Are Kim and Yuvraj dating?
Bollywood’s cute belle
Kim Sharma and Cricketer Yuvraj Singh have become very good friends.
It is the latest grapevine doing rounds in tinsel town. Kim and Yuvraj have been spotted together on more than few occasions.
The buzz is that the two often spend their weekends together, partying at Mumbai’s hottest clubs. Kim and Yuvi have been seen partying at
Olive,
Prive and the
JW Mariott. Rumours also say they have been together on a vacation to Goa also. However, they have so far managed to evade the paparazzi.
Sources are quoted as saying that Kim and Yuvi are “very good friends”. But whether there is more to their relation is still a subject of speculation.
Yuvraj, one of the most promising all-rounders in Indian cricket team, has of late been much in demand among the ladies in the party circuit.
When Aish shocked Hritik
Hrithik Roshan discovered one thing about the gorgeous
Aishwarya Rai during the shooting of
Dhoom 2 – the sequel of
Dhoom.
Hrithik has a reputation for being an exacting, diligent actor who does all his own stunts, but he didn't make the cut with Ash as he says he fell short during their recent shoot for
Dhoom 2.
Hrithik told a newspaper recently that he was shocked to see the kind of intelligence that Ash puts in her character. "I was quite shocked to see the kind of intelligence she lends to her characters."
"It was quite a task matching up to the world's most beautiful face," Hrithik added.
Hrithik is often described as a perfectionist but for
Dhoom 2, he said that he had "loosened up this time and was quite chilled out."
But while filming the action thriller, which also stars
Abhishek Bachchan,
Bipasha Basu and
Uday Chopra, "slowly and steadily, Ash made me aware of the fact that I was having a bit too much fun with the role and should start taking it more seriously."
In
Dhoom 2, Hrithik and Ash are for the first time doing roles with shades of gray in their careers.
But Hrithik plans to go one up on Ash when they begin shooting next month for a period romance
Jodha Akbar – a 16th century love story to be directed by
Ashutosh Gowarikar.
"This time in
Jodha Akbar I will make sure that I take my character very seriously, and turn the tables on her so that she will be inspired by me, just as I was by her in
Dhoom 2," Hrithik said.
Dhoom 2 is scheduled to release on
November 24, 2006.
Deols in a film on boxing!
Sunny Deol,
Bobby Deol and
Dharmendra are currently working together in director
Anil Sharma’s film
Apne.
Apne is a movie about boxing. The film has Dharmendra playing a boxing coach. Sunny and Bobby play two boxers. However, the film will not be a full-fledged action flick. It will also delve on the sensitivity of human relationships.
Katrina Kaif and
Shilpa Shetty are the movie’s leading ladies. Katrina is most likely paired with Bobby, while Shilpa is cast opposite the elder Deol, Sunny.
Apne is currently on the floors and is being shot in Rajkot (Gujarat) in a 10-day schedule that will continue till the first week of September. Among the shooting locations in Rajkot are the indoor stadium at Race Course and the swimming pools at Kalawad Road. The indoor stadium will be the location for a boxing match sequence to be shot between Bobby Deol and model-turned-actor
Aryan Vaid.
Apne is produced under the banner of Glamour Entertainment Pvt. Ltd and Prime Focus. Some portions of the film have been shot in Thailand and Australia. The film also stars
Kiron Kher,
Victor Banerjee and Pakistani actor
Javed Sheikh.
Himesh Rehammiya has composed the film’s music.
Aish gets praise from Sir Ben
Aishwarya Rai has got lavish praises from Oscar winning British actor
Sir Ben Kingsley. Ash and Kingsley are co-stars in Hollywood movie
The Last Legion.
At the 58th Annual Emmy Awards, Kingsley was full of appreciation for Aishwarya’s beauty and talent when he spoke about the forthcoming movie
The Last Legion by filmmaker
Doug Lefler.
Kingsley called Ash “an excellent and outstanding actress” and said her fans are “in for a big surprise” with her performance in
The Last Legion.
Praising Aishwarya’s beauty, Kingsley told
Sheeraz Hasan, founder of hollywood.tv: “She is a shining example of beauty from India and I'm sure we will be seeing her in more Hollywood movies real soon.”
