh is the best pick for making a sequel as the very concept of it is good enough to making a second installment to it, and possibly even a third.

In other news, Aamir Khan, whose inputs have always annoyed his directors, will be sharing directorial credits for his current film, Taare Zameen Par with Amol Gupte. It is said that there were "creative differences" between Aamir & Amol Gupte and hence due to Aamir's interference, director Amol Gupte as well as half of the crew quit the project midway. Later, Taare Zameen Par is ready for release but Aamir Khan wants the movie to be released in Diwali. Shankar Ehsaan Loy have scored the music for the film.

Sadly, this is not the first time that Aamir Khan's behaviour has annoyed a director. Apparently not many directors (barring Aamir Khan's cousin, Mansoor Khan and Indra Kumar) have repeated Aamir Khan. Aamir Khan, was originally supposed to play the role of "Langda Tyagi" in Omkara but due to "creative differences" between Aamir Khan & Vishal Bharadwaj, the role passed on Saif Ali Khan. Then again, Aamir was supposed to work with Vishal Bharadwaj in his movie, Mr. Mehta and Mrs. Singh with Kareena Kapoor playing Mrs. Singh but later Aamir complained that he was not comfortable with some of the scenes (probably love making ones) in the movie and the director had to let him go. The role, once again, passed onto Saif Ali Khan!

Chura Liya Hai Tumne

2007-04-12T01:20:00.000+05:30

Hey PEEPAL! ISC is finally over and I can blow, flow, fly, get high and do any shit I feel like ^_^ It feels awesome like a possum :)))) Now coming to the main point, I've been really working on loads and loads of things but before that just for those who dunno, I'm finally back at blogging ^_^ and the reason for that is NAMASTAY LONDON, review of which will be in my next post.

So what have I been doing all these days post the exams, eh? Well, been working on websites for which I'm getting paid as a web designer and my remaining time is going into improving my DVD Collection and scripting my 3-5 minute long movie which I doubt will ever get completed -_- and finally, I've been watching a lot of movies lately, almost 2 every day :) when I'm really in a mood or atleast 4 every week when I'm really taken up with work.

All these movies I've seen in the recent past have turned out to be amazing films, all of them... and the common thing between 99% of them was that they were not Hindi Films! Now, being an Indian myself, I would have had nothing against these movies had the plagiarism in the Indian Film Industry not been to such extents... I mean like come on man, every movie I've been watching has scenes which were lifted by some Hindi Film or the whole script itself is ripped. Some have even been cool enough not to make much efforts and ruin a good film by stealing it as it is and not making any changes at all, now that is cool!

Starting with "Oldboy" which is a Korean film. I saw it like 3 weeks back because Zinda was supposed to be based on this movie. BASED???? LOL, they ripped off the entire freakin movie! Except the climax of course which in Oldboy is wayyy better and the only reason for that is not that Sanjay Gupta wanted to give it a different creative touch all together, it was simply because the Indian audiences would have not accepted the ending had it been the way it is originally in Oldboy. So what was better in Zinda? Ummm.... Well Zinda scores over Oldboy in only two categories:---

All the actors in Zinda are way way wayyyyy better looking than the actors in Oldboy.
Zinda is definitely high on the style factor and if it was totally ripped off Oldboy including the ending then Zinda would have been a better movie to watch.

And yet....

The music according to me is a tad bit better in Zinda but if reading this makes you happy, even the music is plagiarised. The track "Yeh Hai Meri Kahani" by Strings is absolutely ripped off a track called "On a Wing" by the group "6th Sense"
The dialogues have been basically translated into Hindi, that's all.
Sanjay Dutt is Zinda is amazing to watch but Minsik Choi's performance is way better.
John Abraham sort of disappoints while Ji-tae Yu complements the performance of Choi.
Better Storyline
It was original
Kick-ass ending
Kick-ass movie
A Sickening Masterpiece

Forget about Sanjay Gupta who hasn't made a single original film all his life. The so called "Godfather" of Bollywood, Sholay's script has been shamelessly lifted from The Magnificent Seven, Seven Samurais and Once Upon a Time in West.

I watched "The Usual Suspects" and bravo! I've already seen the first twenty minutes of the movie! The only difference is that the movie's name back then was "Kaante" and the remaining movie, I've already seen in "Chocolate" with the Usual Suspects of course, having a better ending.

I really wanted to see "The Ring" for a long time because I had heard a lot about it... the movie didn't scare me at all -_- but yeah... I sorta knew the basic plot. Sadly, the next day they were airing this low-budgeted Ekta-Kapoor produced movie "Krishna Cottage" starring Sohail Khan, Isha Koppikar and Natasha which was an ever crappier version of The Ring with the video tape being replaced by a book BUT you can still see the same video inside the book :-S not funny man....

If this sorta makes you feel better... take a look at the impressive long list of "SOME" of the stuff Bollywood copied from...

Ajnabee - Consenting Adults
Akele Hum Akele Tum - Kramer VS Kramer
Baazigar - A Kiss from Dying
Chura Liya Hai Tumne - Charade
Black - The Miracle Worker
Chachi 420 - Mrs Doubtfire
Dushman - Eye for an Eye
Hum Tum - When Harry met Sally
Nishabd - Lolita
Ghulam - On the Waterfront
Sangharsh - Silence of the lambs
Shakalaka Boom Boom - Amedeus (????)
Josh - West Side Story
Kasoor - Jagged Edge
Shakti: The Power - Not without my daughter
Mohabbatein - Dead Poet's Society
Koi.... Mil Gaya - ET + Forrest Gump
Krrish - All the superhero movies man...
Qayamat - The Rock
Raaz - What Lies Beneath

There are of course those people, such as Boney Kapoor, who choose to look in the South for the scripts but at least have the decency of buying the rights for remaking those movies. His movies Tere Naam, Koi Mere Dil Se Pooche, Khushi, Milenge Milenge are a few names that have been South Indian films remade.

For a list of movies that have been plagiarized, go to BollyCat although its tough to believe everything they say as most of their accusations are not exactly true but many of them are ;)

Even music has people like not just Anu Malik who go around shamelessly ripping off some very popular tunes from the west but even Rajesh Roshan. Raja Ko Rani Se Pyaar Ho Gaya for example is definitely inspired from the Love Theme of The Godfather. Almost all of Rajesh Roshan's tunes are stolen (Ref: My Krrish Review). Anu's been stealing music from here, there and everywhere. Often we see him recycling his own work from the past but stealing from one's own work is not plagiarism. Stealing from somebody else's is. Sanjeev-Darshan who will be best remembered for scoring the music for Mann have almost all their tracks inspired by Arabian ones. Joining the bandwagon is the young composer on the rise, Preetam. He shamelessly steals and steals and steals and makes money and more money and continues doing that. His only trick is that he steals from different parts of the world and he steals good stuff that is not that popular so people fall for it. Forget about "Ya Ali" from Gangster being copied from "Ya Ghali" by the group Guitara... Nope, I'm not even going there... there's a lot more to it than you can think of. Most of the times, if the track sounds amazing, you can be rest assured that if Preetam is the composer, its stolen. "Zahreeli Raatein" in Chocolate came out a little before Aatif or Jal could release their version of "Aadat" in India. The very theme of Dhoom has been inspired from an Arabic track. Same goes for "Adaa" and "Garam Masala" from the movie Garam Masala. Its really pain staking to quote all his rip offs but just as an evidence, one of his latest compositions "Kya Mujhe Pyaar Hai" from the movie Woh Lamhe is a straight lift from the track "Tak Bisakah" by the artist Peter Pan.

Its basically an endless list and the more I dig into this, the more unhappy I become! Of course the plagiarism is not just limited to movies but even in the Indian Television Industry, there isn't much "good" stuff going on. One can easily label Indian Television Standards as one of the lowest in the world! And yes, I am serious. For all the Balaji Brigadiers, standard is not judged by popularity but by the quality and originality of content which is absolutely lacking here. Barring a few shows which have made an attempt to raise the bar such as "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge" which sort of introduced the concept of good stand-up comedy. Almost all the other Indian stuff you get to see on Television can be divided into two distinct categories: Balaji and Non Balaji Camps. Of course shows which deal with Saas-Bahus, extra marital affairs, infidelity, pandit's predictions, rising from the dead, bahus going to jails, murder, slaughter, bloodshed, mayhem, conspiracies, men sleeping with their wives only after two to three years from their marriage and that too because in all probability, they were drunk... miscarraiges, husbands dying, second marraiges, third, fourth... a fifth and a sixth, characters changing overnight or if new actors replace existing ones, all that and more...

The list includes a good 30-40 shows! Aired either on weekdays, weekends, afternoon slots or prime time slots and basically consist of stuff that is recycled in the form of "generation leap" and the whole trauma is repeated all over again... these include programmes like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kasautii Zindagi Kay, Kahanii Ghar Ghar Kii, Kesar, Saarthi, Karam Apna Apna Apna, Kumkum-Pyara Sa Bandhan, Saath Phere, O Saathi Re, Parivaar, Teen Bahuraniyan, Bhabhi, K-Savitri ka shareer, its an endless list! What these programmes do is play it safe by promoting themselves as something very fresh and within a week or two they switch to the saas-bahu mode. When running out of a reason to run their show, they stoop as low as they can and when nothing else comes to mind, you will such programmes looking towards Bollywood for inspiration. Very often will an entire movie be merged into a programme and gradually taken off too.

On the other hand, the non Balaji Camp basically includes most of the reality shows airing on TV all the time with these wannabes begging your grandma to vote for them so that the show producers can go get some more money, not knowing that the producers of the shows are just using these people and the moment they're out of sight, they'll be out of mind. Many Abhijeet Sawants and Debojit Sahas have come and gone and none remains in the memories :). The most successful being probably Amit Tandon who has become a favorite with these K-Serials. These reality shows drive the whole nation by storm showing everything right from the auditions to the politics being played in the inner circuit with people appreciating the authenticity of the ideas not realising that all these shows have been doing are copying from the west. Who Wants to be a Millionaire becomes Kaun Banega Crorepati, Big Brother becomes Big Boss, American / Pop Idol becomes Indian Idol, Fame Academy becomes Fame Gurukul / Fame X, Mind Your Language becomes Zabaan Sambhal Ke, Yo Soy Betty La Fea becomes Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, Bewitched becomes Meri Biwi Wonderful, Believe it or not becomes Mano Yaa Na Mano, Dancing with the stars becomes Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, and ofcourse Comedy Ka Baadshah - Hasega India is copied from The Great Indian Laughter Challenge itself.

Pankaj Kapoor and to an extent Rajeev Khandelwal do try different stuff but that's that.
Maybe in the future the world will get to see some Indian productions which they'll think are worth copying but I doubt if that day will come because who wants to put in the effort trying to create something good when there's so much out there to copy from, eh? Most of these people believe that they could do it because its what the majority does but what the majority does does not make the wrong thing "right" but Oh Darling! Yeh Hai India! ;)

Mike Tyson in Firoz Nadiadwala's Fool N Final

2007-04-12T00:17:00.000+05:30

Here’s bringing you the biggest scoop only on IndiaFM.

Firoz Nadiadwala is known for his lavish action flicks and the kind of money he spends to give them his best shot. He is doing the same this time around. His next film Fool N Finali having a mammoth cast of Sunny Deol, Shahid Kapoor, Sunil Shetty, Jackie Shroff, Paresh Rawal, Vivek Oberoi, Bipasha Basu, Arbaaz Khan, Ayesha Takia and Sameera Reddy is completed. And like every other film, Firoz has planned to shoot a promotional video for the film.

So what’s new about that, you ask? Well the celebrity who he is getting to feature in the promotional song. According to our sources, Firoz Nadiadwala has approached world famous boxer Mike Tyson to appear in the promotional track to be shot for Fool N Final. Doesn’t the choice sound surprising? While other filmmakers are roping in international singing sensations to feature in their video, how does a boxer arise on Nadiadwala’s list? That is perhaps because the film has to do a lot with action.

And has Tyson agreed? “Well almost”, says the source. “He is just to sign the dotted line. His managers are working out details for Firoz Nadiadwala. In fact Mike Tyson has even given a clearance of coming down to India on April 20 to participate for the shoot. Ahmed Khan who has directed the film will be choreographing the promotional track”, adds the source. In fact there is buzz that Mike Tyson might even release the music of the film composed by Himesh Reshammiya.

Source: IndiaFM

And the new king of Bollywood is....

2007-03-02T20:17:00.000+05:30

Weeeeee Guys & Gals! I R BACKKKKKKKK!!!!

Yea been a really really reallllly hectic life and with me giving my time to many other things, somethings just had to take a backseat but hopefully I'm back and will try updating this place atleast once a week if not more :P

So... since nothing else excited me, I thought "how about asking a question that will surely a long lasting debate". I mean, come on... there is no denying the fact, or so it looks that the present King of Bollywood is aging and in the next 5 years to come, maybe just, MAYBE his reign will be over. Now don't get mad at me SRK Fans coz I myself love the guy. I think he's cool but.... for the few past years, his attempts are just not bearing fruits... his last decent release was "SWADES" which was truly a masterpiece but ever since, according to IMDB, this is all the releases he's had

I See You (2006)
Don (2006/I) .... Don/Vijay
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006) .... Dev Saran
... aka Kank (India: Hindi title: informal short title)
... aka Never Say Goodbye (USA: informal English title)
Alag: He Is Different.... He Is Alone... (2006) .... Special Appearance - Song
Paheli (2005) .... Kishanlal/Ghost
... aka The Riddle (International: English title)
Silsiilay (2005) .... Sutradhar
Kaal (2005) .... Special Appearance (Song)

Barring Don & KANK, all these movies sucked! And Don & KANK too, just didn't turn out to be the kind of films SRK needed at that time. Maybe Shimit Amin's Chak De India will put him back, we are yet to see, for I have no hopes of Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om doing him any good expect maybe bring him more cash. The Indian Film Awards like Filmfare & Screen and all the Cheezy Bum Beens have been awarding "Hrithik-over-rated-Roshan" the best actor which so insults the Indian Film Fraternity coz the "Best Actor Award" means the best performance and if Hrithik's was the best, I wonder what was bad. I mean seriously, does anyone really think his performance was THE best performance of the year? Anyways, back to topic... there have been so many talks regarding this...

Technically speaking, in generation order, there have been three rulers of Bollywood:

Dilip Kumar
Amitabh Bachchan
Shahrukh Khan

From all the talks I've heard, people think the following have a chance of being the next king of Bollywood:

Hrithik Roshan
Abhishek Bachchan

Yes, star sons I know! But that's what the rumours have been. My pick would be none of them! I mean Hrithik Roshan looks good and can shake his booty like no one can and he's got the best physique in Bollywood but can he really act? I doubt that... and before the Hrithik fans start telling me about his brilliant performance in Koi... Mil Gaya, let me tell them one thing. Koi Mil Gaya was one of the most overrated movies and Mr. Rakesh Roshan is one of the most overrated directors alive on the scum of the Earth. If you wanna tell me that everyone steals and Rakesh Roshan does it better, then well... I disagree... I would say that Sanjay Gupta does it best!

Hrithik's performance in Yaadein, Main Prem Ki Diwaani Hoon, Mujhse Dosti Karoge, Na Tum Jaano na Hum are not examples of bad acting, they're examples of OVER ACTING!

A performance I could like of Hrithik's is yet to come. His Aryan in D:2 was cool but honestly, a good role in a bad movie (barring Lakshya) is all he's been getting and its not a good sign.

As for Abhishek Bachchan, his best till date according to me is Guru and he can act very well if he wants to (check him out in Sarkar) but the guy, according to me, looks like a cobbler. Yep, Asia's sexiest man is perfect to polish shoes, lol. And he needs to shed those kilos, get a personal trainer to be in shape, get a bath, cut his hair and lastly, SHAVE!!!

Both of them have been in the industry since 2000 and SRK has bagged Filmfare's Best Actor Award twice since then (3 if you count the Critic's award for Mohabbatein) so hmmm....

The only promising star on the scene is Shiney Ahuja, who's both a good looking guy as well as an amazing actor to begin with. I mean, if anyone has watched him in "Sins", he would most probably agree with me, or in "Gangster"... the scene where he gets betrayed by Kangana Ranaut's character... damn the guy is awesome!

Upen Patel's performance is his only release till now, 36 China Town makes me feel that like John, he is a "Lamba Race Ka Ghoda" but Bollywood's king title is a no-no for him.

Saif & Aamir are unfortunately too late to get the title. John Abraham's performances are loose. Akshay Kumar is not a boy. Shahid Kapur's career will end as soon as Kareena dumps him so there's no one on the scene... until someone with that potential hits the screen, I think this topic should be stopped discussing.

Big Boss- Rahul Roy wins the game!

2007-01-27T23:26:00.000+05:30

Its out! Big Boss, the reality show aired on Sony Entertainment Television, based on the game show Big Brother is over and after 3 months of, what has been a very exciting show... Rahul Roy has been announced the winner of the Big Boss game ... the winner gets 50 lacs plus the weekly amount he was paid for staying in the house... I think the result has been rather satisfying as Rahul Roy really knew how to play the game and its paid off well...

Results in reverse order of elimination, ranking-wise:

Rahul Roy
Carol Gracias
Ravi Kishen
Rakhi Sawant (Second Stay)
Amit Sadh
Roopali Ganguly
Baba Saigal (Late entry)
Ragini Shetty
Deepak Tijori (Late entry)
Anupama Varma
Aryan Vaid
Rakhi Sawant (First stay)
Kashmera Shah
Bobby Darling
Deepak Parashar
Salil Ankola (Quit the game)

Please forgive me if there are any errors as I've given the list simply based on what I remember. On the other side, I'd like to aplogise for not having updated the site for soooo long, I'm just busy working on my other site anime-assassin.net so maybe I won't be updating this place as frequently as I used to but this site is here to stay so keep checking.

