Tag: Bollywood

Actress Kareena Kapoor says it was the village set up of Punit Malhotra’s ‘Gori Tere Pyaar Mein’ that made her say yes to the project. In the film, the 32-year-old actress is employed with a NGO and believes in working for the benefit of society. “When I heard this film will be shot in a village, I was excited. This was the reason for me to say yes to the project. I have never been to a village or shot there so I wanted to experience it,” Kareena told reporters. This film will see Kareena teaming up with Imran Khan for the second time after ‘Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu’ . “It was fun working with Imran. He is a great actor,” she said. The romantic comedy is produced by Karan Johar and will release on November 22. Also, Kareena is looking forward to working with Hrithik Roshan in ‘Shuddhi’.

Actress Katrina Kaif attended Ganapati visarjan (immersion) ceremony at her former beau Salman Khan’s sister’s house. Katrina, who is known to be very close to the Khan family, made sure she was present on the auspicious occasion. Several Bolywood celebrities, including Karisma Kapoor and Sangeeta Bijlani, too attended the festivities on Tuesday evening along with entire Khan family. Salman has been welcoming Lord Ganesha for the past 11 years at his Galaxy Apartment here, but this year the celebration was shifted to his younger sister Arpita’s house. The Ganesh puja, which started with the installation of the idol on September 9, continued for one and a half days at Arpita’s house.

STORY: One loverboy and two lovely ladies. Live-in, walk out, make-up, makeout. In turns. Not necessarily in that order. Confused about love and marriage, they follow their heart (at times) and all that lies in between (pun!). REVIEW: So there, Bollywood breaks the stereotype. It steps out from behind the bloomin’ trees in tulip fields and comfortably ‘shacks-up’ with the times. Here ‘smooch-at-first-sight’ happens in a bus-full with baaratis. Coffee dates are sipped in bed (Happy Endings? Huh!). Commitment is not the criteria. Marriage is not on the cards. And sexual compatibility is high priority. Yes, welcome to a modern day shuddh romance in desiland. Plenty ‘Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang’, tucked in with some emotion and drama too. Raghu-(Sushant)-the-Romeo is a tourist guide in Jaipur, who also doubles up as rental baraati for Goyal (Rishi), a shaadi planner. He meets the rebellious Gayatri (Parineeti) and feels a “tezwala” attraction towards her. They waste no time in moving in, and making out. Soon, they’re love-addicts, but commitmentphobic.

The third character in this threesome (don’t expect any of that) is Tara (Vaani), who was supposed to wed Raghu, until he fled on his wedding day. She makes a re-entry for revenge, but ends up with a complicated status, really. Sushant swings between the Patiala-clad women and makes for the perfectly confused, charming and lovable Romeo. His hair perfectly styled at all times (though he should have had the ‘out-of-bed’ look more often), his clothes are more designer than dehati, but he more than makes up for it with his desi cool performance. Parineeti is a phataka, firing dialogues (smoking up too) and living it up. She makes the character her own, complementing Sushant with a casualness that’s commendable. Newbie Vaani is impressive, pretty and commands a good screen-presence. Rishi Kapoor, blows you away yet again with his incredible histrionics. Maneesh Sharma’s ‘SDR’ has a ‘Band Bajaa Baraat’ blend, but the essence lies in the conversational chemistry between the characters, some beautifully captured moments and slice-of-life scenes. He doesn’t play safe, which is good, but the second half seems repetitive. The concept is engaging, but the plot is little shudd, little desi and quite confused.

Nargis Fakhri was recently invited to judge the finale of a college festival dance competition. The actress, who will be seen matching steps with Shahid Kapoor for an item song in his next, even got onto stage and danced with a few of the contestants. However, it was what followed that made it a memorable experience for some of the students. A group of fans had created a scrapbook with their favourite pictures and interviews of Nargis that they gifted to her while she was leaving the competition. As the crowd was getting unruly, Nargis was whisked away into her car by her security and had to leave abruptly. So she asked those students to drive with her to a studio where she was scheduled to shoot. They got a chance to talk to her on the ride to the studio, post which Nargis had her car drop them back to the campus.