In the movie Ash plays a warrior princess. She will be seen horse riding and sword fighting in the movie. The film is set in 470 A.D. when the Roman Empire was crumbling and the last Roman emperor, the 12-year-old Romulus Augustus, escaped the rebels and set forth on a perilous trek to Britain with a small band of companions to track down his last legion.
Apart for Aishwarya and Kingsley, the film stars
Colin Firth,
Thomas Sangster,
Peter Mullan,
John Hannah and
James Cosmo.
The movie has been shot in Tunisia and Slovakia.
Sunny’s new arm candy
Bulgarian model
Polina Stoynova will make her Bollywood debut in a film opposite
Sunny Deol.
The beautiful blonde from the Balkans has bagged a plum role in
Ammtoje Mann’s in-the-making movie
Kaafila.
In the film, Polina would be seen playing a Kazakhstani girl. She is paired with Sunny Deol, who plays a patriot Pakistani in the movie.
Polina was finalized for the role after auditions that had more than 60 girls contending for the part. It was her professionalism and her acting potential that got her the role. She has already shot her portions of the film in Bulgaria and Mumbai.
Interestingly,
Kaafila has foreign actresses in the lead roles. Besides Polina, the film also stars two Pakistani heroines –
Sana Nawaz and
Mona Lisa.
Ammtoje Mann is the writer and director of the film. He also enacts a small part in it.
Kaafila is slated to release in November. The film has been shot in Mumbai, Ladakh, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom.
Jackie Shroff in film based on Tagore’s novel
Jackie Shroff will play a significant role in a film based on a novel by Nobel laureate
Rabindranath Tagore.
Jackie has been out of the limelight in the last few years during which he has been doing nothing more than brief roles and cameo appearances in films.
But the coming months will see the actor return to action, though not in a big way. His children’s film
Bhoot Unkle is slated to hit the theatres in October this year. Before that Jackie will be seen playing a baddie in the next month’s release
Naksha.
And now the handsome actor has signed a film based on Rabindranath Tagore’s 1929 literary masterpiece
Sesher Kabita.
The film will be directed by
Ujjwal Chatterjee, a Bengali. Jackie will play a freedom fighter in the movie.
Others in the cast include
Kunal Kapoor,
Rituparna Sengupta and
Ashmit Patel. The movie might possibly be made in three languages – Hindi, Bengali and English. Chatterjee is said to have a budget of over Rs 40 crore for the film.
Angelina's coming to India for Irrfan
With
Irrfan Khan being denied a visa to Pakistan,
Angelina Jolie will fly to India to shoot for a movie they are doing together.
She mesmerises you and I'm sure actors get distracted by her presence on the sets," says actor Irrfan Khan. Well, the otherwise reticent Irrfan is excitedly speaking about Hollywood star Angelina Jolie.
Irrfan has been offered to play a pivotal role in a Hollywood film, an adaptation of the book
The Mighty Heart, which is based on the life of
Daniel Pearl.
Daniel, an American reporter, was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002. The movie is slated for release in 2007 and has Angelina playing the female lead.
She plays Mariane, wife of Daniel Pearl.
Dan Futtermann will be playing Daniel Pearl in the film.
Irrfan's role is that of Captain, who was part of the investigations. "He's somebody she considered a friend who was with her in her fight to save her husband." He adds, "Mariane has mentioned in her book that she is still in touch with Captain."
The movie will be shot in Pakistan and South East Asia. But, there's a problem – Irrfan's not been able to go to Pakistan as he has been denied a visa. "All my efforts to get a visa to Pakistan have failed. While I was promised a visa earlier, they denied it to me at the last moment," he says disappointedly.
He was supposed to fly to Pakistan this week. So now Irrfan's portions with Angelina will be shot in India. Will boyfriend
Brad Pitt come along? Well, he just might, considering he's the producer of the film.
Chandramukhi and Suryamukhi
There is an apparent contradiction in the titles of the two films
Vidya Balan is acting in.
In
Priyadarshan’s Hindi remake of
Rajnikant’s Tamil superhit
Chandramukhi, Vidya will be seen playing a Kathak dancer who suffers from split personality.
