Bollywood

The world famous leading overseas production company FICUS has bagged the USA theatrical rights of both Tamil and Telugu rights of Rajinikanth’s forthcoming much hyped heavy budgeted film ‘Robo’. It is being directed by veteran filmmaker Shankar with a heavy budget of nearly 200 crores.

‘Endhiran’ is the biggest ever never made Indian film not only in the terms of budget but also in the film cast and crew which include Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles and other popular actors such as Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam and Kalabavan Mani.

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Try taking Priyanka Chopra away from her denim skirt. Just try. Yet again for Levis’ ’Change the World’ campaign Miss Chopra strutted in wearing them faded denims. She paired it with a snug black and white tee.The flirty curls and the grey gladiators made the look seem easy and unofficial.

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Abhishek Bachchan has completed his first decade in Bollywood. The actor who made his debut with J.P. Duta’s Refugee in 2000 worked in about 14-15 films before he got his first hit with Dhoom. And the Bachchans are now contemplating throwing a big private bash at their residence to celebrate the same.

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After doing intense brooding characters in films like Gangster and Fashion, Kangna Ranaut is looking forward to light breezy comedies now.

The actress is excited with her role in Indra Kumar’s Double Dhamaal and will be seen starring with five men – Sanjay Dutt, Riteish Deshmukh, Arshad Warsi, Ashish Choudhary and Javed Jaffrey in the movie. “I am excited,” says Kangna. “I play Sanjay Dutt’s secretary and Mallika Sherawat plays his wife. Later, our track changes and we fall in love,” she reveals.

This will be Kangna’s third comedy. The first was Anees Bazmee’s No Problem and the second was Anand L Rai’s Tanu Weds Manu. “I am trying a different approach altogether, not that I didn’t enjoy doing films like Gangster, but I want to expand my horizons now,” she clarifies.

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Country Music Association (CMA) Awards 2010 nominations list has been announced on Good Morning America. The 44th CMA Awards will be announced on Wednesday, 10th November, 2010. The CMA award show event will be aired live on ABC. 2010 CMA Music Award ceremony will be hosted by Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood. Country singer Miranda Lambert has got total nine nominations after announcement of latest round of nominees. Lambert is a first female artist who get the highest nominations in the same year in the 43-year history of the Country Music Awards. Antebellum also got five nominations including one more prestigious category – Song Of The Year.

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We Are Family
Director: Siddharth P Malhotra
Actors: Kajol, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal

It’s this thing about soppy chick flicks, or afternoon soppy soap operas, if you will. The male character
related stories is destined to severe step-mom treatment. If he’s present at all, he usually has no say in his own destiny. He quietly follows nature’s will. Humour is generally scarce. This fits in well with the female worldview, perhaps (okay, that’s a joke!). It doesn’t help include varied audiences.
Arjun Rampal plays that muted, pointless gent in this movie adapted from Chris Columbus’s Stepmom (1998). To be fair, Rampal gets better playtime in the Indian adaptation. And he also looks suitably dishy for his target audience, as We Are Familyagainst a bald, old, divorced, charmless Ed Harris, who’s in with a girl (Julia Roberts) hotter than his vintage, in the Hollywood version.

Rampal’s the “strong, silent types”, who tells his girlfriend (Kareena), “Never say, I love you. It (the love) goes away.” The scene appears early on in the film. It’s a sweet promise of subtlety, hardly met by the movie thereafter. Unfortunately.

The leading man also has an alternate family: a divorced wife (Kajol), two daughters, and a son, who seems pretty low on the brat-quotient, ‘feminised’ perhaps in the company of women. Their mother is terminally ill. The kids are introduced to the dad’s young, sassy girlfriend they’re unlikely to accept, given the obvious circumstances. They call her D, short for daayan (witch), rather rustic nickname from children born and raised in Australia!

The setting is the sanitised First World. Spaghetti’s ready for supper. Aesthetics of modern, good housekeeping is established. As it is, for most urban Hindi films by now. The women (Kajol, Kareena) the film centres on, arguably make for the brightest big screen Bollywood talents. The shots are tightly clean.

It’s just the idea that binds all these together, which is entirely outsourced from the West. So is an Elvis hit, with lyrical Hindi additions that go: “Main toh bhool gayi kya wordings thi (I forgot what the words were), something something, Jailhouse Rock!” Jesus knows this Indian poverty (of imagination) is not new. This film is merely its rare, official acknowledgement. The producers have suitably paid for the copyrights. They’re not sneakily thieving this time! There may be hundreds of original local writers waiting for a medium to express something of their own, through the nation’s top leading ladies, no less. But then, creative laziness is not a moviegoer’s concern. The film is. English movie-rental, or Indian readymade remake: who cares?

A warm, doting single mother, losing before her eyes, her life and her sweet children to fatal cancer, you can tell, is something that’ll weep any woman off her feet. The premise is stuff dry tissues are made for. Yet, the pathos here is produced not from moments, but from performances alone: a stunning Kajol’s in particular. She appears superior to Susan Sarandon, I suspect, because the corny background score here, unlike the quietness of the original, rarely allows for sheer drama to take over. She also cannot quite place her family in the fakeness around, which can’t be concealed in candyfloss anymore. This ain’t Archie Andrews.

This is an Indian family drama over a dying single mom. Most such families would have a support stream of parents, uncles, aunties, many other relatives, pooling in at this tragedy. The mom’s hip, self-sufficient, in control, alone; despite an ex, and his hot girlfriend. The children look lost. This cultivated suaveness is but suddenly forgone as everybody begins to simultaneously weep from the screen. The heroine morphs into the image of the desi mother, in a saree, hoping the best for her daughter’s grand wedding after her death. Bollywood dhol beats hit the crescendo. Filmmakers hope you’ll hear the lady behind you go, sob sob sob… Hmmm.

Columbus discovered America in the 15th century. But he mistook it for India. Over 500 years later, in a film originally directed by Columbus, the confusion between the two cultures (and countries) still persist. Huh. It’s only fair!
Rating: **

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Oscar winning composer A.R. Rahman launched “Oh yaaro, yeh India bula liya”(Friends, we have called you to India), the theme song for the Commonwealth Games at Gurgaon on Saturday.The song has been titled ‘Swagatham‘

“I feel honoured to have got the opportunity to compose the theme song for the mega-event. It was not an easy task. I had started composing it six months ago and finished just last night,” Rahman said.

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Here are the tour dates for the A.R. Rahman Jai Ho Concert: The Journey Home World Tour In USA:

September 11, 2010, Saturday: Los Angeles, Calif. (LA Forum)
September 12, 2010, Sunday: San Francisco, Calif. (Oracle Arena)

September 14, 2010, Tuesday: Vancouver (PNE Collesium)

September 17, 2010, Friday: Houston, Texas (Houston Toyota Center)
September 18, 2010, Saturday: Dallas, (American Airlines Center)

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