Actress Priyanka Chopra, who is busy hopping from one TV show to another to promote her forthcoming film ‘Zanjeer’, says she would love to become a ‘bahu’ (daughterin- law) in a daily soap someday. “I would love to play a TV bahu. The most special thing about TV bahus is that when they go to sleep they look beautiful and when they wake up that time also they look beautiful,” quipped the 31-year-old. “Besides, they are loaded with jewellery all the time. So why wouldn’t I want to be a bahu of that kind,” added the actress. Priyanka was on the sets here with her Zanjeer co-star Ram Charan Teja. The actress admitted she doesn’t watch TV serials but she stays updated about every show thanks to her mother and grandmother. “There are a lot of daily soap fans in my home. My grandmother, my mother, everyone watches them together. In the evening, it gets tough to talk to them at the dining table. “They know the story of every TV serial and I also get to know about them because of them as they tell me everything during dinner time,” she said.

REVIEW: There’s a shot in Satyagraha – a rainbow glimmering for a second between jets of water pounding protestors – which typifies this film. Vibrantly layered, Satyagraha weaves together urban legends of corruption, encompassing corporate lobbyists to murdered engineers. It features slices of histories, Chauri Chaura, Mandal, Anna Hazare’s Jan Lokpal Andolan. It takes a real issue – corruption – to reel life, movingly fusing fact with fiction, leading to a security guard accompanying a politico at its screening to sing out aloud, “Aam aadmi kitna aam, Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram…” Retired teacher Dwarka Anand (Bachchan) is an idealistic man. His engineer son Akhilesh’s buddy Manav (Devgn) is an ambitious capitalist. Manav cherishes his friend – who suddenly dies. Minister Balram Singh (Bajpai) announces compensation which Akhilesh’s wife Sumitra (Rao) cannot get despite daily applications before government babus. Incensed, Dwarka slaps an arrogant official and gets imprisoned. Manav starts a campaign to free him, using social media, roping in wannabe-bahubali Arjun Singh (Rampal) and journalist Yasmin (Kapoor).

As hopeful students, hungry labourers and angry middle class citizens join, politicians panic. Will their moves derail the movement? Devgn is Satyagraha’s strong body while Amitabh – gaunt in grief, moving in fortitude – is its soul. And Bajpai is its glittering, malevolent cloak, delivering a satiny performance hair-raising in its perfection. Bachchan voices the movie’s philosophy – “Janta sarkaar ki malik hai. Malik nirdesh deta hai. Maang nahin karta.” But what is the best way to give such nirdesh? Symbolic protest? Violent revolt? Or a longer, harder route? Satyagraha grapples with this dilemma. More philosophical than fiery, it adorns reality with gloss and loss. Dwarka touching the earth where his son fell brings tears while Prasoon Joshi’s wonderful lyrics – “Uthkar karne hain kuch kaam, Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram” – bring hope. Satyagraha deserves an extra half-star for capturing corruption from root to branch – a government babu complains, “Yahan toh table ka bhi bhaada dena padta hai”. Showing true Satyagraha has no short-cuts, it also shows solutions glimmering ahead, as ephemeral, yet powerful as a rainbow cleansing the dust.

Socialite and reality TV star Kim Kardashian has coloured her brunette locks blonde. The 32-year-old flaunted the new look at a friend’s Labour Day party in Beverly Hills here. Kim, who gave birth to her first child, daughter North, with rapperboyfriend Kanye West, was seen taking her baby in a carrier with sister Kourtney following closely behind. She was wearing an olive green button-down shirt, a pair of skinny jeans and nude-coloured sandals. Kim also perfectly highlighted her new lighter locks with a thick gold chain around her neck.

In an attempt to draw attention to the current situation of Syria, Alyssa Milano has released her very own “sex tape” that holds a special message, regarding the war-torn country, for the viewers on FunnyorDie.com. In the new clip, which was released on Wednesday, the 40-year-old actress can be seen vacationing in Cabo with a handsome fellow when she strips down to her under garments, Us magazine reported. The footage then shows the ‘Who’s the Boss’ star crawling into a bed, covered in rose petals, after setting up a video camera that gets turned around to face a TV before any of the action can be caught on it. The skit then draws attention to a special news report on the crisis in Syria. Milano, who has actively tried to draw attention to the conflict on her Twitter account, had tweeted that she wants her son to live in a world without war.

STORY: Poseidon’s son Percy sets off with his friends to retrieve the Golden Fleece – the only thing that can save their world from destruction. But along their way, they must face many obstacles. REVIEW: At the utopian fun-house otherwise known as Camp Half-Blood, life for Percy Jackson (Lerman) and his ilk is groovy. But he gets a not-so-welcome surprise one day when introduced to his half-brother Tyson ( Douglas Smith). To add to his shock (but not awe), Tyson is a cyclops! Soon enough, their idyll is shattered when they are attacked by what can be best described as a rampaging, mechanical bull. The bull manages to breach their shield. The shield was supported by a magical tree created by Zeus when his daughter Thalia Grace (Kwiatkowski), who met her maker after a bloody battle went wrong, was poisoned.