On a different front, she is also doing noted filmmaker
Shaji Karun’s film titled
Suryamukhi, in which she will play the lover of the famous painter
Raja Ravi Verma.
The two movies provide Vidya the chance to work with two of the most talented filmmakers in India. And both films have Vidya in pivotal roles.
In Priyan’s film, Vidya is paired with
Shiney Ahuja. The two play a married couple who live in a majestic royal haveli in Rajasthan. The haveli was once owned by a king. Vidya plays a kathak dancer who starts getting delusions that she is the reincarnation of a dancer named Chandramukhi from the king’s court.
Akshay Kumar plays a psychiatrist who comes to help Vidya.
In contrast, Shaji Karun’s
Suryamukhi will have Vidya playing a Marathi woman who begins posing for a painter (Raja Ravi Verma) from a royal family. The woman soon becomes the painter’s muse and the two even have a love affair.
The role was previously offered to
Madhuri Dixit, but the actress declined it because the film might contain some nudity. Ajay Devgan is most likely to play the painter in the film.
While the shooting of
Suryamukhi is likely to start before this year-end, Priyadarshan plans to shoot his remake of
Chandramukhi early next year.
Djinn and tonic for AB's soul
If the
Jhankar Beats director
Sujoy Ghosh had his way he would have cast the Big B in a realistic train drama called
Borivli two years ago.
"But that didn't work out," he says, talking from his home in Darlington. "If I make
Borivli, I'll only make it with
Amitabh Bachchan. But now my dream is coming true. I'm directing Mr Bachchan in a film to be produced by the Sippys (
Ramesh Sippy and
Rohan Sippy)."
Tentatively titled
Alladin & The Mystery Of The Lamp, this film, to go on the floors next year, is expected to take children's cinema in India to an international level.
The interesting part of this new collaboration isn't the fact that yet another new young director is ready to realise his dream of directing the Big B. It's what Sujoy plans to do with the Bachchan that gives this project an edge. "I'm making a children's fantasy, an Arabian Nights kind of spectacle with the best possible special effects and an advanced technique of storytelling," says Sujoy. It looks like
Krissh, followed by
Dhoom 2 has brought in the magic of high-octane FX into Bollywood.
"Right now I'm scouting for international talent to do the special effects. I have my wish list of technicians and I hope to get them all. We'll arrive at an approximate budget only after the special effects are in place. But it's bound to be big. Mr Bachchan is very clear about the fact that if he's doing a children's film its production values have to be on par with international standards," says Sujoy. This won't be AB's first fantasy film. He did
Shashi Kapoor's
Ajooba many years ago. But it would certainly be his first children's film. And almost certainly the only time he'll get to play a djinn.
Sushmita Sen with Richard Gere
Sushmita Sen’s acting career has reached a new high.
Even as her first Hollywood movie is yet to hit the marquee, Sushmita Sen is gearing up to act in her second American film in which she will be seen opposite
Richard Gere, according to a newspaper report.
Sushmita already shares the screen space with supermodel
Naomi Campbell and
Drena De Niro (
Robert De Niro’s daughter) in New York-based filmmaker
Manish Gupta’s Indo-American movie
Karma Confessions and Holi.
And now in another big stride the actress is reported to have clinched a role in the US-based filmmaker
Sutapa Ghosh’s
The Expat.
The movie, to be produced by Miramax films, will have Sushmita portraying an Indian immigrant. Gere is Sush’s co-star in the film. The movie will be shot in Argentina but the shooting schedule is yet to be finalized.
Meanwhile, Sushmita is busy in promoting her upcoming film
Zindagi Rocks which stars
Shiney Ahuja,
Kim Sharma,
Mausami Chatterjee and
Seema Biswas.
Model-turned-actress gets big break opposite SRK
It appeared that model
Vidya Malvade would become another forgettable face of Indian cinema. But then, a big break came her way.
Success has eluded Vidya ever since she moved beyond the ramps to acting in films. So far, she has acted in two films –
Inteha and
Mashooka - both were box-office flops. And just when it seemed that Vidya would not get her foothold in tinsel town, lady luck has smiled upon her.