Guru Review: Killer!- 8/10

2007-01-23T15:21:00.000+05:30

Mani Ratnam for some reason has been a favourite of mine not because of his movies. I didn't even love Yuva but for the diverse topics he chooses to make movies on. Roja, Bombay, Dil Se, Yuva and now Guru... they're all miles apart as far as the storyline is concerned. However, when it comes to the icing on the cake, A. R. Rahman is not the icing. He is half the cake himself! Guru is no different and I apologise for starting off with him but man o man, I was stunned with the background music which did like half the task of creating the impact. Rahman proved it again that he is not over rated when they say that he's the country's best composer alive and no, I'm not getting over excited or anything but right before Guru, I had the pleasure of watching Shyam Benegal's Bose- The Forgotten Hero on TV (A Review is due for that) and therefore I've come to the conclusion of how big a stud Mr. A. R. Rahman is!

Now coming to the movie, Guru is one of those few movies which sticks to facts for entertainment and that's something I really love! Right from the beginning, the characterizations have been more than perfect, Guru knows only one thing- profit! And that stays till the end. I would recommend Guru to anyone who likes realistic form of cinema. One of the biggest drawbacks of Guru, however is that the timings of most of the songs are just not right. No complaints about the music because that is par excellence but Mani Ratnam should've taken care of where the songs should've been place but barring that, Guru is killer!

Talking about the showstealer, well, I hate Abhishek Bachchan and I've made nothing secret about it but I loved this guy who was playing Guru... confused? To put it best, all I can say is that I was watching Guru and not Abhishek performing! Such was the brilliance in his performance that he made me forget that he was Abhishek Bachchan, it was a totally different world. However, there are times (like in the court scene) where you know that AB Junior is trying so hard to be AB Senior. I mean, his voice and his mannerisms, especially towards the end have, no doubt, been heavily inspired by the Vijay Dinanath Chauhan from Agneepath but other times, the Guru in him is simply flawless! With a movie like Guru, I don't think Abhishek has done anything wrong by putting on all that weight, hell, his tummy is so big that it makes him look pregnant and there's even a scene where a pregnant Ash & Abhishek compare their tummies but what I do regret is the fact that when will these people realize that this is the whole idea of having a make up-artist. Look at Anil Kapoor in Badhai Ho Badhai, they can easily do something like that but they instead choose to destroy an actor's physical appearance be it Rani Mukherjee putting on weight for Hey Ram or Abhishek Bachchan putting on weight in Guru, its a very stupid reason to make actors do so.

Another flaw in the movie is the difference in timings. Ash gets pregnant at a time when Guru looks like 50 and according to the movie, Ash is a year older than Abhishek. How stupid is that? But that being kept aside, I would like to congratulate Mani Ratnam for coming up with something like Guru. The ending, though, a little weak could not take away from Guru what it had secured throughout. Movies made on people's lives have always been interesting and Guru seems to be no different.

The cinematography, too is brilliant. Coming to the other performances, Aishwarya efficiently plays her part. Mallika, no offence to Ash, looks like 10x hotter but sadly doesn't have any role in the movie. Manoj Joshi keeps getting better with every movie he does. Sachin Khedekar plays his part well though there isn't much to his part. Arya Babbar impresses but sadly doesn't have much footage either. R Madhavan looks a lot better than what he did in Rang De Basanti after losing all that weight and really gives a polished performance. Vidya Balan, doesn't disappoint but its just sad to see her play such small roles when she's being offered the best from the best in the industry.

Now coming to the man who almost stole the show from Abhishek, despite having like only 10% footage compared to Abhishek's 99% footage. I am talking about none other than the man himself - Mithun Chakroborty! Its fun to make fun of him doing all the low budgeted stupid movies but you cannot take away from him what has been God-gifted: Sheer Talent! Man o Man, I regretted the fact that Mani Ratnam didn't give him enough screen time because with every frame he's present in, Guru just kept on getting better.

Guru is perfect for a 7.5/10 movie but for the excellent background score, the brilliant characterizations, the superior cinematography, the power packed performances and most importantly, the honest effort made by every person in the crew to make an original and quality movie which clearly shows, Guru deserves nothing less than an 8.

The movie did get a bit boring, especially during the songs but the background music kept bringing the scenes to life. Overall, Guru is a great film and for people who appreciate quality cinema, Guru is highly recommended!

8/10

Rang De Eliminated: Water shortlisted for Oscar

2007-01-17T18:01:00.000+05:30

The Aamir Khan-starrer Rang De Basanti, India's official entry for the 79th Annual Academy Awards, is out of the Oscar race.

When the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday unveiled for the first time its shortlist of nominees for foreign-language Oscar, Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra's film was not on it. Until last year, the Academy only announced the list of final five nominees for Best Foreign Film along with the other nominations.

A Hindi-language film is on the list though -- Deepa Mehta's Water, Canada's official entry for the Oscars.

The other eight films on the shortlist are Days of Glory (Algeria), After the Wedding (Denmark), Avenue Montaigne (France), The Lives of Others (Germany), Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico), Black Book (The Netherlands), Volver (Spain) and Vitus (Switzerland).

On Tuesday, January 23, the Academy will announce the final five nominees for Best Foreign Film Oscar, along with the other nominations.

The Academy received 61 entries for Oscar for best Foreign Film this year.

Earlier, Variety reported, a Los Angeles-based committee of several hundred Academy members picked the five finalists. 'This year,' Variety said, 'for the first time, the panel chose the shortlisted nine. Now a group of 30 -- 10 members from the original committee, 10 new Los Angeles members and 10 New York members -- will whittle the nine down to five.'

Five years ago, another Aamir Khan film, his home production Lagaan made it to the final five nominations for Oscar for best foreign film, but lost out to Bosnia's No Man's Land.

Deepa Mehta's critically acclaimed Water is the highest grossing Hindi language film in the West.

The Oscar awards ceremony will be held on February 25.

Source: Rediff

Jackson's Thriller: Bollywood Ishtyle

2007-01-17T12:01:00.000+05:30

Its some south inian actor, Chiranjeevi I think. Sorry guys If I'm wrong but its not like I'll take great pride in saying I knew who this guy was. Its not a copy of Jackson's Thriller which ends up being a sexy spoof. The track is called "Goli maar" and I think the woman in the song is Shoma Anand. Look at how scared she is! Man, what great performances. And if you guys thought Hrithik & Prabhu Deva could dance well, check this out before ever making a comment again. "KILLER" "KILER" "KILLER" loll.... Sorry guys dunno which language is it exactly in either.

Honeymoon Travels - First Look

2007-01-16T19:39:00.000+05:30

Produced By Excel Entertainments of Farhan Akhtar & Ritesh Sidhwani, Honeymoon Travels is the story of six different love stories. The movie has been directed by Reema Kagti who has assisted Farhan Akhtar in all his earlier projects. Honeymoon Travels is about six different couples and stars K.K. Menon, Raima Sen, Amisha Patel, Boman Irani, Shabana Azmi, Ranbir Shouri, Dia Mirza, Vikram Chatwal, Sandhya Mridul, Abhay Deol, Minisha Lamba, Karran Khanna and Naseeruddin Shah. Phew! Rumours were on that Salaam-E-Ishq was copied from Reema Kagti's script which is now Honeymoon Travels. However, besides the fact that both of these movies have six love stories in them, the two movies look as different as cheese and chalk. Moreover, both these movies look great and Honeymoon Travels very fresh. I'm looking forward to watching it. LOL, Apparently even Meghna Gulzar's Just Married starring Fardeen Khan, Isha Deol and a bunch other losers like Mukul Dev & Bikram Ahuja, is also said to be a copy of Reema Kagti's Honeymoon Travels. There is little doubt about that taking a look at its promos but I'm also sure that Just Married will be a bad film, it just looks too stale. Anyways, here's Honeymoon Travel's theatrical trailer. Enjoy!

13th Annual Star Screen Awards- Results

2007-01-15T19:08:00.000+05:30

In simple words, a great show it was! The second important award ceremony was great to say the least. Although I may not agree with some of their picks but majority of it had me satisfied. For example, I still don't believe that Hrithik's performance as Krrish was superior to Sanjay Dutt from Lage Raho Munnabhai or Aamir Khan from Rang De Basanti. Again, Sanju baba's performance in Zinda was the best performance by him this year so it still hurts to see that some of the greatest performances went unnoticed but none the less, most of the nominations brought a smile on my face. For example, the Best Music Director's nomination was one category which really pleased. All of them- Aksar, Jaan-e-man, Rang De Basanti... all deserved a nomination.

Now coming on to the performances, Shahid Kapur was one performance to watch out for seconded by his lady love, Kareena Kapoor who danced to Yeh Mera Dil... looking super-sexy again. However when it comes to the show stealer, the show which was hosted by Minisha Lamba & Isha Koppikar had but only show stealer- RAJU SHRIVASTAV!!! That guy knows how to rock it. India's best stand up comic revelation till date rocked the stage once again, his second performance at the Star Screen Awards since last time. This time we had Raju pulling on Amitabh Bachchan as Gabbar and repeating some of older stand up comic items. Naveen was good too. Now coming on to the results... the winner has been highlighted among the nominees:

Best Film
Krrish (Rakesh Roshan)
Lage Raho Munnabhai (Vidhu Vinod Chopra)***
Omkara (Kumar Mangat)
Rang De Basanti (Ronnie Screwvala, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra)
Vivah (Kamal Kumar Barjatya, Rajkumar Barjatya, Ajit Kumar Barjatya)

Best Director
Anurag Basu (Gangster)
Nagesh Kukunoor (Dor)
Rajkumar Hirani (Lage Raho Munnabhai)
Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (Rang De Basanti)***
Sooraj Barjatya (Vivah)
Vishal Bharadwaj (Omkara)

Best Actor
Aamir Khan (Rang De Basanti)
Ajay Devgan (Omkara)
Hrithik Roshan (Krrish)***
Hrithik Roshan (Dhoom 2)
Sanjay Dutt (Lage Raho Munnabhai)
Shahid Kapoor (Vivah)

Best Actress
Aishwarya Rai (Dhoom 2)
Amrita Rao (Vivah)
Ayesha Takia (Dor)
Bipasha Basu (Corporate)
Kajol (Fanaa)
Kareena Kapoor (Omkara)***

Best Actor In A Supporting Role (Male)***
Amitabh Bachchan (Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna)
Arshad Warsi (Lage Raho Munnabhai)
Atul Kulkarni (Rang De Basanti)
Kunal Kapoor (Rang De Basanti)
Nana Patekar (Taxi No. 9211)
Sharman Joshi (Rang De Basanti)

Best Actor In A Supporting Role (Female)
Gul Panag (Dor)
Kirron Kher (Rang De Basanti)***
Konkona Sen Sharma (Omkara)
Ratna Pathak Shah (Yun Hota To Kya Hota)
Seema Biswas (Vivah)

Best Actor In A Negative Role (Male/Female)
Aamir Khan (Fanaa)
Esha Deol (Ankahee)
Saif Ali Khan (Omkara)***
Shah Rukh Khan (Don)
Shiney Ahuja (Gangster)

Best Actor In A Comic Role (Male/Female)
Om Puri (Malamaal Weekly)
Ranveer Shorey (Khosla Ka Ghosla)
Shreyas Talpade (Dor)***
Tusshar Kapoor (Golmaal)
Uday Chopra (Dhoom2)

Best Background Music
Dor (Salim-Sulaiman)
Fanaa (Salim-Sulaiman)
Gangster (Raju Singh)
Omkara (Vishal Bharadwaj)
Rang De Basanti (AR Rahman)***

Best Music
Aksar (Himesh Reshammiya)
Fanaa (Jatin Lalit)
Jaan-E-Mann (Anu Malik)
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy)
Rang De Basanti (AR Rahman)
Omkara (Vishal Bharadwaj)***

Best Playback Singer (Male)
KK (‘Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai…’ – Gangster)
Shaan (‘Chand Sifarish…’ – Fanaa)***
Sonu Nigam (‘Bawri Piya…’ – Baabul)
Sukhwinder Singh (‘Omkar…’ – Omkara)
Shafqat Amanat Ali (‘Mitwaa…’ – Kabhi Alvida naa Kehna)
Zubin Garg (‘Ya Ali…’ – Gangster)

Best Playback Singer (Female)
Alka Yagnik (‘Tumhi Dekho Naa…’ – Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna)
Anusha Manchanda (‘Golmaal, Golmaal…’ – Golmaal)
Rekha Bharadwaj (‘Namak Ishq…’ – Omkara)
Shreya Ghoshal (‘O Saathi Re…’ – Omkara)
Sunidhi Chauhan (‘Beedi Jalayale…’ – Omkara)***

Best Lyrics
Gulzar (‘Beedi Jalayale…’ – Omkara)***
Javed Akhtar (‘Mitwaa…’ – Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna)
Prasoon Joshi (‘Subhanallah…’ – Fanaa)
Mir Ali Husain (‘Ye Hausla…’ – Dor)
Swanand Kirkire (‘Bande Mein Tha Dum…’ – Lage Raho Munnabhai)

Best Story
Gafla (Sameer Hanchate)
Gangster (Mahesh Bhatt)
Khosla Ka Ghosla (Jaideep Sahani)
Lage Raho Munnabhai (Rajkumar Hirani / Abhijit Joshi)***
Rang De Basanti (Kamlesh Pandey)

Best Screenplay
Gangster (Anurag Basu)
Lage Raho Munnabhai (Rajkumar Hirani, Abhijit Joshi)
Malamaal Weekly (Priyadarshan)
Pyaar Ke Side/Effects (Saket Choudhary)
Rang De Basanti (Rensil D’Silva, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra)***

Best Dialogues
Fanaa (Kunal Kohli)
Lage Raho Munnabhai (Rajkumar Hirani)***
Malamaal Weekly (Manisha Korde)
Omkara (Vishal Bharadwaj)
Rang De Basanti (Prasoon Joshi, Rensil D’Silva)

Best Editing
Gangster (Akib Ali)
Lage Raho Munnabhai (Rajkumar Hirani)***
Rang De Basanti (PS Bharathi)
Taxi No. 9211 (Aarif Sheikh)

Best Sound
Don (Andrew Belletty)
Gangster (Adil Ali)
Krrish (Jitendra Choudhary)
Omkara (K J Singh)
Rang De Basanti (Nakul Kamte)***

Best Cinematography
Anthony Kaun Hai (Hemant Chaturvedi)
Don (Mohanan)
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (Anil Mehta)
Omkara (Tassaduq Hussain)
Rang De Basanti (Binod Pradhan)***
Best Special Effects
Alag (EFX - Prasad)
Dhoom 2 (Tata Elexi – Pankaj Khanpur)
Don (Red Chillies VFX)
Jaan-E-Mann (Prime Focus Ltd. – Merzin Taveria)
Krrish (Marc Kolbe, Craig Mumma – USA)

Best Art Direction
Don (Aradhana Sheth)
Jaan-E-Mann (Sabu Cyril)
Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (Sharmistha Roy)
Omkara (Samir Chanda)
Rang De Basanti (Samir Chanda)***

Best Choreography
Dhoom 2 (‘Dhoom…’ – Shiamak Davar)***
Don (‘Main Hoon Don…’ – Ganesh Hegde)
Jaan-E-Mann (‘Humko Maloom Hai…’ – Farah Khan)
Omkara (‘Beedi Jalayale…’ – Ganesh Acharya)
Rang De Basanti (‘Masti Ki Pathshala…’ – Ganesha Acharya)

Best Action
Dhoom 2 (Allah Amin)
Don (Sham Kaushal)
Krrish (Tony Ching Siu Tung (Hong Kong), Sham Kaushal)***

Most Promising Newcomer (Male)
Siddharth (Rang De Basanti)***
Upen Patel (36 China Town)
Vinod Sherawat (Gafla)

Most Promising Newcomer (Female)
Kangana Ranaut (Gangster, Woh Lamhe)***
Onjolie Nair (Holiday)

Most Promising Debut Director
Dibakar banerjee (Khosla Ka Ghosla)
Kabir Khan (Kabul Express)
Naseeruddin Shah (Yun Hota To Kya Hota)
Saket Chaudhary (Pyaar Ke Side Effects)***

Shahrukh Khan & Rani Mukherjee were awarded "The Star Screen Jodi Award". The show was aired on Star Plus, 8 PM Onwards on January 14th. Repeats will definitely be telecasted, Don't miss it!

Aishwarya - Abhishek: Now Engaged!

2007-01-15T17:59:00.000+05:30

Its finally official! Abhishek Bachchan & Aishwarya Rai got engaged on Sunday, January 14th at Aishwarya Rai's residence. The couple plans to get wedded on February 19th. The news was confirmed by Amitabh Bachchan. Aishwarya, despite being rated as the most beautiful woman of the world, of course still didn't deserve someone like Abhishek Bachchan because Bachchan had something much better- The Bachchan surname after his name and that is good enough to over look his being overweight or his stinky stubble that never fails to remind us of Himesh Reshammiya or his belly that's been pouncing up lol....

Whatever girls are crazy about him- possibly because most of them have only seen him in screen and not in real. The engagement was a quiet ceremony with only close friends being invited. The list included Amitabh Bachchan's close friend, Amar Singh, who looks like AB's brother-in-law if Jaya Bachchan's & Amar Singh's physical appearances were to be taken into account.

The engagement took place after a purification puja was done which was to remove the curse of Aishwarya being "manglik", which means that if Abhishek marries her- he'll die!!! My first reaction was what are they waiting for??? Marry NOW!!! But ah anyways, late but the news has come none the less.

Red: The Dark Side- First Look

2007-01-13T18:04:00.000+05:30

Man I must say that Himesh Reshammiya really knows how to make music. the only problem is he's here, there, he's everywhere but after hearing this one track, I felt that he does no wrong if he charges 6 crores for every album that composes music for. The movie Red directed by Vikram Bhatt stars Aftab Shivdasani, Celina Jaitly & Amrita Arora will bring Bhatt back to his thriller genre of movies which he hasn't been making for a long time and which he's rather very good at. The posters remind me of Sin City but the graphics and the colors have been done very well. The music reminds me of Kasoor, another ripped off thriller that was directed by Vikram Bhatt and starred Aftab Shivdasani & Lisa Ray.

Red- The Dark Side has this as its promotional tagline:
What if you indulged your every desire?
What if your desires unlocked hidden secrets?
Paradise found.
Innocence lost.
How much would you risk to protect what you love?