After the bull is turned to scrap metal, the perpetrator is found to be Luke Castellan (Abel), a rather angry young lad sporting a sulky expression like a kid does when denied his dinner. Luke, for no particular reason, wants to turn Mount Olympus into rubble. But the flaxen haired Annabeth Chase (Alexandra Daddario) keeps having brainwaves throughout the film. When she isn’t having brainwaves, she seems to love to hug Percy, presumably to boost his confidence levels and harden his resolve, which often wanes. She realizes that only the Golden Fleece can restore the tree to health and in doing so, save all of them too. But the camp’s boozy director, aptly named Dionysus (Tucci), sends the God of War’s daughter, the impossibly bitchy Clarisse La Rue (LevenRambin), to find it instead. Not to be outdone, Percy gathers his gang – Annabeth, Tyson and Grover Underwood (Jackson) – to locate the Golden Fleece on his own. The best thing about this predictable film is undoubtedly the special effects. For want of anything better, Sea of Monsters is a mishmash of various similar films in this genre and a passable potpourri of Greek mythology retold with a contemporary veneer

She was so much in love with the arc-lights, movie sets and camera that Kareena Kapoor used to bunk school to visit her sister and actress Karisma on the sets of her film. When asked to share a lesson that she learned at school and would want to pass on, the actress jokingly said: “I don’t remember any lesson. I used to bunk school a lot.” And when director Prakash Jha asked her where did you go after bunking school, the 32-year-old actress said: “I used to visit my sister on the sets of her film.” Kareena went to Welhams Girl’s School in Dehradun, Uttarakhand as well as Jamnabai Narsee School in Mumbai. The actress made her Bollywood debut in 2000 with Refugee opposite actor Abhishek Bachchan. In 13 years, she has been part of over 40 films including big hits like Jab We Met.

STORY: On the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary, the film attempts to pay a tribute to Swami Vivekananda, one of the most revered philosophers and Hindu monks of India. REVIEW: The film attempts to capture the life, ideals and beliefs of the much revered Swami Vivekananda. His take on caste, religion, God, family, marriage, social work and well-being of his country and people forms the story. His devotion for Swami Ramakrishna is also an integral part of the film. Biopics are generally exaggerated or incomplete. They either glorify the lead character or underplay his or her brilliance. Either way, they often make for an interesting watch as it’s intriguing to see iconic events unfold in front of your eyes as they may have happened years back.

The Light: Swami Vivekananda doesn’t belong to either category. It’s a kind of biopic that makes its influential subject look so uninteresting that even a believer might turn agnostic. For starters, the film is loaded with umpteen unmelodious songs. The songs are probably more in number than dialogues. The dialogues have their own tragedy. The actors are extremely loud and speak in slow motion, making you wonder if they were instructed to do so, since the film is set in the 19th century. Whatever the reason, the effect is unbearable. Barring the lead actor Deep Bhattacharya, the supporting cast overacts, making the film look unintentionally funny.

Deep Bhattacharya is probably the only saving grace of this film, which becomes somewhat tolerable in the second half. He acts well and looks the part. He tries his best to salvage the situation but too many things go wrong in this project. We also like the last scene of the film, where we see the silhouette of Swamiji after he took the Samadhi. Made on a modest budget, the film has been rarely shot in real locations. This further degrades the credibility of this biopic. You don’t even get to see his rock memorial. Worst of all, the screenplay is so boring that it can put you to sleep. Whether you are or are not a follower of the legendary Swami Vivekananda, this is one film you must avoid watching for neither does it inspire you, nor does it make you want to know more about him. You’d rather visit the Vivekananda Kendra in Kanyakumari to seek spiritual happiness.

Link-up rumours are unavoidable in showbiz, but bubbly actress Parineeti Chopra is not taking reports of an alleged romance with director Maneesh Sharma lightly. “Earlier, I used to take it lightly, but when people started writing too many stuff, I got angry, especially about Maneesh,” said Parineeti, who was introduced to filmdom by Maneesh with his directorial venture Ladies vs Ricky Bahl. She is also playing the female lead in his next – Shuddh Desi Romance – coming out Sep 6. “I am an actress because of him and my feelings toward Maneesh is like too much love and respect for him because he changed my life,” said the actress. “I feel very bad when people say she got a break because they are in a relationship.