Vidya has got on a platter a plum role in Yash Raj banner film titled
Chak De.
The film revolves around the game of hockey and has
Shah Rukh Khan playing the coach of a girls’ hockey team.
Vidya plays a girl from a Sikh family. Her character in the film is very passionate about playing hockey, but her orthodox parents don’t approve of this.
Vidya’s character in
Chak De reminds of
Parminder Nagra in
Gurinder Chadha’s
Bend It Like Beckham.
It is learnt that Vidya has been undergoing training in playing hockey for her role in the film. A training camp has been organized by Yash Raj films in which more than a dozen girls – many of them newcomers – have been participating.
The movie’s actors are bound by a legal contract not to speak about their roles or the movie’s plot to the media.
Vidya has previously appeared with SRK in a Santro advertisement.
The shooting of
Chak De is already said to have begun. The film is being directed by
Shimit Amin, who previously wielded the megaphone for
Ab Tak Chhappan.
Kangana making rapid strides
Only a few newcomers get the plum roles in the early stages of their acting career as
Kangana Ranaut has.
In her very first film in Bollywood, Kangana left her mark in a role that proved a litmus test for her acting skills.
Anurag Basu’s
Gangster got critical acclaim and Kangana’s acting career was on the roll.
This beautiful girl from Himachal doesn’t believe in taking roles that merely require her to look pretty and dance around the trees.
That explains Kangana’s second movie,
Woh Lamhe, in which she plays a schizophrenic actress. The film is loosely based on the relationship between late actress
Parveen Babi and filmmaker
Mahesh Bhatt. While Kangana plays Babi’s character,
Shiney Ahuja plays the filmmaker.
After these two films with the Bhatt’s production house, Vishesh Films, Kangana is moving on and working with other producers and directors as well.
She has almost completed the shooting of
Suneel Darshan’s next movie
Shakalaka Boom Boom in Johannesburg.
Apart from this, she has clinched a three-movie deal with UTV.
One of these three films will be Anurag Basu’s
Metro. The movie will have Kangana co-starring with some talented and senior actors like
Kay Kay Menon,
Konkana Sen,
Shilpa Shetty and Shiney Ahuja.
Another one of these three films will be directed by
David Dhawan.
Sunny Deol plays a patriot Pakistani!
After acting in several films with anti-Pak rhetoric,
Sunny Deol is now taking a U-turn.
The brawny actor is playing a patriot Pakistani in producer-director
Ammtoje Mann's movie
Kaafila. This role will be a complete departure for Deol who has acted in films like
Gadar,
Border and
Maa Tujhhe Salaam, all of which showed him taking on the Pakis.
Although such jingoistic roles appealed to some moviegoers, they did not go down well with a section of viewers in India and abroad.
So Sunny has now taken a complete turnaround and is playing a pro-Pak role in
Kaafila.
The film also stars two Pakistani actresses –
Sana Nawaz (who has already established her name in Pak film industry) and
Mona Lisa (a Pakistani television actress).
Kaafila is slated to hit the theatres in November. The film has been shot in many countries including Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, UK and India (Manali, Ladakh).
Before
Kaafila, Sunny will be seen in
Naksha which releases in September.
Imagine Hrithik as Hamlet!
A filmmaker in Bollywood is thinking of making an adaptation of
Shakespeare’s
Hamlet with
Hrithik Roshan in the eponymous role.
No, it is not
Vishal Bhardwaj in whose mind this idea is cooking. It is rather
Onir, the director of critically acclaimed
My Brother Nikhil, who is said to be contemplating a movie based on Hamlet. Reports say Onir is considering Hrithik Roshan for the role of the movie’s princely protagonist.
In an interview, Hrithik says he is thrilled at the prospect of playing Hamlet, but he will have to listen to the script and movie idea before committing to the project.
"I'd like to do an adaptation and not a straightforward screen version of Shakespeare…but something like what Vishal Bhardwaj has done in
Omkara is welcome," Hrithik is quoted as saying.