Hmmm... sounds good...

This is the first released trailer of the movie and it looks awesome- 70% credit of which goes to this awesome track "Afreen" sung and composed by Himesh Reshammiya. Check it out, its brilliant! 10/10 for this track and 8/10 for this promo. Looks good man!

Shakti Kapoor replaces Shekhar Suman

2007-01-12T19:21:00.000+05:30

Thank God! Finally some relief! Two big losers in 1 hit show! Shakti Kapoor has finally replaced Shekhar "I'm-oh-so-smart-that-laughing-is-below-my-dignity" Suman. Commercially I believe one can pick on Shakti Kapoor over Shekhar Suman anyday. Shakti Kapoor, whose sense of humour, we're very aware of through movies like Raja Babu, Judwaa, Andaz Apna Apna, Chaalbaaz, Hungaama, Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye, Har Dil Jo Pyaar Karega, Hero Hindustani, Miss 420, Saajan Chale Sasural.... its an endless list. And on the other hand, we have Shekhar Suman who used to play lead in movies like Utsav & a couple o' other blue films until he got lucky with Television when Dekh Bhai Dekh surfaced. His success streak continued with the Himesh Resshammiya directed- Andaz aired on Zee TV, Kabhi Idhar Kabhi Udhar aired on Home TV, the Himesh Reshammiya directed- Nirma Aahaa aired on Zee TV again and finally Movers & Shakers on Sony TV which earned him great recognition as a stand up comedian.

However recently when Shekhar Suman started hosting The Great Indian Comedy Show on Star One, well... it wasn't Great anymore to say the least. The jokes that fell flat were so bad that an embrassed production team was forced to even change the title to "The Comedy Show Ha Ha Ha" trying to add some laughs to the title when it didn't get it from the audience. They threw the "Great" title and Shekhar Suman both out of the show. Now the show seems to be improving.

Shekhar Suman who judged India's first stand up comedy show, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge had quit because of having a major tiff with the other judge, Navjot Singh Sidhu. Sidhu, who is considered to be the life blood of the show has been kept and the producers have let Shekhar Suman go and replacing him will be the man who made casting couch a trend in India. Now teh two judges will have their own team of Stand Up Comedians and will fight the Laughter Challenge. The show already has some great stand up comedians like Raju Shrivastava, Rauf Laila and others. Sunil Pal has unfortunately left the show to host Zee TV's Antakshari but anyways the show seems to be getting back to the level from where it started, the top! So here's wishing the new judge best of luck!

Am jus plain apologetic

2007-01-09T16:33:00.000+05:30

Am sorry peeps! I know for the past few days all I've been doing is copy / paste and can't be blamed for that if you have your exams goin as of now but none the less. Expect original articles post 20th.

Thnx
[ex] +'

Vivah is my sister's story- Kangana Ranaut

2007-01-09T16:21:00.000+05:30

Sooraj Barjatya's subdued blockbuster Vivah has the cynical crowds commenting on its limpid logistics of courtship.

But the film has its unexpected champions, like Kangana who sees an uncanny resemblance between Sooraj's story and the recent traumatic events that transpired in the life of Kangana's sister Rangoli.

"When friends told me Vivah is my sister's story I couldn't believe it. But there are uncanny similarities between what happens to the girl in Vivah and my sister's life. Both are about small-town girls engaged to devoted men. In Vivah the girl gets burnt just before her wedding and her fiancé stands by her in spite of the haadsa. That's precisely what happened with my sister Rangoli. After her face was burnt in an acid attack, her fiancé stood by her exactly like Shahid Kapoor. They're going to get married in February."

Kangana's sister has now been discharged from hospital and has gone to Dehradun to testify against the alleged culprit who threw acid in her face. "She'll return shortly. But until she does, I feel a strange emptiness in my life and house. This whole traumatic time after her accident gave us time to bond like never before. I never felt closer to Rangoli. And she to me. I can hardly wait for her vivah to happen."

Kangana wonders why our movies are accused of being unreal when they often reflect what is happening all around us. "If my film Woh Lamhe was Parveen Babi's story, Vivah is my sister's story. Can you imagine two more dissimilar films than these two? And yet both are mirrors of real life."

Source: IndiaFM

Controversies 2006

2007-01-08T10:20:00.000+05:30

Peephole fanatics had a field day as stars dropped defences to whoop it up. The garam masala stories that spiced up our lives last year — and here’s wishing they just don’t stop.

By Subhash K. Jha

Raveena Tandon
Monica Bellucci
Udit Narayan bows before Ranjana
Aishwarya Rai
Aamir Khan
Katrina Kaif
Salman Khan
Kangana Ranaut

Soutan Impact: 2006 opened with tales of Raveena Tandon pouring a drink into her husband’s ex-wife face at a party hosted by Farhan Akhtar’s best friend. Happily, Ravs didn’t deny the incident. Let’s raise a toast to the boiling spirit of the bubbly Ravs.

Sonia….Yet So Far: The minute Jagmohan Mundhra Provoked Sonia Gandhi by announcing a bio-pic on her distinguished life, doubts were raised about the film’s veracity. To make a film on Sonia with pin-up girl Monica Bellucci in the lead seemed as far-fetched as N. Chandra’s plans to make a film on Mrs Indira Gandhi with Manisha Koirala in the lead. Both plans bombed.

Wed Dreams: Udit Narayan said he had only one wife. His first wife, Ranjana, said he had two. Maybe, Udit didn’t know how to count. Or, maybe, he didn’t believe bigamy was a big deal. The Bihar Woman’s Commission forced the popular singer to accept Biwi No. 1. Maybe he should catch up on the collected works of Saawan Kumar on how to get away with a doosri biwi.

The Nightingale’s Flyover Symphony: Who would’ve thought an innocent declaration (that she’d rather not stay in Mumbai if a flyover was made across her home) would have Mumbai screeching against the country’s Bharat Ratna? Democracy, anyone? For weeks and months the press couldn’t get enough sound bytes on the importance of being Lata Mangeshkar. Strangely, the bridge has gone into a fridge for now.

Ash...Din Din Ka Fera: One thing must be said about the ‘fan’ from South Africa who sent Aishwarya Rai a small fortune in an envelope. He was no fan. Look at the chakkar that he put the beautiful actress in. Ash even had to fly down from Jaipur where she was shooting for Jodha-Akbar. From riding horses to battling controversies Ash did it all with dignity.

Salman’s Buck-ingham Palace: Can any year be complete without Salman’s scandalous doings? The black buck case cropped up again. This year Salman went back to jail, albeit for just a few days. Then the bail. Is ko kehte hain waqt ka khel. Salman also lost his hair, and not because of the jail ka khaana. All this added up to exorbitant delays in the completion of Jaan-e-Mann, Baabul and God, Tussi Great Ho.

Katrina’s Ahem, HemLine: Bare legs at a dargah…not done! Religious protesters wanted Katrina to…it isn’t clear what they really wanted her to do! Cover her legs or cover her. Maybe, just free tickets for Vipul Shah’s Namaste London? Or maybe they wanted bottles of the hair remover that preserved those amazing legs.

Salman-John, HELLO BROTHER- Bye Bye: Filmy friendships couldn’t get flimsier. While John kept mum, Salman made snide remarks about John at any given opportunity. So what happened between them during their Rock Stars concert? Maybe Mallika Sherawat has some answers?

Bipasha Ko Kis ne Chheda: Something happened during her ride to New Jersey for the Independence Day celebrations. The guys who drove her down made indecent comments. Bips refused to keep mum. They don’t make Bengali actresses temperamental for nothing.

Aamir’s Dam BUST: The minute Aamir spoke up for the Narmada Bachao Andolan it was time for an Aamir Bachao Andolan. A particular political party banned Aamir and his film Fanaa from Gujarat. Yash Raj Films wondered if casting another Khan apart from Shah Rukh was such a good idea after all.

Kim Cho??? Did Shamita Shetty and Kim Sharma really fight over cricketer Yuvraj Singh? Doesn’t matter. Because before year-end Yuvraj was fighting with others on his birthday. That’s why they call it a bash. Sha-bash, Yuvraj!

Kangana KO Khanke: Acid shock…. Kangana’s sister was acid-attacked in Dehra Doon. Who was the goon who wanted the poor girl done in too soon? “Why am I always in the news?” Kangana moaned. It’s called success, my dear. Get used to it. Though our sympathies on this are with Kangana and Rangoli.

Sholay KE CHHOLAY: The minute Ram Gopal Varma announced his decision to do a new version of Sholay, all hell broke loose. The producers of the original Sholay got cracking. Somewhere you feel Ramu enjoys all the attention. But the constant back-and-forth on the film’s cast and intentions made this the most talked-about remake of the year.

Manisha’s Dog Day afternoon: Woof, kya mussibat hai! A very careless reporter made a hash of things by writing that Manya had a canine named after a religious prophet. Morchas were taken out, effigies burnt, and the actress was all but driven out of the city. Turned out she had no pets! Except, of course, the ones on two legs. And none of them look like a a dog, anyway!

Article Source: Telegraph India

Undertrial - First Look

2007-01-06T17:13:00.000+05:30

Rajpal Yadav is gonna change gears for the second time after Main, Meri Patni Aur Woh as Sagar Hussein. A man who rapes his own daughters or so he's accused of. Produced by Nazim Rizvi, the guy accused of being involved with the Underworld during the release of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke. Music by Anu Malik & Shamir Tandon (Page 3, Corporate, Asha & Friends)

Although Undertrial is a low budget film, Undertrial looks good from the promos. Also starring Kader Khan, Mukesh Tiwari & Prem Chopra among noticeable names.

Here's the trailer of the movie

Ajay Devgan to direct Kajol

2007-01-01T02:15:00.000+05:30

Ajay Devgan, who is all set to play Veeru in RGV’s Sholay, is now going to direct a romantic film Main Tum Aur Hum.

The film will star himself and opposite him will be his wife, Kajol. Ajay and Kajol have done a number of films together which include Dil Kya Kare, Ishq, Pyar Toh Hona Hi Tha and the relative fiasco Raju Chacha. Main Tum Aur Hum is based on a story written by Ajay Devgan himself. Ajay has roped in cinematographer Aseem Prakash Bajaj (who shot with him in Zameen and Golmaal) for his directorial debut. According to Aseem, the plot will is very touching and romantic. It talks about love, commitment, and the institution of marriage, something that Ajay-Kajol will easily be able to identify with.

As sources have it, Ajay hopes to restore his production house in a big way with this film, which showcases his direction and acting talents with his wife.

Main Tum Aur Hum will go on floors in the month of April next year.

Source: India FM

SRK's plans for KBC

2007-01-01T02:09:00.000+05:30

True to his style and brand of dedication Shah Rukh Khan is working hard at getting into the skin of his new job.

In preparation for taking on the mantle of the country’s hottest game show job, the actor has put up imitation sets of Kaun Banega Crorepati at his home, Mannat in Bandra, Mumbai.

He has also asked friends to play contestants at the show.

Above: Farah Khan attempts to impress SRK with her GK.

Source: Bollypress

Ram Gopal Varma Ke Sholay - First Look

2007-01-01T01:55:00.000+05:30

A train pulls into C.S.T. station and two young men step off. It’s their very first visit to Mumbai city. Only they are not here to visit. They have arrived with dreams of buying Mumbai out.

Poor deluded fools, you might think… but that’s only till the first time you run into them. After that, it’ll be clear enough who’s deluded and who has just been made the fool.

For this is a pair of street toughs par excellence… Jai, the younger of the two looks up to Veeru for guidance. Veeru in turn looks out for him. The pair’s loyalty to one another is absolute.

Virendra Chavan (Ajay Devgan) and Jai Ranade (Prashant Raj) grew up in Latur together, where they came to be known to their town folk as Veeru & Jai. From their early days, the young men admired success and strength and sought in every which way to emulate it.

Veeru went to work as a bodyguard for Sharad Patil, the local political heavyweight. But, when Patil went to jail in a scam, he lost his job. It was then that idea of coming to Mumbai took his fancy. As expected, his prodigy Jai tagged along.

So Mumbai it was…

Within a week of their arrival on the recommendation of an old acquaintance of theirs called Soorma (Rajpal Yadav) who runs a dance bar, they found work with Shambhul Seth, a criminal with heavy underworld connections and also high on the police scanner.

In his pursuit of Shambhul, the Inspector Ranveer (Mohanlal) came into contact with Veeru and Jai. On meeting them, he realized that these were no hardened criminals. Small time hoodlums, perhaps, but deep inside their values were still intact. He chose to appeal to the honesty in them.

He exposed them to Shambhul’s criminal past. Veeru and Jai were surprised by this. They agreed to help in whatever way they could. The inspector in the process of trying to get Shambhul got into a deadly trap and both Veeru and Jai in a show of extraordinary courage and strength managed to rescue him and managed to finish off Shambhul seth. But in the bargain, Veeru and Jai had to be arrested as well for associating with a criminal and for a while went to jail.

Much later, when the inspector needed help in his hunt for Gabbar Singh (Amitabh Bachchan), his brief impression of these two young men returned to him. Since he could not expect the police to help in a quest for personal revenge, and his principles would not allow him to turn to the underworld for help, he decided to enlist the help of Veeru and Jai.

Source: INDIA FM

KBC very close to my heart: SRK

2007-01-01T01:43:00.000+05:30

NEW DELHI: Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, who succeeds Amitabh Bachchan as the new host of the highly popular TV show Kaun Banega Crorepati, said yesterday he would try to bring his personality into the show even while making sure it did not lose its earlier appeal. "It’s very special for me because I am going to host such a beautiful show," Khan said at a press conference here.

He was named to host the show last week in place of Bachchan who steered it from 2000 for two seasons.

"It is very, very close to my heart like to the millions of people in the country. It is smart, classy, cool and hopefully I will not bring it down and keep it as it was earlier," Khan said. The show goes on air in January next year.

To a question, he said: "The show has a set format. In fact, it has an international format. And I hope, I will bring my personality into it. Undoubtedly, the current popularity of the show is due to Mr Bachchan and I hope I maintain that."

He said he was "honoured that Sameer Nair (CEO of Star Entertainment India) and Siddharth Basu (quiz master) thought that I am good enough to join the show."

"The second part of my happiness is that I am being able to do it in my city of joy, that is New Delhi. I am also very happy that once again I am coming back on television from where I started my career."

Commenting on the format of the show he said: "We will surely present it in a new way. There would be something new in the show. You will find changes in the format. Technically also we have moved ahead - like the number of phone calls and SMSes have gone up. As far as the actual creativeness is concerned, we will start working on it now."

Nair, who was present at the conference, said that KBC was the most important show of Star because it had boosted its ratings and catapulted it to No 3 position from No 7.

"We have signed a fresh contract and now KBC will be on air till 2012, but it is going to be a seasonal thing. We will have 52 to 60 episodes per calendar year," said Nair.

He said he was confident that Khan would take the show on the road to success.

"When Amitabh Bachchan declined the offer we thought Shahrukh is the only person to carry it further. We are thankful to him for accepting the challenge."

Basu was equally confident about Khan.

"Shahrukh is classy, charming and smart. He is one of the most entertaining actors. He is going to be superb on the show because he has got the wit and intelligence."

The show will be telecast four days a week from Monday to Thursday. – IANS

Source: Gulf Times

Shahrukh - Amitabh War Intensifies

2007-01-01T01:33:00.000+05:30

All is not well between Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. The war has intensified. Latest, Big B is miffed that SRK snatched Kaun Banega Crorepati 3 right from under his nose.

There were cold vibes between them at Anupam Kher's son's (Sikander Kher) party, recently. While AB and SRK said the cold cordial hello, the rest of the Bachchan parivar looked right through Khan. Throughout the night, not a single word was exchanged between the camps.

Source: Bollyvista

Taran Adarsh does it again!

2006-12-30T22:31:00.000+05:30

Last time I was reading his review of Don and how nice was it of Taran Adarsh to spoil the suspense of the movie by revealing that Boman Irani was a negative character when one hasn't seen the movie yet.

Today, I, out of curiosity check out reviews of "I See You" starring Arjun Rampal and Bingo! India's No. 1 Film Critic, Mr. Taran Adarsh makes sure that you know who the killer is in the movie! Just a word of caution: Don't read his reviews if you want to watch a movie.

Both Farhan Akhtar and now, Vivek Agrawal should sue Taran Adarsh for publicly letting out the secrets of a thriller.

Die TARAN ADARSH Die!!!!!!!

Return of the Don!

2006-12-30T17:14:00.000+05:30

What happens when a Hindi film becomes a blockbuster? You make a sequel, damnit! So to the long list of remakes and sequels, add the latest one which is basically the first sequel to a remake of a Hindi movie. Farhan Akhtar has announced that the sequel to Don, rumours of which had started hitting the headlines soon before Don was released, will be made.

The only star which 'Don 2' also known as 'Return of the Don' as of now will retain is of course, Shahrukh Khan himself. The movie will be co-produced by Excel Entertainments, Ritesh Sidhwani's company which has produced all of Farhan's earlier films, Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya & Don. Shahrukh's company, Red Chillies Entertainment will be producing it.

Here's looking forward to the sequel.

Namaste London - First Look

2006-12-30T16:48:00.000+05:30

Post Aankhen & Waqt, Vipul Shah & Akshay Kumar are back with Namaste London starring Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Riteish Deshmukh, Bobby Deol, Upen Patel, Rishi Kapoor & Javaid Sheikh. Namaste London will also see the return of the ghost who haunts- Himesh Reshammiya! The picture above was taken on the Sets of Namaste London and to me it finally proves one thing- Riteish Deshmukh is squint / cock-eyed. LOL, just take a look at the picture above. Anyways here's the first trailer / promo of the movie which was aired recently and basically has Akshay as Santa Claus wishing all the viewers. Check it out:

Picture Source: IndiaFM

And now a sequel to Andaz Apna Apna...