It’s like linking me with my mentor. Maneesh is my friend, so I can call him and say it’s a crap article and we laugh over it. Even my family laughs over it as they know me very well.” So far, she has teamed up with Ranvir Singh in Ladies vs Ricky Bahl and Arjun Kapoor in Ishaqzaade while Sushant Singh Rajput is her co-star in Shuddh Desi Romance.

Liz Hurley has admitted that she is passionate about French parenting, as she is currently reading a book titled ‘French Parents Don’t Give In – 100 parenting tips from Paris’. The 48-year-old actress, who is engaged to former Australian cricketer Shane Warne took to Twitter, saying that if there was a planet where family mealtimes are pleasant, kids eat the same food as their parents and few kids get fat, then it would be France, the Daily Express reported.

Former Coronation Street star Katherine Kelly reportedly got married to her Australian boyfriend Ryan Clark in a secret ceremony at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas. The ‘Mr Selfridge’ actress told Hello! Magazine that she loves going to other people’s weddings but never desired a big white wedding for herself and was never under the pressure, the Mirror reported. The 33-year old actress, who told her family she was going on holiday with her amateur boxer boyfriend, revealed that the secret wedding was exactly the way she hoped for as they wanted to enjoy the day without the usual planning and pressure. Kelly admitted that her wedding was “awesome” and she will “never forget that moment” for the rest of her life. The pair had been dating for the last two years.

STORY: The film traces Steve Jobs’ meteoric rise from a Northern California hippie to the co-founder of Apple Inc, one of the most iconic innovators of our times. REVIEW: The opening scene is riveting. The year is 2001. Clad in his famous black turtleneck and blue jeans uniform, you see Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) introducing an Ipod in a staff meeting. Soon after, flashbacks follow and you are transported to his early life at college, visit to India and how he brought about the personal computer revolution. To make a biopic on Steve Jobs (the man revered across the world for revolutionising technology) with Ashton Kutcher (former model who has Punk’d celebs, acted goofy in most films) playing the lead was always a tough one to pull off. While Ashton may not be in the league of Hollywood’s celebrated method actors, much to our surprise, he not only resembles Jobs but is competent and sincere in his attempt at portraying the ground-breaking entrepreneur.

It’s the forgettable background score, unimaginative story-telling and a dreary screenplay that makes the film look tedious. While it’s unfair to expect the filmmaker to include almost every aspect of Jobs’ turbulent life in his 120- minute feature film, we wish he’d have invested more in offering us a deeper insight into the man behind Apple and his associates. Instead, we are made to skim through Jobs’ work history in an episodic manner with disjointed scenes that fail to arouse emotion. The film draws a lot from The Social Network, especially when it comes to portraying Jobs as the ‘flawed human being’, equation with board members or fallout with friends. What worked for the Facebook film however was Aaron Sorkin’s solid screenplay. It all moves at a sluggish pace here, making the plot seem ambiguous. Jobs also goes on to state the obvious, which exposes the fact that a little more research was required. We already know about Jobs’ passion for innovation, habit of randomly firing employees or how it’s always lonely at the top. His rivalry with Bill Gates is mentioned way too casually, while the rest, personal life, marriage, Pixar, health issues, management mottos, the launch of Iphone, are all left out. Jobs is an ambitious but an incomplete effort. It’s ‘not bad’ but that’s certainly not what Steve Jobs stood for.

STORY: One deadly don. One young protege. Both in love with the same starlet. Who wins the girl in this felonious feat? REVIEW: Once Upon a Time… Bollywood movies were enamored by dreaded D’s of the underworld. They still are. Whether the story is told in retro-rap, or with stylish designer double Dons, or with gloss-free rawness of realism. This endless ‘lawless’ love affair continues. In OUATIMD, a love triangle forms the bloodline of the story, replete with ‘donnisms’, molls with maal and an overkill of ‘loaded’ dialogues pe dialogues. After Shoaib (Akshay) vanquishes his own gang-guru (in the prequel), he becomes the reigning mafioso with his terror squad spreading far and wide. Of course, Mumbai city wrapped in glam, glory and blood-soaked crime files is still fancied by the bhais (“Samundar ke baad Mumbai Shoaib se jani jaati hai!”).