Hrithik says he is a great fan of Bhardwaj’s style of cinema. Hrithik has seen
Omkara and is pretty impressed by the idiom and setting in which Vishal has adapted Shakespeare’s tragedy.
Hrithik says he hopes to work with Bhardwaj someday.
Bhardwaj, on the other hand, is said to be thinking of adapting
Julius Caesar to the screen next.
Mallika turns bad
The oomph belle from Bollywood will show the shades of villainy in a Tamil film.
Mallika Sherawat has got an important role in the
Kamal Haasan starrer
Dasavatharam. It is now learnt that the busty belle will play a negative role in the film.
The movie has a rather unusual plot and story. It has Kamal Haasan in as many as ten roles. In his acting career Kamal has played double roles in many films. He set a record for himself by playing four roles in his comedy
Michael Madana Kama Rajan. And now he takes a giant leap with ten roles in
Dasavatharam.
Asin is the main heroine of Dasavatharam. Interestingly, she plays a double role.
Mallika plays a sensuous vamp. As learnt, she is cast opposite one of the ten characters that Kamal plays in the film.
Reports quote Kamal as saying that he offered Mallika the role when she was in Chennai shooting for
Mani Ratnam’s film
Guru in which she plays a cameo. Kamal says Mallika had no reservations about playing a negative role.
Dasavatharam will be directed by
K S Ravikumar. The film goes on the floors this weekend.
Does Shah Rukh ham in 'Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna'?
Since it was a
Shah Rukh Khan film coming after a gap of more than a year, I was hoping to see an improvised, subtler actor in the superstar.
The superstar in SRK has always dominated the actor in him. The sugar-coated, mushy and over-dramatic roles he has played in many films have, sort of, narrowed the superstar’s acting range and given him a fixed screen image into which he seems to slip with utmost ease. No doubt, people love this image – that is why we have seen films like
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,
Kal Ho Na Ho and
Veer Zaara becoming hits.
As an actor, SRK admittedly showed flashes of brilliance in
Swades and
Paheli. He slipped out of his typical screen persona in both the films, but the box-office verdict of these two films has perhaps prevented such further departures for the superstar.
So we see him replay himself in
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. We see the same lofty brow, the same trembling of lips, the same heavy breathing, lump in the throat, the same twitching of facial muscles and the same overblown theatrics. Dev in KANK might have been called Raj or Rahul, the name doesn’t matter. The character enacted behind the name is fundamentally the same.
The eccentric hilarity of Dev in KANK apart, the emotional turbulences and dilemmas of the character have been brought out in no refreshing way by SRK.
SRK, the reigning superstar of Bollywood, throws no surprise in KANK. He does what he has been doing – play the over-acted tragedy king yet again.
Abhishek and Rani : always married on screen!
It is an unusual coincidence that whenever
Abhishek Bachchan and
Rani Mukherjee have acted together in a film they have played married couples.
They may not have made a romantic couple in real life, but Abhishek and Rani are indeed the inseparables on the silver screen. In all the films they have acted together – be it
Goldie Behl’s
Bas Itna Sa Khwab Hai or
Mani Ratnam’s
Yuva or
Shaad Ali’s comedy
Bunty Aur Babli – Abhi and Rani have played married couples.
And in
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, the two stars play spouses again. However, this time, not all is hunky-dory in their marriage. Abhi plays a temperamental husband who at one point in the film even accuses Rani, his wife, of not being able to bear a child. Rani, on the other hand, plays a woman whose marriage with Abhi has been more of a compromise. Their marriage is full of self-doubt and lack of passion.
Speaking about Rani, Abhi says it was most easy working with her as he has shared the screen space with her many times in the past.
Naseer, Jaya to work in Sunglass
Well-known Bengali director
Rituparno Ghosh is highly elated after managing to convince
Jaya Bachchan and
Naseeruddin Shah - two of his favourite actors - to join the cast of his second Hindi venture
Sunglass.
"Naseer is one of my favourite actors. And, in fact, I've planned a whole film with him in the central role for next year. For now he has kindly consented to be part of
Sunglass," said Ghosh, who ventured into Hindi films with
Raincoat, starring
Aishwarya Rai and
Ajay Devgan.