2006-12-30T14:30:00.000+05:30

The super success of sequels like Phir Hera Pheri, Krrish, Lage Raho Munnabhai and the recent Dhoom 2 has prompted producer Vinay Kumar Sinha to plan a sequel to Aamir-n-Salman-Khan rib tickling comedy ‘Andaz Apna Apna’. The producer is saying that if the stars agree then the sequel will be as good as the original. ‘AAA’ didn’t too well at the Box Office then, but it happens to be one of the most-often-played film on local Cable as well as TV Channels ensuring that the producer has had his returns over a period of time.

Sinha says that he has spoken to Raj Kumar Santoshi, the director of the film and he has promised that he shall try and bring the same cast together if possible. Santoshi is currently shooting for ‘Hall Bol’ with Ajay Devgan while Sinha’s next film will be a film directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia. ‘Andaz Apna Apna’ saw a great chemistry between Aamir and Salman even though they parted ways after the film due to differences on the sets while the making of the movie. They’ve grown-up and wisened up too and are very-much-friends. Let’s hope that the two say yes to this one as both have mastered the art of comic timing.

Atif Aslam- Doorie

2006-12-30T00:29:00.000+05:30

Pakistani vocalist Atif Aslam after rocking it with his voice in Aadat, Woh Lamhe and the recent Tere Bin from the movie Bas Ek Pal has finally launched his first Indian Solo Album, its called Doorie. The track is above average and of course there's something about Atif's voice that makes an ordinary track special. Here's the video that was aired on MTV. The only sad thing is first it was movies where they stole concepts, ideas or the entire thing. The trend has been followed in Music Videos as well. This one is no different either. The video is a complete copy of "In The Shadows" by Rasmus with shades of "Khamaj" (Morra Saiyyan) by Fuzon in it.

Dhoom 2 Spoof

2006-12-29T23:12:00.000+05:30

The Comedy Ha! Ha! Ha! Dhoom 2 Spoof from Star One

Starring Abhishek Bachchan, Sanjay Gadhvi, Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai, Yash Chopra & Uday Chopra! Hillarious!

Dhoom 3: Larger Than Life!!!

2006-12-29T22:08:00.000+05:30

If the rumours are anything but to be believed, then the director replacing Sanjay Gadhvi for the third installment of Yash Raj Films' Dhoom is none other than the head honcho of Yash Raj Films who has been on a hiatus as a director for 6 full years now. Yes! Aditya Chopra is supposed to be directing the third part of Dhoom.

Now if you thought that that was big, then read this: Abhishek Bachchan will not be a part of Dhoom 3 as the new cop in this new film is supposed to be none other than Mr. Perfect, the short in height and tall in stature, Aamir "The Ace" Khan! And although everything is being kept under wraps, if Aamir has signed the movie then that means that the script is definitely rocking and at par with Aditya Chopra standard (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge, Mohabbatein).

Uday Chopra, of course stays because

He is Aditya Chopra's brother and Yash Chopra's son
He's been a great comic relief and very entertaining in the first two movies
He is highly under rated as an actor. His performance in Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai, Mohabbatein, Dhoom & Dhoom 2 were great. Forget about Neal 'N' Nikki. Pretend it never happened. After all, mistakes do happen.
Forget the fact that he looks like a frog, at least he's got a nice physique if nothing else.
Ali's character is that of a ruffian chengra and Uday perfectly fits the bill ;)

And to finally seal it, Adi has signed the King, Shahrukh Khan as the villain in the third part!
So if things go well, Aditya Chopra may become the first, and who knows the only director to direct these two larger-than-life Khans in the same movie! Personally I feel, Aamir is gonna kick-ass! End of post.

Hrithik's erection in Dhoom 2 Poster

2006-12-29T22:07:00.000+05:30

I know this is weird but I couldn't but adding it on in this post itself. I dunno if I'm the only one or other people have taken note as well, take a look at the D:2 poster:

Abhishek looks like a completely doped, half-asleep, bearded guy who hasn't taken a bath for ages but has a fancy for gay t-shirts but what surprises me even more is umm... its bad but take a look at Hrithik's willy, hard-on lmao! I never knew Ash & Bips would have this effect on him. LOL wtf was he fantasizing? Not Uday Chopra I hope.

Anyways, here's the D:2 trailer which looks alot better than what comes on TV. Enjoy.

The Blue Umbrella

2006-12-29T22:05:00.000+05:30

Post-Omkara, Vishal Bharadwaj is back with Pankaj Kapur again! This time they're making a kids' film, The Blue Umbrella earlier titled 'Chattri Chor'. The movie is supposed to be based on the chapter, "The Umbrella Man" which many have read in schools.

The music is composed by Bharadwaj again and the lyrics are by Gulzaar again! The title track "Meri Aasmani Chattri" is already on air and personally, I love the track! The movie has a new girl Shreya Sharma in a very pivotal role and is produced by Ronnie Screwvala (UTV Classics).

The movie is scheduled for a May 2007 release.

Muvie Geek goes to new heights

2006-12-29T10:36:00.000+05:30

Exams are tearing me apart head to toe but that being said, Muvie Geek is going to blast as a rocking Bollywood in days to come. Sources close to my head say so. Without getting into further details, all I wanna say is that for all the time and effort that I have been putting into this blog, I've decided that a Bolly Website + Bolly Forum for all Bollywood fans is on the way.

Till then, keep watching this space.

Is Kunal Kapoor the next big thing?

2006-12-29T09:11:00.000+05:30

Though Kunal Kapoor has come a long way since his sophomore days when his voice had to be dubbed in M.F Husain's Meenaxi, he discovered himself talking in another voice in the new Cola ad which everyone is talking about.

How did that happen? "Well... I was out of town. They had to quickly release the ad because they wanted it to coincide with the mini World Cup. Anyway, I've been assured it won't happen again." Kunal can afford to be generous about such vocal aberrations. He's currently riding a new high.

While all eyes are glued to John Abraham, Saif Ali Khan and Abhishek Bachchan for their posh endorsement schemes, Kunal Kapoor is quietly but unmistakenly creeping up on the in-your-face brigade as one of the most viable names for brand endorsement.

According to a head of a prominent ad agency, "After the cola ad and the shirts ad Kunal is seen as a leading choice for ads about the boy next door."

Laughs Kunal, "I like that cola ad about the man and his aerated drink. Thums Up is a big brand endorsed earlier by big names like Salman and Akshay. Now we suddenly have this newcomer doing it. Feels good where I am…."

About the cola ad being sexist ("tum nahin samjhogi" ) Kunal jokes, "It's an interesting theory… nothing comes between the man and his cola."

Kunal is choosing his roles very carefully. "Rang De Basanti gave me choices. I suddenly got a lot more work. Everyone benefited from it. It was not the actors so much as the film. I haven't signed too many films, only Pradeep Sarkar's and Milan Luthria's. I don't mind waiting. I waited after my first film Meenaxi to do RDB, and it wasn't frustrating."

As for good friend Raima Sen, "As dull and boring as it sounds, I don't enjoy talking about my personal relationship. I acknowledge Raima as a friend, that's all. What I find strange is when I'm asked to define any relationship in my life. Whether a parent sister or girlfriend, you limit the relationship by defining it."

Source: IndiaFM

Sunil Pal does a Himesh Reshammiya

2006-12-25T21:29:00.000+05:30

The video reveals a lot of things, like where Himesh got his inspiration to compose from. Sorry guys, you need to understand Hindi coz there are no subtitles.

Sunil Shetty gives acting classes

2006-12-25T21:09:00.000+05:30

Sunil Pal as Sunil Shetty giving acting classes to Shahrukh Khan & Dilip Kumar.

Jack Black is the new "Spiderman"

2006-12-25T21:07:00.000+05:30

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna Review: Not as gay as Karan Johar- 6/10

2006-12-25T11:59:00.000+05:30

Directed By: Karan Johar
Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Priety Zinta, Abhishek Bacchan, Rani Mukherjee, Amitabh Bachchan, Kiron Kher

I finally managed to see KANK. Been waiting to see it for such long time but I didn't really miss anything knowing that what I missed was a bad movie, courtesy: all the movie bashing done by the movie critics. Last night I saw KANK and realized how wrong the critics are. Once again, I've been fooled and I feel betrayed.

So is KANK a nice movie? Is KANK a masterpiece? Well, not really. But it does manage to touch my heart and I just can't understand why when I am not the kind of person who'd appreciate such kind of cinema. Maybe its because Karan Johar's effort behind making this movie are completely geniune and he has tried to make something more realistic, moving away from his fairy land characters and situations.

Extra Marital Affair is basically nothing new in a country which is ruled by Daily Soaps loaded with the who's-slept-with-who material, KANK is different. It touched my heart to see the way Karan Johar has addressed the issue. Of course there are, no doubt, parts in the movie where you'd want to go to sleep. Parts in the movie where you'd feel that wasn't this where the movie was supposed to have ended? But no my child, its a song going on there.

One thing I definitely learnt from watching KANK is that SRK got bad taste in women. Who on God's green Earth would leave someone as gorgeous as the mmm- Priety Zinta and go for a Rani Mukherjee, its unrealistic. Probably that's the only thing that's illogical in the entire movie. The movie isn't that bad guys, apparently I ended up enjoying it. The personal touch thingy worked for me.

Now coming to the story, a one legged freak realizes that he is jealous of his wife's $$$ and since there's nothing better to do when he is the protagonist, he decides to have an extra marital affair. We have a horny young married man who wants sex sex and more sex and unfortunately doesn't get it from a wife who's half his size. The wife, my friend, is a b*tch and she doesn't like what's being served at home post-dinner, she likes what's being served outside so she goes to this one legged ex-footballer and sleeps with him, enjoys it a lot (ref: the one tear that comes out after sleeping for the first time) and goes back home and tells her man everything so that he can dump her. The horny stupid man leaves her. The one legged man goes and tells his wife everything and she too, dumps him. So these two people live alone for 3 years not realizing that the other has also been rejected by her sex-partner. They sing the KANK title track and finally when Karan Johar realizes that 3 hours have been completed to make sure that his piece is the masterpiece, he decides to finally end the movie (yay!) with these two finding out about the other's single status and deciding to live their "Naajayaz" lives together. The lonely horny man, too gets married and his ex-wife is the Best Man in the wedding.

So what's so touching about it, you ask? The geniune efforts, I'd say. I mean, trust me, the characterisation is sooooooo correct I can't understand how he got it right. Amitabh Bachchan is the superior most performance of the whole lot followed up by the Himesh Resshammiya of our film industry, Abhishek Bachchan. Surprisingly and unfortunately for me, I liked him here. Shahrukh, it seems was confused at parts as to how would a frustrated gray character like his react to a normal situation. His performance is good, no doubt about that, but he just ended up over acting in some parts of the movie (ref: the last scene where he gets down on his knees) but other than that, he was good!

Coming to the females, Kiron Kher is honestly not even worth mentioning, she's just there with her bulky wholesome body and her macho pathetic smile. Rani Mukherjee gives a great performance but what good is a performance like hers when you have someone as gorgeous as Priety Zinta sharing the screen space with her. Priety Zinta is hot-------hot--------hotttt! How I wish, if I was Dev Saran, I would've slept with Rani, tell her she was too ugly for me and carry on having an amazing sex life with Priety Zinta ;) Ah damn! Life sucks I guess.

The film scores as far as its visual appeal goes with every frame looking picture perfect. Well, why wouldn't they? Johar spent huge cash on shooting the film in some of the best locations in the world. Well, you didn't need to spend that much to tell a story so simple but its commendable, the way the frames have come out. It was a pleasure to check out the locales.

Musically too, KANK is very rich with Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy deserving full marks for their scores. The only problem is that there is too much of the sleepy dizzy feel in the songs and sometimes you feel like, "wasn't this track already done in the movie?"... No, my child, its a different track with the same tune and the same sleepy dizzy feel to it.

None the less, KANK works for me. The dialogues are very nice and if nothing, watch it for your partner who's cheating on you behind your back, who knows? your best friend might be sleeping with him / her. That is exactly the message that KANK delivers, and scores.

6/10

Water is Canada's official entry for Oscar nomination

2006-12-25T11:58:00.000+05:30

Indians should be proud that Canada has sent the Deepa Mehta directed "Water" as its official entry for the Oscar Nominations this year. This makes it the second India-based film that goes for the nomination this year besides Rang De Basanti, of course.

Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta's controversial film ''Water'' is in the running for the prestigious Oscar award this year as Canada's official entry in the best foreign language category. The decision to enter ''Water'', which is made in Hindi language with some portions in English, was announced by Telefilm Canada. A special Oscar committee will screen ''Water'' and 82 other entries to determine the five nominees. The film starring John Abraham, Lisa Ray and Seema Biswas deals with the subject of the plight of Hindu widows and is Mehta's third film, completing her elemental trilogy series after ''Fire'' and ''Earth''. All the three movies were Indo-Canadian co-productions.

The film, apparently had a lot of problems with Hindu fundamentalists not letting the shooting of the movie proceed and hence the Banaras shown in the movie is actually, Sri Lanka.

Incidentally it seems that Deepa Mehta has previously been in good company too. She had directed Aamir Khan in her 1998 release, 1947: Earth which received a lot of critical acclaim. Besides being Indian, Rang De Basanti and Water share another thing in common- both of them have Waheeda Rehman, the versatile classic Indian actress starring in them.

Haven't seen Water but from what I've heard, its brilliant. So here's wishing Water all the best for the Oscar race! May the best "muvie" win.

Aamir's Oscar Plans for Rang De Basanti

2006-12-24T22:45:00.000+05:30

Aamir Khan is not new to the Oscar race. He has been there before when his home production Lagaan was nominated for the 2002 Academy Awards.

Now, his film Rang De Basanti has been selected as India's entry to the Oscars, and the race has begun once again.

"Our main aim is to promote the movie as effectively as possible," Aamir says. "If it being my second visit to the Oscars generates curiosity in people, it is ultimately good and beneficial for the movie. I will definitely use all my contacts and advise the director and producer at all times."

The nominations in the Best Foreign Film category will be announced on January 23, 2007, and producer UTV head honcho Ronnie Screwvala has little time to waste.

"It's too early for us to elaborate on the Oscar plan," he says. "From an Indian perspective, it has been a landmark year where a lot of movies and directors have broken the mould and made spectacular cinema. It's a bigger complement to the audience as for the first time, they have proved that they are open to new genres. At the end of that, one movie had to be short-listed. We are happy that it's ours. The jury in India has done its job and the onus is on us now to take it to the next level. Our focus is to give it more than our best shot, pull out all the stops and commit whatever resources it takes to make it happen."

He continues, "Our job is to see that all 500 people, who constitute the jury in the foreign language film category actually watch the film. It's important that we go out and position the film very well. We will communicate to the jury the effect the film has had in its home country and the markets worldwide where it was shown."

Screwvala also hopes to change the perception that Hindi movies are very long, with a lot of songs.

"Besides, since Aamir has been there four years ago, there is a familiarity about him. We will announce that the actor in Lagaan, which got nominated in 2002, is back," he says.

He plans to draw resources and expertise from his partners 20th Century Fox and Disney. His offices in Los Angeles and New York are also working on a strategic plan.

The budget for promoting the film for the Oscar race has not been decided upon yet.

Screwvala claims that he has no plans for lobbying his film abroad. "Lobbying implies that you go to each person and ask him or her to vote for you," he says. "If you lobby, you get disqualified. So we have no plans for that. Our job is to see that the maximum people come, watch the movie and then decide."

Rang De Basanti has been screened in various universities in India and abroad, with about 7,000 students and more. Screwvala claims that students abroad have instantly bonded with the film's theme because the issue is universal in many ways.

Music composer A R Rahman has performed in number of concerts across the East Coast of US promoting Rang De Basanti.

If Rang De Basanti gets nominated, director Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra, Aamir Khan and Screwvala will go to Los Angeles for the Oscar Awards ceremony.

Rang De Oscar Entry not unexpected: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

2006-12-24T22:41:00.000+05:30

Mumbai, Sep 30 (IANS) Director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is not entirely surprised by "Rang De Basanti" (RDB) being selected as India's entry to the Oscars.

"Somewhere deep down in my heart I thought in totality as a cinematic experience RDB deserved the chance to represent our country," Mehra told IANS.

Mehra, whose film was appreciated at the Golden Globe awards, said they have to make sure jury members view the film.

"Oscars are a different experience. You enter the film into the event and then pass it on to the jury members who might or might not see your film. And when they see, it's a film from this part of the world they might not even open the envelope.

So, he feels the first concrete step towards getting into the foreign-film short-list is to change the mindset of the jury.

Excerpts:

How have people responded to "Range De Basanti" being sent to the Oscars?

You know Lata bai (Mangeshkar) called up to congratulate me. It was such a glorious moment for me. She cannily pointed out that our films are still not taken seriously out West and how much we need to change that. She hopes RDB will do it. I hope so too.

RDB's selection was only expected?

Not entirely unexpected. The Oscar has been acknowledged by the film fraternity all over the world as one of the premier recognitions. From our childhood we've seen the Oscar ceremonies as the ultimate glamour celebration of cinema.

RDB was almost the unanimous choice for the Oscars.

Yes, it's as though the film belongs to everybody. People from the media, film fraternity and the audience now own the film.

What do you think our chances are?

If my experience with the Golden Globe jury is anything to go by, then we've a lot to look forward to. But the Oscars are a different experience. You enter the film into the event and then pass it on to the jury members who might or might not see your film. And when they see, it's a film from this part of the world they might not even open the envelope.

So, how do we go about it?

The first step towards getting into the foreign-film short-list is to change their mindset. We cannot go and say, 'Listen we are dying to get your award. So give it to us.' It has to be, 'It's time you sat up and took notice of what we're doing.'

Any cultural or artistic relationship depends on mutual respect and admiration. We cannot go on being these poor country cousins.

The song-and-dance image must go.

I guess it has become kind of fashionable out there to look at us like that. I feel this kind of international platform is very important for Indian films - I can't bring myself to call it Bollywood.

It gives you an extended space for your film to do business. If in the West they've created international cinematic platforms like BAFTA, Golden Globe and the Oscars it's somewhere because it has an economic spin-off. The stronger we get financially, the more we'd be able to make the kind of movies we want to and we should.

Aamir Khan pushed and pushed "Lagaan". It didn't win the Oscar. Will you leave the Oscar-marketing to the producer?