Shoaib picks up young Aslam (Imran) from the chawls and takes him under his wing. Their ‘bhaihood’ is bullet-proof, only until years later when starlet Jasmine (Sonakshi) walks in and arrests Shoaib with her charm and gullibility. The rogue turns Romeo with obsession, but she’s already Aslam’s chosen ‘item’. Suddenly, the dons drop their other deadly dhandas to deal with crimes of passion instead (unbelievable!). Milan Luthria captures the essence of the period, packed with characters living behind ‘dark shades’ with an even darker conscience. This is a love story of a gangsta, it does not reopen dons’ crime diaries. The first part is more engaging; thereon, the sluggish pace lacks the same dum.

The heavy-duty dialogues (Rajat Aroraa) punch drama in the story, though at times too overbearing. The background score (Pritam & Anupam Amod) pitches in dramatically. This film has its moments, but it’s not as compelling as the prequel. Akshay does the bhai act with flamboyance and mojo. He gets a chance to do what he does best – herogiri (albeit less menacing, more entertaining), with charisma and clap-trap dialoguebaazi. Imran looks too suave for the part, but eventually rolls up his sleeves to play a don with dil, performing well in emotional scenes. Sonakshi pulls off a dabangg act to stand strong between two daunting dons.

Looks like its all work and no play for Dabangg superstar Sonakshi Sinha! Even after being choosy with the films Sonakshi Sinha has established herself in the film industry in less than three years. She has already done seven films, a few special appearances and several more upcoming films in her kitty. And the actress has even confessed that “I am only concerned with my work… I don’t party, I don’t go pubs and I am a very private person. And frankly, I have no time. I am happy I am concerned only about my work and I am happy being appreciated for that.” Well all this makes us belief that Sonakshi is indeed very hard working.

Kareena Kapoor was mobbed by frantic fans recently, when she was promoting a jewelley store in Bur Dubai, along with ‘Satyagraha’ co-star Ajay Devgan. Kapoor, who was also marketing her upcoming flick, was crowded by thousands of fans who had stormed Bur Dubai’s Cosmos Lane to get a glimpse of her, Gulf News reported. According to an eyewitness, people were getting jostled around and a possible stampede like situation was created. Kapoor and Devgan also faced difficulty standing inside the store, as they were swarmed by an army of photographers. The bouncers had to get heavy-handed as the fans were coaxed to back off to give the stars some space. A policeman was finally able to steer clear the crowd for the stars to get to their car outside.

STORY: The cute-as-a-button Smurfette has been kidnapped by the evil, scheming Gargamel who needs to get the formula for creating ‘true blue’ Smurfs. While Smurfette soon finds herself suffering from a bit of a crisis herself, it’s up to the rest of the Smurfs to rescue her, foil Gargamel’s plot and save the day. REVIEW: While the initial Smurfs flick was set in New York, this one takes a continental turn and shifts the scene to Paris, where the irrepressible Gargamel (a very eager Hank Azaria) needs something called ‘Smurf Essence’, which he uses as part of his magician’s act. So, he sends out one of his Naughties called Vexy ( Christina Ricci) to kidnap Smurfette ( Katy Perry, who fits the role pretty nicely) via an inter-dimensional portal he has opened. He believes that Smurfette is a key ingredient in his quest for world domination.

The fact that Smurfette is herself feeling a little blue, so to speak, because the whole village has forgotten her birthday (or so she thinks) doesn’t help matters. The pursuit begins with Papa Smurf ( Jonathan Winters), Clumsy ( Anton Yelchin), Grouchy ( George Lopez) and Vanity ( John Oliver) in hot pursuit. Papa Smurf, the voice of wisdom, uses magical crystals to port into the real world to enlist the help of Patrick Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris) and his stepfather Victor Doyle ( Brendan Gleeson). The pace, along with the live action, keeps moving and the script has several witty asides. In an attempt to appeal to a wider audience, there are a few sub-plots too, among them a moralistic take on who really created Smurfette. The rest of the Smurfs also get their 15 minutes of fame and gags. Apart from that, the film’s score (Heitor Pereira) adds a non-verbal emotiveness to some of the scenes. Also livening things up a bit is the comic timing in the movie.

Socialite Paris Hilton says she has no time for parties because she is always tied up with work. Hilton, 32, makes accessories like bags and perfumes under her banner and her business consumes most of her time. “As a teenager, I used to love to go to parties. Every single night almost. But now I’m so busy with work I don’t have time,” femalefirst.co.uk quoted Hilton as saying. “When I’m at a party it’s either I’m paid to be there, it’s a promotion for one of my products, or it’s for a special occasion. So I don’t really enjoy going out as much as I used to,” she added. She now prefers to stay indoors with boyfriend River Viiperi. “I’m more of a homebody now. I like to be with my boyfriend, stay home and cook, just chill,” she said.