Sunglass, to be shot simultaneously in Hindi and Bengali, is Ghosh's first commercial venture. It also has
Sanjay Suri,
Konkona SenSharma and
Raima Sen in the cast.
Naseer plays the owner of a curio shop who gives Konkona the pivotal sunglass that manoeuvres the story forward.
The actor par excellence, who says he is bored of film acting and looking with passionate amazement at a career in direction after
Yun Hota To Kya Hota, is all smiles at the cameo.
"Ritu is a director I admire. When he hesitantly asked me to play this cameo, I happily agreed. Right now film acting doesn't excite me at all. I just feel happy being in films for friends like I did recently in
Mixed Doubles. It was a walk-on part. But I stood by
Rajat Kapoor just as he stood by me.
"Again in
Vishal Bharadwaj's
Omkara it's a blink-and-you-miss-the-link kind of role. But there's a lot more in
Omkara that I wanted to be part of. It's going to be a very important film. I'm sure I'll enjoy working with Ritu. I admire Ritu. He is one of the finest filmmakers of the country."
Adaptations, the latest trend in Bollywood
Adapting stories from literary works is Bollywood’s latest style funda.
Even as
Omkara is running to mixed response from the audience,
Vishal Bhardwaj has made clear his intention to make another adaptation of
Shakespeare’s plays, possibly
Hamlet or
The Midsummer Night’s Dream. On the other front,
J.P. Dutta has completed his
Umrao Jaan which is an adaptation of the novel by
Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa (1905).
There are other filmmakers turning towards young Indian authors with contemporary writing.
For long, there has been a buzz in the industry that filmmaker
Rohan Sippy will produce a film on
Chetan Bhagat’s book ‘
One Night at the Call Centre’ with
Abhishek Bachchan in one of the lead roles. But because of the unavailability of a right director, the film was shelved. The project is now taken over by
Atul Agnihotri. Atul read the book and showed interest in making the film. He then contacted the author, Chetan Bhagat, who approved the project.
The story revolves around a group of six call center employees who get a phone call from God.
Reports have it that
Salman Khan will definitely be a part of the project, while other cast is yet to be decided. Actors who are in their early twenties are required for the project.
Does Suchitra need the Phalke?
Will she, won't she? Speculation is rife over who the recipient of the coveted Dadasaheb Phalke Award will be this year.
While the name of the enigmatic
Suchitra Sen is doing the rounds, the Information & Broadcasting ministry is treading with caution.
Unsure whether the 75-year-old former actress, who has religiously stayed away from the public eye for nearly three decades, will accept the Phalke Award if her name were to be formally announced, has kept the decision in abeyance.
Ministry officials do not want a situation where the Phalke Award is turned down - that has never happened before. But with the reclusive Suchitra Sen, nobody can quite be sure.
Indications available from Kolkata suggest that even if she does win the award, Sen might not turn up personally to accept it from the President of India. In that case, she might have to forgo the honour altogether.
If Suchitra Sen does indeed win the Phalke, she would be only the sixth woman to find herself on the hallowed list of film industry luminaries.
The first Phalke Award winner (in 1970) was
Devika Rani, but since then only four other women -
Kanan Devi,
Sulochana,
Durga Khote and
Lata Mangeshkar - have made the grade.
All the women on the Phalke roster are exceptional achievers in their own right, but with the exception of Lata Mangeshkar, none can claim to have soared to the sort of heights that Suchitra Sen did during her heydays.
With her incandescent screen presence and emotive skills, she lent a rare lustre to Bengali cinema of the golden era.
With
Uttam Kumar - inexplicably, he never won the Phalke Award - Suchitra formed what ranks among the most enduring screen pairs ever in the history of Indian films.
The string of super-successful emotional and romantic melodramas that Bengali cinema's greatest screen couple featured in during the 1950s and 1960s assumed the proportions of a full-fledged genre.
Uttam-Suchitra films became an entity by themselves - an entity that drew film lovers to the theatres in droves. Bengali cinema, indeed Indian cinema, hasn't seen a phenomenon that could rival what Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen achieved as a pair.
Though Suchitra deserves the Phalke Award as richly as anybody else, it would only be in the fitness of things if she were to choose to turn her back on it.