I'm half the producer of RDB. We've been discussing the marketing strategy. Now that we've the nomination we'll park ourselves in LA. We've already done some groundwork and we'll take it from there.

I'm very confident because my producer Ronnie Screwvala has considerable experience in LA. His company has tied up with film companies out there. And he's already doing films with them. On the other end we've Aamir and his uphill experience with the Oscar during "Lagaan". We've their joint experiences to tap from.

What's the immediate next step?

Talking and forming a precise strategy on paper and following it. The US is such a huge country. We here may feel a lot of people have already seen RDB. But a lot more people need to see it, regardless of whether it makes it to the final five list or not.

What did you think of the other films in the Oscar reckoning like "Omkara" and "Lage Raho Munna Bhai"?

I was in very good company. We had some good movies this year. But somewhere deep down in my heart I thought in totality as a cinematic experience RDB deserved the chance to represent our country.

We've all worked very hard on it. We've the best wishes of the country. We'll do our best. But India needs to let the West know how much RDB deserves to be noticed. Right now I'm off to the Bollywood awards in Melbourne, which RDB opens. Then there is Hawaii Film Festival - that's where our film goes in the next month. But we'll be planning our Oscar strategy. We've already zeroed in on which PR agency to hire.

What do you think of Deepa Mehta's "Water" getting selected as Canada's official entry to the Oscars?

A: It's so interesting. A Hindi film from Canada! I think it is really heartening. It's a huge pointer to what's happening to Hindi cinema.

Sunil Shetty is "The Biggest Loser"

2006-12-24T17:00:00.000+05:30

Haha again Sunil Shety has lived upto his image of being a loser. Sunil Shetty will be hosting the Indian Version of "The Biggest Loser" which will be a fitness game show based on weight loss.

This isn’t one of those lame reality shows (I am still traumatized by Temptation Island) but actually revolves around fitness which Shetty bhai knows a lot about! The contestants of this show would be overweight and the challenge lies them in losing the weight. The person who loses the weight the fastest(and more healthier, I hope)will gets the cash prize. Rahul Aggarwal of Star Entertainments Private Limited has acquired the license of the show.

Well Well, I'd like to tell the participants of the show that you can lose as much weight as you want but the title of "The Biggest Loser" had, is and will always remain with the host of the game show!

Rang De loses to the Golden Globe Awards

2006-12-24T13:25:00.000+05:30

Its sad I know I know but unfortunately the Golden Globe Awards Nomination List for 2007 is out and Rang De Basanti has not been nominated. Without getting into any kind of debate of how Rang De deserved the award or atleast the nomination, I would like to say that most of the movies nominated in this category are masterpieces and without seeing them, I will not comment but just coz I had seen RDB & it was so close to my heart, here's my message to Mr. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra- you and your team are big time winners. An award does matter but may be not so much, not that you have a choice now---Ha Ha! Losers! Lol, I'm just kidding man. I'm so sorry for you people, well, atleast you've got your own shaere of Filmfares, National Awards & the whole big list of Bollywood Awards that keep coming up every year.

Anyways, here's the 2007 Golden Globe Awards Nomination.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama

Nominees:

Leonardo DiCaprio for Blood Diamond (2006)

Leonardo DiCaprio for The Departed (2006)

Peter O'Toole for Venus (2006/I)

Will Smith for The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland (2006)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama

Nominees:

Penélope Cruz for Volver (2006/I)

Judi Dench for Notes on a Scandal (2006)

Maggie Gyllenhaal for SherryBaby (2006)

Helen Mirren for The Queen (2006)

Kate Winslet for Little Children (2006)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Nominees:

Sacha Baron Cohen for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)

Johnny Depp for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Aaron Eckhart for Thank You for Smoking (2005)

Chiwetel Ejiofor for Kinky Boots (2005)

Will Ferrell for Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Nominees:

Annette Bening for Running with Scissors (2006)

Toni Collette for Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Beyoncé Knowles for Dreamgirls (2006)

Meryl Streep for The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Renée Zellweger for Miss Potter (2006)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Nominees:

Ben Affleck for Hollywoodland (2006)

Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls (2006)

Jack Nicholson for The Departed (2006)

Brad Pitt for Babel (2006)

Mark Wahlberg for The Departed (2006)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Nominees:

Adriana Barraza for Babel (2006)

Cate Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal (2006)

Emily Blunt for The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls (2006)

Rinko Kikuchi for Babel (2006)

Best Director - Motion Picture

Nominees:

Clint Eastwood for Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Clint Eastwood for Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

Stephen Frears for The Queen (2006)

Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel (2006)

Martin Scorsese for The Departed (2006)

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture

Nominees:

Babel (2006): Guillermo Arriaga

The Departed (2006): William Monahan

Little Children (2006): Todd Field, Tom Perrotta

Notes on a Scandal (2006): Patrick Marber

The Queen (2006): Peter Morgan

Best Original Song - Motion Picture

Nominees:

Bobby (2006)("Never Gonna Break My Faith")

Dreamgirls (2006)("Listen")

Happy Feet (2006)("The Song of the Heart")

Home of the Brave (2006)("Try Not to Remember")

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)("A Father's Way")

Best Original Score - Motion Picture

Nominees:

Babel (2006): Gustavo Santaolalla

The Da Vinci Code (2006): Hans Zimmer

The Fountain (2006): Clint Mansell

Nomad (2005/II): Carlo Siliotto

The Painted Veil (2006): Alexandre Desplat

Best Foreign Language Film

Nominees:

Apocalypto (2006)

Laberinto del Fauno, El (2006)

Leben der Anderen, Das (2006)

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

Volver (2006/I)

Best Animated Film

Nominees:

Cars (2006)

Happy Feet (2006)

Monster House (2006)

Best Television Series - Drama

Nominees:

"24" (2001)

"Big Love" (2006)

"Grey's Anatomy" (2005)

"Heroes" (2006/II)

"Lost" (2004)

Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy

Nominees:

"Desperate Housewives" (2004)

"Entourage" (2004)

"The Office" (2005)

"Ugly Betty" (2006)

"Weeds" (2005)

Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Nominees:

"Bleak House" (2005)

"Broken Trail" (2006) (mini)

Elizabeth I (2005) (TV)

Mrs. Harris (2005) (TV)

Prime Suspect: The Final Act (2006) (TV)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

Nominees:

Andre Braugher for "Thief" (2006)

Robert Duvall for "Broken Trail" (2006) (mini)

Michael Ealy for "Sleeper Cell" (2005)

Chiwetel Ejiofor for Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006) (TV)

Ben Kingsley for Mrs. Harris (2005) (TV)

Bill Nighy for Gideon's Daughter (2005) (TV)

Matthew Perry for The Ron Clark Story (2006) (TV)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

Nominees:

Gillian Anderson for "Bleak House" (2005)

Annette Bening for Mrs. Harris (2005) (TV)

Helen Mirren for Elizabeth I (2005) (TV)

Helen Mirren for Prime Suspect: The Final Act (2006) (TV)

Sophie Okonedo for Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006) (TV)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy

Nominees:

Alec Baldwin for "30 Rock" (2006)

Zach Braff for "Scrubs" (2001)

Steve Carell for "The Office" (2005)

Jason Lee for "My Name Is Earl" (2005)

Tony Shalhoub for "Monk" (2002)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy

Nominees:

Marcia Cross for "Desperate Housewives" (2004)

America Ferrera for "Ugly Betty" (2006)

Felicity Huffman for "Desperate Housewives" (2004)

Julia Louis-Dreyfus for "The New Adventures of Old Christine" (2006)

Mary-Louise Parker for "Weeds" (2005)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama

Nominees:

Patrick Dempsey for "Grey's Anatomy" (2005)

Michael C. Hall for "Dexter" (2006)

Hugh Laurie for "House M.D." (2004)

Bill Paxton for "Big Love" (2006)

Kiefer Sutherland for "24" (2001)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama

Nominees:

Patricia Arquette for "Medium" (2005)

Edie Falco for "The Sopranos" (1999)

Evangeline Lilly for "Lost" (2004)

Ellen Pompeo for "Grey's Anatomy" (2005)

Kyra Sedgwick for "The Closer" (2005)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Nominees:

Thomas Haden Church for "Broken Trail" (2006) (mini)

Jeremy Irons for Elizabeth I (2005) (TV)

Justin Kirk for "Weeds" (2005)

Masi Oka for "Heroes" (2006/II)

Jeremy Piven for "Entourage" (2004)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Nominees:

Emily Blunt for Gideon's Daughter (2005) (TV)

Toni Collette for Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006) (TV)

Katherine Heigl for "Grey's Anatomy" (2005)

Sarah Paulson for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (2006)

Elizabeth Perkins for "Weeds" (2005)

Aamir Khan's Next Home-Production & Sarfarosh II

2006-12-24T12:52:00.000+05:30

For an actor to get 2 out of his 4 consecutive releases sent for an Oscar nomination, it is quite obvious that I am talking about Aamir "The Ace" Khan. The actor who post-Lagaan was in full form in Dil Chahta Hai returned to his level of film-making with Rang De Basanti. Post Rang De Basanti, Aamir was seen opposite Kajol as a terrorist in the Aditya Chopra produced & Kunal Kohli directed Fanaa which was not a very great film compared to what Aamir is capable of doing.

The actor is busy shooting his second home production post-Lagaan. The movie, as of now, titled Ghazini is being directed by a South Indian Director. Aamir was very impressed with Ghazini, a south Indian film and he, therefore the director of the film to seek possibilities of a Hindi remake. Ghazini, itself has been inspired from the Christopher Nolan directed-Memento starring Guy Pierce, Carrie Anne Moss & Joe Pantoliano. I've seen Memento and I must say that the movie is killer. Every frame perfectly shot, the movie is about a man who's wife gets raped and murdered and the man himself ends up getting terrible damages on his head and as a result fails to make any new memories from there on. His only motive in life now is to avenge his wife's death but as the tagline goes- What is the point of taking revenge from somebody when you won't even remember that you've had your revenge? The movie starts out with the last scene being the first frame, goes backwards and is definitely the best thriller I've ever seen.

Besides Ghazini, Aamir is also shooting for Mani Ratnam's Lajjo where previously Kareena Kapoor and now Konkona Sen Sharma is supposed to play Lajjo. Also, rumours have been doing rounds that there will be a sequel to Sarfarosh. It is not yet clear whether John Mathew Mathan (The original director) will be directing the second installment or not and things are in the initial stage as of now.

Krrish: The Indian Kukuboy- 4/10

2006-12-24T12:20:00.000+05:30

The Indian "Steven Spielberg" decides to explore new grounds for Indian Cinema so after delivering India's first sci-fi movie (of course movies like Mr. India or Mr. X in Bombay were just gimmicks) where Son-Roshan was highly praised for his brilliant portrayal of the autistic boy, Rohit, from whose character Robert Zemeckis drew inspiration and made Forrest Gump, there were the others too that blatantly ripped off from Rakesh Roshan's magnum opus, Koi... Mil Gaya. Steven Spielberg shamelessly made E.T- Extra Terrestrial and not only that, even the end credits were stolen by the Star Wars team.

Now the Roshans are very creative people and creativity runs in the family. Be it the theme of Karan Arjun which was copied by James Cameron for Terminator or his "Tumne Joh Kaha" from Laawaris (Akshaye Khanna, Manisha Koirala) which was copied by the music band Aqua who took all the credit for Barbie Girl not mentioning even once that it was Mr. Rajesh Roshan's original tune that inspired them. This time too, Rajesh Roshan is cheated upon by the Turkish Military that make "Dil Na Diya" from Krrish: The Indian Kukuboy their theme and deny any role of Rajesh Roshan towards its creation.

But no worries, Indian Cinema should be proud at the way its progressing with movies like Krrish. The only problem is... the progress is negative. Taran Adarsh of course, was very amused by what Stealkraft.... I mean Filmkraft had done with Krrish but I believe other people would differ... I am referring to the "thinking class" of India.

There is no doubt that Krrish: The Indian Kukuboy will be nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Story... Best Gay Movie and Best performance in a supporting role (Archana Puran Singh. She was brilliant). So back to the story, there was none to start off with but if you're asking me what the 3 hour-long Kukuboy consisted of, well. Krrish is a very intelligent boy since childhood and it seems that he has inherited "Supernatural powers" from his father who is supposed to be dead but brings in his sorry wrinkled autistic ass in the climax (oops, I spoilt the climax for you film lovers).

Krrish is special. To start off with, he is the Indian Taarzan who can communicate with the animals- something his father couldn't. Then, he is the Indian Spiderman who can jump miles high- something his father couldn't. Then, he is Indian Flash moving (ref: the climax fight) at miles per second- something his father couldn't. Then, Krrish is the Indian Pie Stiffler and has an illegitimate relationship with Rekha who looks every bit as appealing as she did in Aastha, Kama Sutra or Koi Mil Gaya- here is the only similarity that lies between grandpa Rakesh Roshan, son Hrithik Roshan and grandson, Hrithik Roshan again.

Rekha pretends to be old who's totally exhausted but like we just can't see the viagra tablets she's been hiding in her drawer for so many years or the "Paurush Jeevan" male sex capsules she mixes in Krrish's Bournvita drink (a brand endorsed by generations of family) and hopes Krrish would make her happy but instead Krrish doesn't know what to do when it feels the way it shouldn't, so he goes jumping around trees clad in the early men style and you thought that these powers were imparted onto him by Jadoo? Well, Jadoo too was blue in colour which is not a very amusing colour when it comes to films.

Anyways, that's the only logic I have for Krrish's jumping powers. Well, they're not from Jadoo because Jadoo needed sunlight for his powers to work, remember? Here Krrish wears a cheap leather jacket and runs day and night irrespective of wtf Jadoo thinks about it. However, if we do accept the fact that Krrish would powered by "Paurush Jeevan" sex capsules, I still don't understand how Rohit, who was in direct contact with Jadoo kept on crying like a wissy boy when bad boy Naseer was bullying him and he couldn't defend himself against Naseer has a son who can do things differently. Quite Honestly, when you have a movie as original as Krrish, logic doesn't really matter.

Again Priyanka Chopra is supposed to be the Indian Lois Lane who works in a news channel situated in Singapore, which is run in the language of India- Hindi! Has 100% Pure Indian Staff and airs shows on Monkeys & Naseeruddin Shahs. Their Indian Boss, Archana Puran Singh seems to have taken the heavy responsibility of entertaining everyone watching the movie Krrish with her comic timings.

Naseeruddin Shah as Dr. Arya is another amazing performance to watch out for. Here, we have another Indian scientist in Singapore running a multi-billionaire company. Not just Naseer but even the other men of important positions in the company are Indians, of course. Sharat Saxena looks less like a scientist and more like a wannabe-Subedar who never made it to the army, Indian Army of course. Even the Press Conference held in Singapore by Naseeruddin Shah have reporters who ask him questions in Hindi only and he replies... in Hindi, of course.

The beauty of Krrish- The Indian Kukuboy lies at a place you cannot see and hence you tend to get misled into believing that there is no beauty at all but there is. When was it the last time that you saw an Indian Superhero? Agreed, Sunny Deol is a very innovative man and he makes well for a poor man's Hulk + Rambo - Pakistani Terrorists = An Obese Indian Patriot. Puneet Issar did break new grounds for Indian Cinema with his Desi version of Superman but Krrish is better.

How many superheroes do you see in this world that are willing to save the world and dance around trees (in the first half) and multi-towers (in the second half) at the same time? How many superheroes have a grand mom back home who conspires against them behind their back and keeps adding "Paurush Jeewan" sex capsules in their Bournvita drinks? How many superheroes drink Bournvita on the first place??? How many superheroes are Indian?????? Krrish Krrish Krrish! is the answer that comes out of every pore of your body. Such is the magic of the Indian Kukuboy. However, if bravery needs to be awarded, there is no man braver on the scum of the Universe than Mr. Rakesh Roshan who is the true superhero of Indian Cinema and puts his life on the edge every time he's making a movie not bothering that his bald ass could get sued any moment by Hollywood directors who get his work registered as theirs but he carries on... like a true superhero! Don't be surprised if I tell you that a sequel to Krrish is already on its way to create new grounds for Indian Cinema and take it to new heights-irrespective of what the direction of the heights be... Laymen are stupid people that they choose to prefer Catwoman over Krrish- The Indian Kukuboy... coz Krrish is way better and we know it- Catwoman never got nominated for Best Film in Filmfare Awards, Krrish Will.

Hail Roshan. Hail Rekha. Hail Bollywood and Hail Paurush Jeewan.

4/10

John & Dino launch their official sites

2006-12-24T12:19:00.000+05:30

It hasn't been really long since they've been launched but it seems that stars have become a lot conscious as compared to what they were before. I love this idea of stars running their personal websites, it gives a warm touch and something for the fans to feed upon. Two websites that I learnt about while reading the newspaper were

Been to these sites and must say they're really well mantained. I loved the layouts too though I must say that Dino's site is better than John's. Why not? He's got a professional web designing behind it. Some really great pictures and fan material to be found out there, I'm sure you people will enjoy it. Am adding it to the linkage and will add more sites as I find about them.

SRK to host KBC

2006-12-24T12:18:00.000+05:30

This is without shadow of a doubt that I say that there has been a major tiff between the King Khan and the Big B. It all started with SRK teaming up with Ram Gopal Varma for Time Machine which Ramu shelved because of Bachchan's Nisshabd. Then came out SRK's version of Don which was not really a symbol of any rivalry but that soon followed up with SRK promoting every brand that was previously associated with Amitabh Bachchan. Right from the oil brand to the Polio Awareness to the endless list of products that was previously being endorsed by Big B. And now, the biggest news of them all- SRK to host KBC III. The new 'KBC' will just be called KBC without any 2, 3 or 4 in front of it. The prize money remains 2 crores but SRK's fees compared to Amitabh's is rumoured to be twice. Where Bachchan charged around 30 lacs per episode, SRK is said to be getting a whooping 75 lacs per episode and three episodes are scheduled to be shot every day. That brings SRK's daily income to 2.25 crores!

Hell, Hrithik Roshan made news with his 3 film-36 Crores Deal with Adlabs. Well, its gonna at least take Hrithik 6 months to shoot those 3 films and here we have the King of Bollywood, well he isn't called that just like that. His saleability is higher than any other star in Bollywood. SRK will be making 36 crores in a period of only 16 days! Way to go SRK. Don ko waakkai pakadna mushkil nahin..... Namumkin!

Here's a clip of his press-interview regarding him being the new host of India's most popular TV Game Show.

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has scotched media reports of his spat with mega superstar Amitabh Bachchan, saying that it was all baseless.

A section of the press had reported about the Bachchan-SRK cold war to which the actor said, "Yes, even I have read this in the newspapers. We are grown-up educated people and working professionals. In Hollywood, do you hear news like Tom Cruise bashing up Brad Pitt? Then why is such stuff carried by you here?"

SRK was at Hotel Lands End to announce his comeback to television as a new avtaar with the biggest game show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC).

"I never left TV. The journey from Fauji, a serial on the small screen, to KBC is like a home-coming. This show will have a great emotional connection," SRK said.

SRK said it was unfair to compare him with Bachchan as the latter's contribution to the world of entertainment is immense.

KBC will be aired in January next year from Monday to Thursday at 2100 hrs on StarPlus.

SRK will be reportedly paid Rs 70,000 per episode, while Bachchan used to be paid Rs 40,000 per episode.

WHY SRK'S KBC LOGO IS RED

Shah Rukh Khan seemed to be in an unbelievably good mood at the press meet for Kaun Banega Crorepati in Mumbai. Not only did he crack jokes but he also responded with characteristic humour to questions like 'Why is the KBC logo in your case red, while it was blue in Amitabh Bachchan's version?'

Sample Khan's response to this: "Amitji is like God in our industry and we keep him above everyone else. His stature is as high as the sky. And thus, the color is blue. In my case, I am desh ka Lal, thus the colour is red!"

Quite innovative, one must say.

Nehle Pe Dehla- First Look

2006-12-23T13:18:00.000+05:30

The movie stars Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Bipasha Basu & Kim Sharma in pivotal roles and is supposed to a comedy. Check out the first trailer of the movie which is basically the promotional track, "Fida Hua" of the movie.

Picture Source: IndiaFM

Shilpa Shetty to do British Big Boss

2006-12-23T11:53:00.000+05:30

British production house Endemol is rumored to have signed Bollywood hottie Shilpa Shetty for their original Big Boss series called “Big Brother”. If sources are to be believed, Shilpa will be not only the first Bollywood star but also the first Indian to participate in this highly popular British reality show.

The Endemol team was looking for an Indian celebrity who has good looks and an equally good sense of humour. After reading about Shilpa on her website, they had a meeting with her. It is speculated that Shilpa has agreed upon doing the show as she would be interacting with international celebrities.

Big Brother is a reality TV show broadcast on Channel 4 in Wales, in which a number of contestants live in an isolated house trying to avoid being evicted by the public with the aim of winning a large cash prize at the end of the run. The prize money for the winner will be more than £100,000 (Rs.87.54 lakh).

Reportedly, Shilpa will be leaving for UK by the end of this year and will be staying in Big Brother’s house for a minimum of 25 days. It seems that the actress had to appear for an audition before she was selected for the show.

Big Brother is a bold show and they don’t have television censorship like there is in its Indian version Big Boss. Shilpa was last seen in Shaadi Kar Ke Phas Gaya Yaar opposite Salman Khan. She is now working on projects like Happy Birthday and Metro to release next year.

Article Source: IndiaFM

Priyanka Chopra in Himesh's film

2006-12-22T18:33:00.000+05:30

Himesh Reshammiya, the bastard has big dreams and he really knows how to be in the headlines. First it was Gary Powell being the action director for his movie. Then it was Himesh's arrogance that came with him delivering 36 nasal crooning-similar sounding-badly accented hits in 1 single year and comparing himself with music maestro R.D. Burman for that. Then it was again, Himesh being dropped out of RGV Ke Sholay and now the buzz is that Chopsy baby will satisfy Himesh's lust. Himesh, no doubt is a lusty bastard. My doubts were confirmed after I saw him making the innocent as hell and gorgeous like nothing I've seen before Minnisha Lamba sitting on hairy li'l willy. Anyways, here's the article I saw at IndiaFM.com:

Priyanka Chopra’s career took a turn for better with AITRAAZ. Himesh Reshammiya, who had several hits under his belt, also consolidated his status with a strong musical score in AITRAAZ. The two -- Priyanka and Himesh -- have been teamed in AAP KAA SURROOR – THE MOVIEE – THE REAL LUV STORY… at least that’s the buzz within the industry!

With Himesh Reshammiya crossing lanes and turning actor with AAP KAA SURROOR – THE MOVIEE – THE REAL LUV STORY, the search for the right face to star opposite him gathered momentum at the launch of the film in London. Initially, there were whispers that Deepika Padukone might star opposite Himesh, since she had featured in his videos. Later, Himesh announced that a new face would be finalized, thereby putting an end to all speculation.

But, of late, there’s talk that Priyanka Chopra has been approached for one of the pivotal roles in the film.

Prashant Chadha, who has directed Himesh’s videos and is also directing AAP KAA SURROOR – THE MOVIEE – THE REAL LUV STORY, denies the development. “Believe me, we haven’t approached Priyanka at all. Not me, not my office, no one from our end… I’ve heard these rumors as well, but there’s no truth to it,” Prashant tells me.

So what’s the truth? “The film stars three leading ladies and we’re casting new faces for each of those characters. We’re in the process of finalizing the names and a clearer picture will emerge in a few days from now,” he states.

Meanwhile, Prashant has finalized four European destinations for filming a major chunk of the film -- Germany, Spain, Italy and France. “We commence [start-to-finish] shooting in the first week of February 2007. For the songs, we may opt for other locations,” he adds.

Exinator's List of Movies to Review

2006-12-22T18:22:00.000+05:30

Now I know I've been going on and on about how I will review and haven't reviewed a single film since Don. Its all my fault and blame it on the exams, I'll only be free after the 15th of Jan. Till then, all you'll get is my sorry-ass words but at least I could make my list of Movies-to-review and if you people haven't seen them, please do. Note that not all of the movies listed need to be good coz the entire idea of reviewing a movie is altogether different. Anyways, here's my list of films that I'm dying to review:

Paheli
Dhoom 2
Maqbool
Omkara
Lage Raho Munnabhai
Rang De Basanti
Krrish
Dor (I haven't seen it yet)
Aryan
Zinda

Umm and I guess that's it for now

Idea Zee Cinestars Kolkata Auditions

2006-12-22T13:22:00.000+05:30

Stupid as it may sound, the last Zee Cinestars- India's best that was hosted by Aman Varma, directed by the infamous Gajendra Singh and judged by Bollywood directors Mahesh Manjrekar, Satish Kaushik and Ken Ghosh had the participants displaying whatever talent they had (which was actually no talent at all) and running everywhere from Siddhivinayak temples to Haji Ali's and begging the poor viewers to vote for them so that their producers could fill their Bank Accounts did not have any stars to offer and the so the called "India's Best" after winning the contest have been pushed out of the limelight, their movie has still not been made and already a second Zee Cinestars is in and on-air on Zee TV!

Anyways, these people claim that they'll make you Bollywood stars. The jury consisting of Anupam Kher, Pooja Bhatt and naughty boy Madhur Bhandarkar who was recently in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Add to it the casting-couch hero Aman Varma as the host of the show and you have Idea Zee Cinestars- India Ki Khoj.

From the director's desk:

Does it require money and muscle to become famous? Not anymore. All you have to do display your talent to the nation to get voted as the next Bollywood star.

Idea Zee Cinestars is a platform for every Indian youth who dreams of making it in the movies. A 1-hour talent hunt show, it will feature participants from various cities in the country, who will showcase their acting and dancing skills in the show. The aim of the show is to find two potential stars, who will be given an opportunity to feature in a film which will be produced by a leading banner.

This reality series is split into various stages and will showcase the ecstasy, trauma, victory and defeat through 18 weeks. The hunt will narrow down to 2 Best performers from the entire nation. Sixty participants will be brought down to Bombay The City of Dreams, where, over the weeks they will begin to get eliminated to give us the winners of Idea Zee Cinestars.

The 60 participants will be grouped as couples who will be groomed by Bollywood`s popular directors and choreographers. The best couple is chosen by viewers who have been voting for their favourite performers, through the weeks.

Try if you may want to, here's the audition details:

Audition Date: Monday, 25th December, 2006.
Time: 10.00 AM Onwards
Venue: The Bhawanipur Educational Society (Bhawanipur College)
5, L.L.R. Sarani,
Kolkata- 700 020
Pariticipation Forms: You can collect the participation forms from your college or you can contact the following numbers:
98302 97057, 98313 64693 or 98317 33087

The show is currently aired on Zee TV, Fri-Sat 10 PM and the Kolkata Auditions will also be covered by Zee Bangla & Zee News.

Sunil Shetty is a loser- GIFA Awards Result

2006-12-21T20:15:00.000+05:30

I seriously mean it. If, despite being in the industry for over a decade, Sunil can mantain the level of all his current and forthcoming movies at par with his debut venture, Balwaan. Sunil deserves credit for it. At this stage of his career, the guy's more than happy in doing cameos in movies like Apna Sapna Money Money, Umrao Jaan, Aap Ki Khatir, Chup Chup Ke, Fight Club, Kyun Ki, Shaadi Se Pehle, Blackmail (or should it have been "Black Male"), Paheli and more.... and he's so generous that he doesn't mind the fact that an even the Rajpal Yadavs, Aman Varmas or Isha Koppikars (Qayamat) for that sake have longer roles than his. It is, maybe, for this reason that Sunil identifies like-talent and rewards them with GIFA Awards. How else would you explain Tusshar Kapoor winning "best actor in a comic role" award for Golmaal, Abhishek Bachchan winning "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" for KANK over Arshad Warsi for Lage Raho Munnabhai & Atul Kulkarni for Rang De Basanti and Hrithik Roshan winning "Best Actor" Award for Krrish over Aamir Khan for RDB, Sanjay Dutt for Lage Raho Munnabhai. Anyways, here are the GIFA Awards results coming out from the mind of the highly talented and thinking special appearance actor, Sunil Shetty.

Best Film
Lage Raho Munnabhai (Vidhu Vinod Chopra)

Best Director
Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (Rang De Basanti)

Best Actor
Hrithik Roshan (Krrish)

Best Actress
Bipasha Basu (Corporate)

Best Actor in A Supporting Role
Abhishek Bachchan (Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna)

Best Actress in A Supporting Role
Soha Ali Khan (Rang De Basanti)

Best Actor in A Comic Role
Tusshar Kapoor (Golmaal - Fun Unlimited)

Best Actor in A Villainous Role
Saif Ali Khan (Omkara)

Best Music
A R Rahman (Rang De Basanti)

Best Lyrics
Prasoon Joshi (Roobaroo - Rang De Basanti)

Best Playback Singer (Male)
Zubin (Ya Ali - Gangster)

Best Playback Singer (Female)
Alka Yagnik (Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna - Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna)

Best Choreographer
Ganesh Acharya ('Beedi Jalai Le' - Omkara)

Critics Choice – Director
Homi Adjania (Being Cyrus)

Best Debut Director
Vikram Chopra (The Fight Club)

Best Story
Raj Kumar Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra (Lage Raho Munnabhai)

Best Screenplay
Renzil D’Silva, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (Rang De Basanti)

Best Dialogues
Abhijat Jolshi, Rajkumar Hirani (Lage Raho Munnabhai)

Best Cinematography
Tassaduq Hussain (Omkara)

Best Editing
P. S. Bharathi (Rang De Basanti)

Best Sound Design
Jitendra Choudhary, Nakul Kamte (Krrish)

Best Background Score
A. R. Rahman (Rang De Basanti)

Best Art Direction
Samir Chanda (Rang De Basanti)

Best Action
Tony-Sui-Ching, Shyam Kaushal (Krrish)

Best Debut Actor
Upen Patel (36 China Town)

Best Debut Actress
Kangana Ranaut (Gangster)

Most Searched Actor on the internet
Shahrukh Khan

Most Searched Actress on the internet
Priyanka Chopra

Award for Outstanding Contribution to Indian Cinema
Rakesh Roshan

Casino Royale Action Director for Himesh's film

2006-11-21T17:56:00.000+05:30

Himesh has already created a wave by launching a film, Aap Ka Suroor, starring himself in a lead role. And now, heres a latest addition to it. Himesh has roped in Gary Powell, the stunt director of the latest Bond Flick, Casino Royale. Gary, who has directed stunts for films like The Legend of Zorro, The Mummy and Mission Impossible among many others, will now be directing Himesh.

Himesh says that the film won’t have impossible stunts. He would avoid doing anything that would not suit him. However, the stunts will be carried out on a grand scale. According to the director of the film, Prashant Chhadha, a friend of his in US helped him get in touch with Gary and things worked out well. They will have a meeting at the end of this month to discuss the scenes. Gary will apparently be directing three important sequences in the film.

News Source: IndiaFM

Aap Ka Surroor- The Moviee Trailer

2006-11-18T16:23:00.000+05:30

No my grammar isn't that bad... Himesh's promoter's is or is it the work of some stupid numerology expert again? No clue but anyways here's the trailer of Himesh's MOVIEE lol... he got a bad throat in the video. Every time I see it just hurts my eyes to see the amount of money that has been wasted in making this movie. Anyways, here's the trailer of the 8-Miles Wannabe movie. Barring Kishore Kumar (who was an actor-turned-singer technically), most of the singers who have tried their luck at acting have been pathetic... Lucky Ali (Kaante & Sur were excellent movies but wtf was he upto in Kasak?) & Sonu Nigam (ultimate example of how bad an actor a singer can be). Anyways, here's the movie trailer of another wannabe-actor. Have fun watching it, i.e. if you can...

Don (2006) Review: Forget the Critics. Remember the movie- 7/10

2006-11-14T14:06:00.000+05:30

When I couldn't get the tickets for Don, its promos were driving me crazy, I decided to read what the critics had to say about Don and most of em agreed to the common opinion about the new Don that it sucked. Now my friend is an SRK freak, I certainly am not but the guy had earned my respect after I saw Devdas. Of course his charm is there but for me, I like to see stars doing quality films than commercial hits so every time SRK does a Chalte Chalte, a One Two Ka Four, a Shakti or a Duplicate, I felt the guy needed to play it smarter.

When KANK came, I prayed to God that it bombed at the B.O. Such was my faith in Karan Johar and he lived upto my expectations. What I, however, didn't like about KANK reviews was how everyone said AB and AB Ka Baby were nice actors but SRK disappointed big time, so I checked out the movie to find out how bad he was and actually, he wasn't bad at all. The movie was. Its just that he's too taken up by his own mannerisms that he does not want the character to overshadow SRK- the superstar.

I wanted to see Don, not coz of SRK but mainly because Farhan Akhtar was directing it. Before I start reviewing Don- The Chase Begins Again, I want to say that I tried my level best not to compare the two movies but unfortunately ended up doing so and what I realized in the process was that although Don is a remake of the original version, they're too very different movies. They're as different as cheese and chalk. So does Don surpass the original? Well, kinda yes and kinda no. Quite frankly, I never felt that the original Don had set any high standards or so because it was funny at times. The entire sequence where Don's associates find out that it is not Don but Vijay and its because of him that they've been arrested, lol, it was funny. I understand that Don was a low budget movie but just like N2D had said, its utterly stupid for anyone to store all the contact information about the Underworld Criminals in one red dairy. A disc in this one.

What Farhan has tried to do with the new Don is make it cooler, sharper and more foxy (yea that's the word). And despite the fact that a talented director like Farhan Akhtar was making this movie, Don does suffer in some departments if you start being logical but not as many if you understand why things are happening the way they're happening and even though Don could've been better, it could have also been worse. The movie starts out brilliantly. Check out the first scene of the movie featuring SRK & Chunkey.

The big question that everyone has been making around is that- Does Shahrukh live upto what Amitabh had done in the original? Well, I'd like to quote Shabani Azmi on this, "Its like you're comparing apple and oranges". Where Amitabh had mastered the art of being Vijay, here it is exactly vice-versa. SRK dons the role of DON with complete brilliance. Excellent is the word. I got to admit that I had my fears if SRK will be able to do justice coz I agree, the actor is one of the best in the industry but hardly does he display it on screen. Fortunately this is one of those movies where he does. SRK looks every bit of the Don that he portrays and once again proves that he is the one of the coolest villains on screen- the man you'd love to hate. I do not wanna get into the debate of how some other actor could've pulled it off better coz well, they're not. Hrithik as Don would've been BAD and I am dead sure about that. My friend said Saif could've played a better Don and I agree on that but well, too bad he's not playing it so the discussion is basically useless and after all that I've seen SRK do with this role, it'll be sad if I thought of any other actor playing the role of "Don" anymore. SRK is the king!

Now that I've spoken about the lows of the movie, its time I told you how I felt after watching the movie. Well, I felt completely taken up by the charm of the movie and if you're willing to forgive Farhan Akhtar for the few mistakes that he's made, Don is a movie you would want to remember. Especially for the action and the performances. Man O Man! If I had to point out 3 main performances that I liked in the movie, it'd be tough but I'd pick SRK, Boman Irani & Arjun Rampal. Of course there are those that are equally marvellous. For example, Pawan Malhotra as Narang is one performance to watch out for. For all those critics out there saying how bad the movie is... here's my opinion about Don- I LOVED THE MOVIE!!! Do what you can about it. Don is a movie I am going to keep in my DVD collection, yes its one of those entertainers.

And for all those people going on about how bad Kareena was... well, I can't remember when exactly did Kareena look soooooooo hot as compared to her appearance in Don. This has to be her sexiest appearance till date, she looks drop-dead gorgeous and over-shadows all the other divas even with a role that was the smallest of the three. Agreed, she couldn't get the dance moves as Helen did but who according to you could have done Helen's step except Helen herself. Kareena's dance steps are pathethic but there's one thing for sure, if Helen was a better dancer in Don, Kareen is a hotter seductress if not anything else. Check out the full song and judge it for yourself.