For one, the one-time actress, who spends much of her time outside of the house in Ramakrishna Mission's Belur Math on the outskirts of Kolkata, has moved well beyond the world of awards and encomiums.
And two, a Phalke Award for her would be an incomplete and much-delayed act of recognition given the fact that Uttam Kumar, whose name inevitably crops up every time one mentions Suchitra Sen, never won Indian cinema's top honour.
Suchitra Sen's identity as a movie star is inextricably intertwined with that of Uttam Kumar. It is no coincidence that Sen hasn't been seen in films or in public since the death of the Bengali superstar in 1980.
The Garboesque mask of inscrutability that she has worn since she called it quits in 1978 is Suchitra Sen's personal identity badge.
If she deigns to step out of her self-created cocoon to accept the Phalke Award, her countless fans around the country would be overjoyed no doubt, but wouldn't she lose her aura just a tad in the bargain?
Some icons are best left on their pedestals.
Hrithik, Aishwarya jump from a cliff
Not only
Hrithik Roshan even
Aishwarya Rai will be seen doing dangerous stunts in
Dhoom 2 .
It is not for nothing Aishwarya has been asked to lose weight for the sequel of the 2004 hit
Dhoom. The actress may have slimmed down to slip into a bikini, but her former cherubic self may not have been in keeping with the actions she does in the film.
Because Ash is paired with Hrithik and plays his partner-in-crime, the pretty damsel had to be part of some of the action sequences shot on Hrithik.
One scene from the film shows Hrithik and Ash jumping off a high mountain cliff. Of course, necessary precautions were taken to shoot the scene, but the final look of the shot, to be shown in the movie’s promos, is very convincing.
Not only Ash, even
Bipasha Basu, who plays a cop, will indulge in some spunky stuff in the film. The two ladies will also sport bikinis in few scenes. Hrithik has already undergone arduous training in roller-blading, sand-boarding and bike stunts for the film. All in all, the film promises an adrenalin pumping experience for the viewers.
Dhoom 2 is currently being shot in Durban. Hrithik, Ash,
Abhishek Bachchan and
Uday Chopra are taking part in this schedule. The film has previously been shot in Rio De Janeiro and Namibia.
Akshay Kumar launches Punjabi devotional album
Akshay Kumar has donned a 'new avatar' as a singer by lending his voice to a song in a Punjabi devotional music album, dedicated to the victims of recent Mumbai serial blasts.
The 39-year-old actor sang one of the songs in the album titled '
Nirgun Raakh Liya' (God is the Protector) along with
Gyani Raghubir Singh Ji Diwan. The album was released in London last week.
Recalling his childhood days when he used to visit a Gurdwara every Sunday and chant the song 'Nirgun Raakh Liya', Akshay said it was his urge to bring out an album on the song, but was quick to add that this was his first and last album.
"I would like to dedicate this song and the video to all those who lost their lives on that fateful day (July 11 in Mumbai). It is extremely sad when something like this happens...That I was in London," he told reporters at the launch of the album.
"I went there (Mumbai) for a day" he said and decided to devote the album to the victims of the blasts. He expressed confidence that the songs would touch the hearts of the people.
"We seek to transcend all man-made barriers on the pretext of religion."
The video features Akshay being filmed extensively across different religious places, villages and cities across India.
Abhishek may get more accolades than SRK in KANK
All eyes may be on
Shah Rukh Khan on the eve of release of
Karan Johar's
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna but a major share of the accolades for the film could well go the way of
Abhishek Bachchan.
SRK may be playing the central character in
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna but if trade sources are to be believed Abhishek may prove to be the ultimate dark horse who gets all claps from the kids, youths and front benchers as well as the sympathy of the family audiences, if initial reaction to the television promos and trailors of the film are anything to go by.
Those who have seen the rushes of the film say that SRK's "overwhelming presence" in the film notwithstanding, several sequences in
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna which present Abhishek as the "archetypical angry young man" may endear him to the cinegoers in the same way as
Amitabh Bachchan's angry young man persona in films like
Deewar,
Zanjeer and
Trishul did in the 1970s.