For Priyanka Chopra, this has to be her performance after Aitraaz. She perfectly fits in. I do feel they could have got a better vamp than Isha Koppikar but I doubt if the bigger names would have done a role so small. What I really liked is what Farhan Akhtar has done with Arjun Rampal's Jasjit as compared to Pran's. I did go around saying how Arjun wouldn't be able to live upto Pran's performance but how wrong was I. Post-Moksha, out here Arjun Rampal is in full-form again and after Don, he's the second most coolest character in the movie, loved his performance. Boman Irani, too was excellent. I am glad Om Puri took up the role because if he didn't do it, somebody else would have and I wouldn't have liked it. He has a small role in the movie but an important character and with the likes of Boman, SRK and Pawan Malhotra around, you cannot afford to have bad actors around. The Television actor who has appeared in shows like Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, Saarthi and Karma is the young inspector in Don and plays his part efficiently.

For all those people going around saying how bad Don's music is, I cannot understand how. Yeh Mera Dil and Khaike Paan Banaraswala sounded like bad remixes and could have been much much better but as far as their picturization goes, I feel the new version is the better version and more in syncronisation with the movie's script. As far as the original compositions go, the new Don's theme is the ultimate number. So catchy and so cool, hear it, and you'll know what the new Don is all about and what you should expect from the movie. Aaj Ki Raat, Main Hoon Don & Moriya Re are all great numbers and they've been on my playlist for a long time. I do feel Yeh Mera Dil & Khaike could have been remade in a better way but if you ask me, after hearing the entire album and watching the movie, I feel that Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are big time winners.

Don is a complete adventurous ride and barring the few little plot holes, its got enough twists, turns, performances, music and action to keep you glued to the screen right from the first frame to the last. At times you do feel that the movie is getting a bit boring or is lacking the pace but otherwise, its great. I did feel Aaj Ki Raat shouldn't have shown SRK dancing with the chics, didn't make sense but that's my opinion. Don is truly a nice remake. Much better than the so called action flicks like Krrish, Dus or the Sunny Deol films. You'll enjoy watching it.

7/10

To Mr. Taran Adarsh, with love

2006-11-13T21:05:00.000+05:30

I've been wanting to do this for a long time but I always felt, nah... its one opinion but of late with every review of this man that I read, my desire to write him a love letter became stronger and so now I cannot hold myself back but reveal my true feelings about a great man like Taran Adarsh.

Mr. Taran Adarsh, I seriously feel you need to kill yourself. Why??? Because either you got a pathetic taste in movies or you're a sold-out. Either ways you don't deserve to be the much popular film-critic that you're rated to be. Now I'm not getting carried away or anything but for a man who has been giving ratings as given below, my feelings are that of a nicer man.

Rang De Basanti- 2.5/5
Dil Chahta Hai- 2/5
Swades- 1.5/5
Black- 2/5

Paheli- 4/5 ???
Chalte Chalte- 3.5/5 (huh?)
Phir Hera Pheri- 4/5 (is this just about commercial success?)
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna- 4.5/5 (yea right! Thank you Mr. Adarsh, I get your idea of perfect cinema)

I mean according to this man, Lagaan had the following flaws:

One, those who expect the film to be a war waged by Indians against the British will be disappointed to see a film that is devoted completely to a cricket match. This 'battle' is fought with a bat in the hand, not swords or guns.

Two, the length of the film – 3.40 hours – tries the patience of the viewer. The pace drops at regular intervals in both the halves and trimming the film is a must to make the goings-on speedy. The song in the climax should be deleted since it hinders the storytelling at that stage of the film.

Three, the language used by the villagers is Avadhi, which will restrict its prospects to the North belt (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar) mainly. Even the usage of English by the Britishers will be difficult to comprehend for the viewer based in small towns and villages of India.

And these were his comments for Dil Chahta Hai:

The biggest flaw of the film is that it has been treated like an English film. To be honest, it is too western for the Indian masses to digest. Moreover, in the post-interval portions, the story moves on three different tracks, which are alien to each other.

The second drawback is the length and the pace of the film. The story has been stretched excessively in the second half and what adds to the problems is the lethargic pace of the narration.

Besides the above-mentioned flaws, the film suffers in the scripting department. The storyline is new, but it has its limitations. It might appeal to a select few in metros; universal acceptance is ruled out.

The story just doesn't budge in the first half. Actually, the director has concentrated more on incidents/individual sequences to move the narration ahead. The story actually gains momentum at the interval point.

The dude feels that Rang De Basanti's music was bad oh my god! I don't know whether I should be laughing or getting pissed off but either ways, its bad for this man. What surprises me is the amount of money he gets for reviewing movies. LOL, Trade Analyst my ass. If things had it his way, most of the big blockbusters wouldn't have been doing good business. If directors started listening to him, quality films would have never got made. He thinks he is the ultimate director and his tips are the most important thing for film makers in the world and irrespective of what people think, he'll give them anyways. No matter what, he HAS to divide a film into first half and second half and then make one of them look better than the other.

As a kid, I used to believe the guy and his reviews mislead me a lot of times until I decided to go and check for myself what a movie is like. I am tired of reading his bad reviews everywhere misguiding innocent people. Having knowledge about cinema is a lot different from understanding cinema and I truly feel you need to kill yourself (I'm serious). Have fun dying. :D

With Love,
The Exinator

Khosla Ka Ghosla Review: Realistic yet entertaining- 7.5/10

2006-11-13T16:38:00.000+05:30

Last night I woke up at 8.30 in the night after sleeping for like 6 years at a stretch after the overnight stay me and my friends had. 9 PM. On air is "Khosla Ka Ghosla". Now I really wanted to watch that movie when it was released but just didn't had the time to and right now, I wasn't in the mood for it but since nothing else on TV was worth a watch, I decided to see the film.

After a while I realized that 40 minutes had gone by and not for one moment did I feel that KKG had a scene so far which was boring or unnecessary. KKG is truly gripping. It sucks you into it and you'll start getting concerned about Kamal Kishore Khosla (Anupam Kher). Khosla is a very innocent middle-class service man who gets a plot of land from Kishan Khurana (Boman Irani) out of his life-savings, a lump amount of 30 lacs but things get terrible when Khurana doesn't exactly let Khosla get the land until Khosla would pay Khurana another 10-15 lacs.

As much as I would love to say that Khosla Ka Ghosla was a movie which belonged to Anupam Kher and Boman Irani, I cannot deny that it belonged to the other artists as well. What I like so much about Khosla Ka Ghosla is that it does not star big mainstream artists in it except Boman Irani & Anupam Kher and if it did, maybe it would have lost its simplicity. Anupam Kher has been doing really lesser number of roles as compared to what he used to in the 90s but after Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara, Kya Kool Hain Hum and Rang De Basanti, Kher almost steals the show again. Khosla Ka Ghosla is very very realistic and that is its USP. Of course there are a few little flaws in the script but that does not stop KKG from becoming an entertaining ride without moving away from the realistic world. The brand of humour used in the movie is simple and enjoyable and one thing which I liked very much about this film is its characterization, I cannot deny that I liked every character present in the movie and it felt that they were straight out of someone's lives. Although Khurana and his assistant reminded me of Lucky Singh & Kuku in Lage Raho Munnabhai bit, basically because of the role they played.

Boman and Anupam of course do play the parts beautifully but one performance which I liked alot was that was Bappu's (Navin Nischol). Now what Bappu is doing in the film, I cannot say because I feel that would give out a part of the story. Ranvir Shorey and Vinay Pathak come together again after they did once in Jism. Ranvir as Anupam's elder son and Vinay as the guy whom Boman had betrayed play their parts with ease and rock it. Tara Sharma's accent is weird but I liked her here and the director gets credit for that. Parween Dabas too... actually its not the actors that are there but the characters. Such is the magic of debutante director Dibakar Banerjee and writer Jaideep Sahani. Full marks to the director who's earned my respect.

The music by composers Bapi, Tutul and Dhruv too is great. "Chakk De Phadde" sung by Kailesh Kher which is also the OST of the movie is nice and totally in mood of the film. The other tracks too offer great help in carrying the story forward. When Anupam Kher had said that this is a tribute to Hrishikesh Mukherjee's film-making style, I'm sure he truly meant it. Khosla Ka Ghosla is simple, innocent, realistic and entertaining. Go watch it if you want to see a quality film. Much better than the Karan Johar or Rakesh Roshan flicks which are recognised by Filmfare, not for their creativity but commercial success. Khosla Ka Ghosla made my mood. Three cheers for the movie!

7.5/10

Remakes- Are they worth it?

2006-11-11T19:03:00.000+05:30

I cannot understand what's up with all these negative reviews about "DON". Agreed, it doesn't live up to the mark but is very close to it. Remaking an already famous, seen-by-all movie is not easy and to add to it, Farhan tries another acid-test when he decides to retain the original tracks. I cannot remember any remake in the history of Bollywood which had retained the original music.

I'd like to clear some misconceptions. I do not know where people get this idea from that remaking a movie is a bad idea. People went crazy when Devdas was remade but for all those uneducated extremely foolish people, I'd like to remind them that Devdas was based on a novel. Just because one made the movie first does not mean it cannot be done again and as far as my opinion in relation to Devdas, I think Sanjay Leela Bhansali's is the greatest version of all the Devdases made till date and yes, it was Shahrukh's best performance till date. It may be more glossier, more unrealistic and more melodramatic than the rest but it still remains to be way more superior too.

Remakes are a very common trend in Hollywood but Bollywood looks at remakes as a way of insulting the original, wake up people! Its being remade because it was good enough to inspire the director on the first place. Bollywood has been copying way too many Hollywood flicks shamelessly one after the other and many of them have been Filmfare Award Winners! So why are these people having a problem when the same is being done with Hindi films? and with due credits, eh? Black was copied from "The Miracle Worker" but just coz Mr. Bachchan thought it was beautifully made, the entire industry went whooping about how it was Amitabh's best performance till date while I felt he over acted in many places.

Most of the Rakesh Roshan movies are bad-remakes of Hollywood classics with three new added-elements, Rajesh Roshan, Hrithik Roshan and of course bad direction. One of the best-rated Bollywood movie till date, Sholay, which is now being remade was heavily inspired by "The Seven Samurai" as well as "Once Upon a time in the West" and "The Wild Bunch" (Train Scene anybody???). So what's all this panic about not tampering with the original?

Remaking a movie is a very tedious job and to add on to the nervousness and the woes of the poor guy donning the director's cap, people, film-industry veterans and film critics boo them down! And even before a movie has been released, its already been labeled a bad remake, terribly inferior to the original.

The new Don has a few plot-holes here and there but may I ask these smart people who're criticizing it, how realistic was the original, baby? Nothing could get worse than Pran walking with both his kids in his arms on a rope which I believe, ummm Amitabh tied up for him on the other end, eh?

All these buffs about how remakes are bad or how sequels suck is nothing but a misnomer. In reality, all that matters is that a movie should be well-made and
be nurtured by a director who knows his craft and actors who know what they're doing.

Akshay Kumar to romance 20 actresses!

2006-11-11T18:57:00.000+05:30

Actor turned director Sajid Khan will make his debut as a director with his first movie ‘Hey Baby’ which is one of the biggest projects of year 2007. To make things bigger and better Sajid is toying with an interesting idea to attract audiences. Hey Baby will have a song where the lead actor of the film Akshay Kumar will be seen romancing with 20 Bollywood actresses.

He is presently working on the same song at Filmistan Studio in Goregaon. The song has been choreographed by Sajid Khan's sister Farah Khan. The list of 20 sizzling actresses reportedly includes Amisha Patel, Esha Deol, Lara Dutta, Sameera Reddy, Sushma Reddy, Juhi Chawla, Bipasha Basu, Malaika Arora and Amrita Arora. It is also believed that Preity Zinta and Mallika Sherawat might be seen in the song.

Source: IndiaFM

Golmaal Review: Torture Unlimited- 3.5/10

2006-11-11T18:28:00.000+05:30

Oh my god! My head is still aching... I cannot believe my friends recommended this movie to me and "Wait... the next scene will be a nice one, I'm sure" is what I kept on thinking throughout the movie until I realized it had ended. Now I am seriously very fond of comedy but I do believe that its not everyone's cup of tea. Rohit Shetty (Zameen, another disastrous flick) was his debut film and the director goes from bad to worse in Golmaal. A movie starring comic actors like Paresh Rawal, Arshad Warsi, Sharman Joshi and Tushhar Kapoor for that sake (Kya Kool Hai Hum), I expected Golmaal to be good if not great but the movie falls flat. The scenes are not funny. Tusshar will get some marks from me for his performance. Arshad Warsi manages to make his presence felt. Vrajesh Hirjee is competent. Other than that rest of the entire cast dissappoints. Ajay Devgan is sad and Rimi Sen needs to try out something different than doing movies in which she's the only beauty in the entire world and guys get engaged in a cat-and-mouse game to impress her (Deewane Huey Pagal???), its irritating now.

The music of Golmaal is decent but it cannot rescue a movie this bad. The title track "Golmaal" is pleasing to the ears and the video of "Aage Peeche" is funny when viewed individually but in the movie as a whole, it didn't help much. Rohit Shetty tried so hard to make a scene look funny but that's all that this movie is, a wannabe. Even the worst of the comedy genres do have scenes which'll make you laugh but Golmaal is just sad. In Bollywood, what hurts me is that creativity without commercial success is meaningless. Look at Nagesh Kukunoor. After making masterpieces like Hyderabad Blues, Rockford and 3 Deewarein, he got noticed only after Iqbal (another brilliant movie) got big and that was because on the producer's seat sat Mr. Richie Rich Ghai. Golmaal, too no matter how bad was a hit at the Box office and therefore, they've decided to make a sequel of it :(. I just hope they know what they're doing and I wish it fails miserably at the Box Office.

3.5/10

Aneez Bazmee reveals the starcast of "Welcome"

2006-11-09T16:54:00.000+05:30

Firoz Nadiadwala has been known for his passion of making big films with a major starcast and has never felt shy of proclaiming his films to be 100% pure masala entertainers. His recent 'Phir Hera Pheri' was an example of the same and soon he would be having his next 'WELCOME' arriving in screens. Starring Feroz Khan, Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar, Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Katrina Kaif and Mallika Sherawat in principal roles, it could be any film maker's dream. The film is also special since it is also the first new project from director Anees Bazmee to hit the marquee [his 'Sandwich' was a delayed product] after 'No Entry'. Here we get into an exclusive conversation with Bazmee as he talks about the starcast of his film.

Akshay Kumar
You will be seeing Akshay Kumar in a different light altogether in WELCOME. While he has been famous for his pranky/notorious/fun loving image on screen, in my film you would see him as a young man who is very 'shareef', comes with a lot of 'sanskar', gives a lot of importance to relationships, is quite well educated and understands the value of giving and receiving love. No, don't compare him with the character he played in 'Ek Rishta' since in case of 'WELCOME' the situations are completely different.

Katrina Kaif
Katrina is Akshay's ladylove in the film and be assured that you are in a surprise with what she portrays on screen. She is a female who wants to love him but things are not that easy for her. On the contrary it is quite difficult for her to get what she wants. Why? Because there are some more characters who trap her into innumerous complex situations since they themselves are trapped in certain difficulties. Want to know more? Then hear me on about these extra special characters!

Feroz Khan
Feroz Khan. Now he is a legend. And look at the way he has created such an unshakable position in the industry in spite of working in just about 40-50 films in his decades old career. He is very selective when it comes to doing films and I am glad that he chose WELCOME. He loves me and he loved NO ENTRY and that's the reason why he said YES to WELCOME. He plays a very larger-than-life character who has a style in everything that he does. He travels in a helicopter, wears long coats, has a lot of attitude and an air of confidence around him. I enjoyed immensely while shooting with him and I could see that all the actors simply loved him. Believe me, I would have been in a major problem if he would have said NO to WELCOME. Because there is just one name that can justify an all important character in WELCOME. And the name is FEROZ KHAN!

Anil Kapoor
He is one of the characters who bring around a lot of confusion and complexities in the plot. I have always believed that the way he has been portrayed in films like 'Ram Lakhan' and 'Taal', has been by and large appreciated by the audience. I saw him succeeding when he did something similar in 'No Entry' and I am sure 'Welcome' too would be another memorable performance in the similar genre for him. Watch out for him - you would simply LOVE him in the film!

Nana Patekar
Aaaah.... now he is one man who does SERIOUS COMEDY! Now can you beat that? You would witness him in a never-seen-before role here. And this is where I want to put a full stop about him since saying anything more would take a lot of sheen away from his character and performance. ROCKING is a way I want to describe him in a single word when it comes to WELCOME.

Paresh Rawal
Paresh bhai is a darling and needless to say a great actor. He has a superb timing and if you ask me which is his film I liked most, it is difficult to tell. And no, he is not for some standalone comic track in the film. In fact he has an extremely important role in the story because without him there would be NO story at all. It is because of him that the story moves forward. It is because of him that the twists come. It is because of him that the situations get complicated. And it is because of him that the complications get solved!

Mallika Sherawat
You may not believe me if I would say that there were a lot of girls who wanted to play the role that is being played by Mallika, though I won't tell you their names. She is the most critical part of the story. She has grown so much as an actress over the years. In fact I want her to respect her for the stand she took for WELCOME since when I approached her for the film, she said she didn't want any discussions; she just wanted to DO the film. She told me pick and choose any dates I wanted, which was big for me at that time since I was looking for 40 dates for an actress to play the role. She wasn't even finicky about the price she wanted and didn't even get into a debate about the money she wanted for the film. She was so happy when presented with WELCOME. She said that after years someone had given her such a detailed script narration. Now look at what she has done in 'Pyaar Ke Side Effects'. Finally she has got her due and people are looking at her differently. There are some actors who want good roles but then are greedy and always want the price to come with them. She is one of those actors for whom a role is above everything else. Mallika ke liye bhi isi ki ahmiyat sabse zyaada hai!