In the film, SRK plays the character of a person who, caught in a loveless marriage, falls in love with the character of
Rani Mukherjee, who, while married to Abhishek, too finds herself stifled in her marriage.
Sources in the film trade say that though the film, essentially, revolves around SRK as is the case with most films by Johar, the sympathies of the audiences, specially the kids and family audiences who form a major proportion of the cinegoers could well go to the character played by Abhishek in the film.
This, coupled with the immense popularity of the two songs "
Rock N Roll Soniye" and "
Where's the Party tonight" in which Abhishek appears, could result in Junior Bachchan adding to his already big fan following among the kids and the youth after "
Kajra Re" and "
Right Here Right Now" songs in
Bunty Aur Babli and
Bluffmaster.
Infact the song "where's the party tonight" picturised on Abhishek and
Preity Zinta in the film, as also the "Rock and Roll Sonie" song picturised on Amitabh, Abhishek and Preity, are a huge rage among all sections, specially the youth and the children.
While both Amitabh and Abhishek come across as exquisite in the "
Rock N Roll Soniye" song, which has been appearing in television promos of the film on various satellite channels for quite some time now, Abhishek is simply fabulous in the song "
where's the party tonight" which already has the youth dancing to its groovy beats reminding the viewers of "
Say Na Say Na" and "
Right Here Right Now" from
Bluffmaster.
Now, Junior B to play a superhero
Filmmaker
Goldie Behl’s next venture will have
Abhishek Bachchan in a very unusual role. Almost four years after the debacle of his movie
Bas Itna Sa Khwab Hai, Behl returns to direction with a film titled
Drona.
The film will have Behl’s close buddy Abhishek playing the lead role. Reports have it that Abhi plays a meek, submissive, bespectacled nerd who undergoes radical transformation after some supernatural experiences. The film will be shot in California. Drona will have lots of special effects and stunts with the use of state-of-the-art technology. The film will also have a decent budget.
It is learnt that
Priyanka Chopra has been approached to play Abhi’s ladylove in the film. Priyanka was also paired with
Hrithik Roshan in
Krrish, which is being touted as India’s first superhero film.
Abhishek and Priyanka have worked together in
Bluffmaster.
Will Vidya Balan accept the controversial role?
One top actress has already developed cold feet in accepting the role that requires some nudity.
Filmmaker
Shaji Karun might be keeping his fingers crossed for his film
Suryamukhi which has been facing delays because no actress has yet given her nod to the role that will include a few nude scenes.
This time,
Vidya Balan is said to be in the reckoning for the role which has previously been offered to
Madhuri Dixit, who refused to do the same because of the demand of nudity.
Suryamukhi is about the legendary painter
Raja Ravi Verma and his inspiration
Sugunabai, who often posed clothes-less for the painter’s nude paintings.
Although Shaji Karun has made it clear that the nude scenes will be shot on the body-double and he might use other visual metaphors like nude paintings and shadows to depict nudity in the film, no actress has yet committed to the project out of fear of damage to her reputation. Vidya Balan, the Lolita of
Parineeta, has been stamped as a non-glamorous actress in the industry and to get rid of this label she might accept the role considering she may come into the league of top actresses as the same role was offered to one of the industry’s leading ladies.
John will get to indulge in his passion
The dashing
John Abraham will get to indulge in his passion for soccer in his forthcoming Bollywood film. John has been quoted by a website that he is thrilled to play the lead in
Goal – an upcoming movie about soccer.
"I've always been a huge (soccer) freak and this passion for the game took me all the way to Germany this year to see the World Cup finals," John was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
All know that John has also got a soft spot for motorcycles, and shot to fame two years ago in
Dhoom for his role as the leader of a gang of bikers who rob rich Mumbai businessmen.
The
Goal production team has begun scouting stadiums in Britain and Spain and hopes to begin shooting later this year.
I told you earlier that
Saif Ali Khan was likely to star in
Goal. But the movie's director,
Vivek Agnihotri, has now reportedly clarified that he has selected John for the role.
"It is great to have John on board," Agnihotri was quoted as saying, noting that John was "an avid football fan and a serious player."