See, you must be wondering that I am mentioning each and every character as the most important but I can't help it since it is a fact. Now look at 'No Entry'. Can you say that the presence of Anil Kapoor was of a lesser importance than that of Salman Khan? Or say Celina was not as much required in the script than Lara Dutta. Ditto was in case of Govinda-Chunkey Pandey starrer 'Aankhen' that was written by me. Can you ignore any one character from the film? Nahi naa! The same holds good for WELCOME.

Source: IndiaFM

Salaam-E-Ishq Theatrical Teaser

2006-11-09T15:38:00.000+05:30

From the director of Kal Ho Naa Ho & producers of Tere Naam, Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha and Garv-Pride & Honour comes a new movie to be released in 2007. Salaam-E-Ishq seems to have all the potential for being one of the biggest blockbusters of 2007. Just take a look at the star cast:-

Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, John Abraham, Vidya Balan, Anil Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Govinda, Shannon Esrechowitz, Akshaye Khanna, Ayesha Takia, Sohail Khan, Perizaad Zorabian, Boman Irani and Karan Johar.

As for now, here's the first trailer of the movie that was premiered on Zoom TV

Abhishek Bachchan to star in RGV's Sholay- Its confirmed!

2006-11-09T15:17:00.000+05:30

One way or another, RGV gets his thing done. Now that Abhishek Bachchan chose to play Guru instead of the other role he was offered at the same time- that of Jai in Sholay (now to be played by Mohit Ahlawat), RGV still has Abhishek in Sholay. No he isn't playing Jai anymore... its shocking but Abhishek Bachchan will be present in the song, "Mehbooba O Mehbooba" along side his father.

Earlier Himesh was to do the track as well as feature in it and sing it alongside Asha Bhonsle but now, Ganesh Hegde is composing the track with Sunidhi Chauhan and Sukhwinder Singh as the singers. This is the third song in which Abhishek Bachchan and Amitabh Bachchan will be seen together after Kajra Re (Bunty aur Babli) and Rock 'N' Roll Soniye (KANK). Urmila Matondkar will be doing Helen's part and AB and AB Junior won't be interacting in the song as Amitabh Bachchan's eyes will be set on Urmila.

Hmmm sounds good, doesn't it?

Kabul Express First Look

2006-11-09T15:00:00.000+05:30

Directed by Kabir Khan and produced by Yash Raj Films, Kabul Express is the story of what Kabir Khan went through when he was shooting documentaries in Afhanistan during the war. As the tagline says: Two Indians. One American. One Pakistan. -On a journey together. Kabul Express is the first time Arshad Warsi & John Abraham have been paired together.

The Best Batman movie ever- and its only 2 minutes long

2006-11-09T10:50:00.000+05:30

The Best Batman movie ever- and its only 2 minutes long

The Music of "Guru"- Sneak Peek

2006-11-08T18:00:00.000+05:30

Such is the magic of A R Rahman and when its a Mani Ratnam movie that has his name written on the credits, you can be rest assured that the music is gonna be great. After teaming up with Mani Ratnam to produce quality music for many movies such as Dil Se and Yuva. Rahman now scores the music for Ratnam's forthcoming venture, "Guru". Although the music of Guru hasn't been released as of yet, NDTV did have a sneak preview of it and that's where I got it from. The song is called "Barsa Re Megha" and has been picturised on Aishwarya Rai and well, it both- looks good and sounds good!

AB Junior to play the role of Dhirubhai Ambani in "Guru"

2006-11-08T17:43:00.000+05:30

Come December, Abhishek Bachchan will play Dhirubhai Ambani's role in Mani Ratnam's "Guru". The movie also stars Aishwarya Rai, John Abraham, Vidya Balan, R. Madhavan, Kunal Kapoor, Mithun Chakroborty and Aryan Babbar & has music by A. R. Rahman.

The movie is said to be based on Dhirubhai Ambani's life and from the promos, looks very very promising. After Yuva & Sarkar, Guru is also going to be one of Abhishek's best performance till date. Of course, it also gave Mani Ratnam the opportunity to gift AB Junior a razor so he could look like a civilised man once again.

As for now, here's the promo of the movie:

ASMM & KKHH Director Sangeeth Sivan's Interview

2006-11-08T17:40:00.000+05:30

After delivering a superhit film like Kya Kool Hai Hum, there was no looking back for director Sangeeth Sivan. And now, he is back with another comedy flick Apna Sapna Money Money made under the banner of Mukta Arts. IndiaFM has an exclusive talk with Sangeeth.

Did life change after Kya Kool Hai Hum?
Well yes. Before Kya Kool Hai Hum, I didn’t know what will be my next film. But after Kya Kool Hai Hum, I know what my next three films are going to be.

Apna Sapna Money Money sounds an interesting title. Tell us about the film.
Apna Sapna Money Money is about two sets of people. One set of people is behind money and another set is in the search of love. So, the film is about how their lives get intervened and how we end up saying that all we want is money but all we need is love.

Can you tell us more about the story?
The storyline is about a set of diamonds being taken from X place to Y and how it gets transferred to different people during the course of the story. So, the money keeps changing hands and the confusion keeps arising.

How did you manage to get Mukta Arts to produce the film?
After watching Kya Kool Hai Hum, Subhash Ghaiji called me up and said that he would like to do a film with me. I had the story of Apna Sapna Money Money so I said I would like to make this film and he agreed.

The film has so many characters. Tell us about them
There are many characters in the film and all of them are equally important. Riteish Deshmukh is a con-man who is a master of disguise. His problem is that he dons from one disguise to another to escape from one problem but then gets stuck in a new problem. And to escape from these two problems he does a new makeover and gets stuck in a third problem.

When Ritiesh used to come on sets dressed like a woman, we all used to jump saying there comes the fourth actress of the film.

Anupam Kher is a semi-blind pandit who is harassed by a dog that runs away taking his ‘lota’. Later on Anupam finds Riteish in a woman’s get up and falls in love with her. Chunky Pandey is a Nepali Don called Rana Jung Bahadur who is in search of Ritiesh Deshmukh. Then there is Rajpal Yadav, a hardcore fan of the film Sarkar who very much wants to be like Sarkar. He wears the similar attire and operates from a Sarkar tabela. Koena Mitra plays Julie who is a singer. She is a friend of Shreyas Talpade and falls in love with Riteish later. Riya Sen plays Shivani, daughter of Anupam Kher and she is in love with Shreyas. Shreyas is a very honest garage mechanic. The problem in their love story is that it is Shreyas’s Dog that runs away with Anupam’s ‘lota’. Hence, Anupam Kher hates Shreyas. So, to help improve his love life, Shreyas calls Ritiesh who is running away from the ‘kukuri’ gang which is headed by Chunky Pandey. Now when Ritiesh is in a disguise to escape from ‘kukuri’ gang, it is in his bag that the money gets dumped into and the whole confusion begins.

The film sounds funny. Surely there might have been a lot of funny incidences while filming
Since the film is a comedy we had a blast on sets. The funniest times were when Ritiesh used to come on sets dressed like a woman. We all used to jump saying there comes the fourth actress of the film. In fact many people on the sets thought that he looked more beautiful than the other three.

Many people on the sets thought that Riteish looked more beautiful as a female than the other three female leads of the film.

What is the role of the dog in the film?
Casper, the dog, was one of the first castings that we did for the film. This dog was trained to do lot of things but his problem was that he couldn’t run fast or even if he ran once, he never used to run again. Luckily, there was a body double of the dog available who was then used for the running scenes.

There were rumors that Riya Sen and Koena Mitra had issues with each other while shooting the film. How true is that?
Basically, as far as shoots were concerned, everyone was very professional. There was no palpable friction on sets at all. They used to come, do their thing and go. So, nothing happened on the sets.

Whenever you go to a production house, the first thing they ask you is “who is your hero in the film?” and depending upon that and the expected monetary recovery, they invest in the film.

How was the experience of working with Mukta Arts?
Whenever you go to a production house, the first thing they ask you is “who is your hero in the film?” and depending upon that and the expected monetary recovery, they invest in the film. I required a producer who would notice the potential of the script and then invest the money. And in that aspect I think Subhash ji was the perfect man I met. He invested in the film looking at the script and not the star power of the film. That is something that I don’t think many can do. Besides, because of the name of the Mukta Arts banner, it was easier to rope in all the artistes.

Subhash Ghai invested in the film looking at the script and not the star power of the film.

There were certain stories in media that said you had a tough time dealing with Mr. Ghai…
Frankly, he never interfered during the shooting of the film. After watching the first cut of the film, he gave me certain suggestions and that was something which was expected. Besides, no two creative people think similar; hence he told me what he thought. But at the end of the day, he left things to me. He used to give me his suggestions and tell me to take my own decisions.

No two creative people think similar. So do Subhash Ghai and me.

Any more films with Mukta Arts?
I have committed a film now to K Sera Sera, so that will go on the floors soon. Subhash ji has asked me for another subject, so let’s see in the future what happens.

Your future projects?
I am doing a film with K Sera Sera, starring Nana Patekar and Bobby Deol. It will be a remake of a Telugu film Athadu. It will be an action flick with a total Punjab feel. It is ‘Die Hard’ meets ‘Yash Chopra’ film.

What about the sequel to Kya Kool Hai Hum?
That is in the scripting process. Once that is over, we will take a call on that.

All the liabilities of Boom came on Sandhya.

What went wrong with the film Sandhya?
The film is complete. I just have to get the Dolby mix done that’s all. About the release of the film, I can’t say anything as that will be Jackie Shroff’s call since he is the producer of the film. Nothing went wrong with the film as such. It was just that Boom was launched and released before Sandhya. And all the liabilities of Boom came on this film.

Finally, how is your equation with your brother Santosh Sivan?
There is no tension between us.

I won’t force my brother Santosh Sivan to work on anything with me that he is not very keen on working as of now.

He is an ace cinematographer but has never shot any of your films?
We have done films together in Malayalam. I am not working on anything in Hindi as of now that requires him as the cinematographer. As far as working with him goes, I won’t force him to work on anything with me that he is not very keen on working as of now. These are all professional decisions. Besides, he is currently busy shooting his own film. It is an Indo-British project. I think the film is called Keral. It is an English film starring Rahul Bose and Nandita Das.

Source: IndiaFM

Manisha Koirala with Brother Siddharth in the movie "Anwar"

2006-11-08T17:34:00.000+05:30

Manisha Koirala has been missing from the movie scene since a long time. She will soon be seen on screen now. And interestingly, this time with her brother Siddharth Koirala! Siddharth who made a dismal debut in the skin flick Fun – Can Be Dangerous Sometimes changes track with a social and meaningful cinema – Anwar.

Siddharth plays the title role of Anwar who is trapped inside the temple while Manisha plays the role of the electronic journalist who tries to capitalize on the event for her channel. This is the first time that the real life brother-sister will be sharing screen space.

Anwar is about a young man Anwar, an artist, who leaves his home and everything he knows in order to escape a world he no longer recognizes. He finds himself trapped inside a temple and in the process exploited by people with vested interests.

The film is produced by Rajesh Singh under his banner of Dayal Creations Ltd and is directed by Manish Jha who made the critically acclaimed Matrubhoomi last year. the film also starts Nauheed Cyrusi, Vijay Raaz, Yashpal Sharma, Rajpal Yadav and Hiten Tejwani.

Source: IndiaFM

Casino Royale- This is where it all started

2006-11-07T20:09:00.000+05:30

In 1967, the first of all the James Bond movie was released.
Year 2006, history might just repeat itself. Only this time we have a Blonde James Bond that looks much older than his age and seems to have acquired Bird Flu from I dunno where but one this is for sure, he has it.

And then you take a look at his physique and your opinion about Mr. Craig changes again. Well whatever the case, although many may not agree but I do feel that Daniel Craig is miscast as James Bond but like in all other Hollywood movies, after a couple of years, you get used to whatever you're shown. I do believe that it will take the Bond fans alot of time to accept Daniel Craig as their new hero but oh well, I've seen things change so much that this won't be a tough play.

Personally I've never been very fond of James Bond though recently I did take interest in it where the news started doing rounds that a new Bond will be taken. My pick for James Bond was Collin Farell, yes I do know that Mr. Bond is a very well-mannered middle-aged sophisticated English gentleman but things change, don't they? And I felt Collin Farell would have been good BUT... just like me even Collin Farell was not very fond of James Bond and rejected the role. Similarly, many such names like Eric Bana, Robbie Williams (yes the UK Pop star) and Clive Owen were also rumoured to be the next Bond but damn... poop! Reality hits you hard and you have Daniel Craig.

And despite all my lack of interest in James Bond and I am nothing short of looking forward to Casino Royale. The chics look hot, Daniel Craig is a very "DIFFERENT" Bond and a nice actor and umm the promos are exciting. And since I haven't seen the original, I do wanna see how it all started. Come December 15th, we will see what CR has in store for us. As of now, I envy that man... just look at THOSE BOND BAAABESSS!!!!

Saif Ali Khan: The Best & The Worst

2006-11-06T17:11:00.000+05:30

Now this is something I'm gonna do for alot of stars but for some reason when I sat down to pen some of the greatest Bollywood star's track list, Saif was the first person that I wanted to do. So here I am with my list of the now "Bade" Nawab's top 10 movies and worst 10...

There are not many stars in Bollywood that have displayed their versatality with such ease and convenience... switching gears seems to be so simple for him and that post-Dil Chahta Hai, not for one moment did I ever feel that the guy was playing a character that he was not meant to do.

So I looked at the movies he's done and made my picks. First the bad ones. There is no doubt that Saif Ali Khan has done way too many cheesy corny desi masala typical Hindi films that were bad to say the least but kept the list short:

Arzoo also starring Akshay Kumar & Madhuri Dixit. This movie was directed by Lawrence D'Souza with Saif playing a second fiddle. Akshay & Madhuri love each other. Akshay dies. Madhuri gets pregnant. Saif playin the good guy that he was, marries Madhuri to save her from getting a bad name in the society (Note: there is no sexual relationship as expected between the two). Madhuri has a son. Kahaani Mein Twist! Akshay Kumar is alive and thinks that Madhuri cheated him and wants revenge. By the end of the movie, Akshay realizes the truth and of course, Saif needs to die by the hands of the bad guys. This movie bombed big time and I'm glad that it did. Two Thumbs Down!

Humse Badhkar Kaun? is the question the director asks after making one of the most pathetic movies that the 90s era saw. Starring Sunil Shetty, Sonali Bendre & Dipti Bhatnagar, Saif plays a second fiddle (again1) to Sunil Shetty.

Udaan Wo Wo Wo. Of course Saif plays second fiddle in this one too but this time, he goes a notch higher and well, gone were the days where Saif played a second fiddle to the Akshay Kumars and the Sunil Shetties! Here he plays a second fiddle to lol lol lol REKHA!!! Also starring Madhu (of Phool Aur Kaante, she was the other black ninja in the film besides Ajay Devgan). Saif at his feminine best again!

Bambai Ka Babu All hell break loose. Saif played a second fiddle ( !!! again !!!) to... buh! Bengal Tiger Mithun Chakraborty! Enough said already.

Ek Tha Raja Jiska Koi Audience Nahin Tha (which had no audience). Played a second fi... nah... a supporting actor to Aditya Pancholi & Suniel Shetty. Also starring Neelam, Kader Khan and Aaooo-boy Shakti Kapoor.

Of course I had a very tough time picking out the cheesiest of them all. Couldn't figure out where to place Dil Tera Diwana, Surakshaa, Aao Pyaar Karein, Yaar Gaddar and many more of that kind but oh well.

Now on to the better part! Saif's best till date... had fun doing this!

Kachche Dhaage Finally a movie where Saif learned how to make his own stand against other actors. I loved his character in this movie and it was a refreshing change for Saif from the Main Khiladi Tu Anari days!
Kya Kehna During this film which was basically Priety Zinta's film, Saif was heading towards an image make over. He plays a casanova in this movie with a few grey shades in his character. Makes Priety pregnant, you lucky dawg! (yes there are the love-making scenes) and dumps her. Saif's performance was impressive compared to what he had done in the past but no one what was in the making...
Dil Chahta Hai Yes!!! The movie that changed it all for this talented actor. Dil Chahta Hai presented Saif as the confused boy next door and it connected instantly with the audiences. One of my most favourite and most personal films till date, this movie was truly a masterpiece! Great Direction, Great Music and Great Performances. Starring Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Priety Zinta and Sonali Kulkarni.
Rehnaa Hain Terre Dil Mein This movie was R Madhavan's debut Hindi film which also launched Miss Asia-Pacific, Dia Mirza. Great Movie! Thoroughly enjoyable. Although Saif had a guest appearance, it clicked and although he was the supporting actor, he wasn't the chamcha / second fiddle in movies anymore.
Kal Ho Naa Ho This was the movie where Saif made a supporting actor look like lead! Bagged best Filmfare Supporting Actor Award for this one but more than that, this film established Saif's rapport with the high profile film makers, particularly Yash Raj Films & Dharma Productions of course.
Ek Haseena Thi Man o Man! He played one of the coolest villains in this one and played it to the core. The wicked smile, the evil look, the blood on his face and the martial arts: Everything worked and proved Saif's capabilities as far as being evil was concerned!
Hum Tum Another happy-go-lucky character but new for its kind I guess, got Saif the National Award for Best Actor. Established Saif Ali Khan as the leading man in Hindi films (finally!) and Saif was adviced by Vidhu Vinod chopra not to do second leads ever again.
Parineeta Here comes the twist. The next film offered to Saif was Parineeta by Vidhu V Chopra himself and ummm.... twas a second lead. He was offered Girish Sharma's role but Saif stood by what VVC had himself suggested and a screen test was done. Saif impressed and the rest as they say, is history!
Being Cyrus Amazing Film! Portrays the Parsi world and portrays it well coz it was made by a Parsi director, Homi Adajania.
Omkara And with this movie, Saif's Langda Tyagi had entered the lines of Gabbar Singh & Mogambo. Post-Maqbool, Vishal Bharadwarj's remake of Shakespeare's play Othello. Omkara sees Saif in a different light and according to me, his best performance till date. A Best Villain Award awaits him, hands down!

So that was my list of the good & the bad. Feel free to post your comments about it.