Priyanka Chopra's cousin Parineeti to replace Anushka
Posted by Unknown Bollywood, Bollywood Movie Reviews 9:22 PM
Priyanka Chopra’s beautiful cousin Parineeti Chopra who starred in Yash Raj flick, ‘Ladies v/s Ricky Bahl' is the latest muse of the Yash Raj camp. News is that Yash Raj replaced Anushka Sharma with Parineeti Chopra. Now Priyanka’s cousin will be cast in Habib Faisal’s movie opposite Boney Kapoor’s son Arjun Kapoor.
Earlier Anushka Sharma was decided to star in the movie but later she was replaced by Parineeti Chopra as Yash Raj feels that the new girl fits the role perfectly.
For your update, we tell you that Parineeti was the marketing executive of the Yash Raj banner but Aditya Chopra found the acting capabilities in Parineeti and cast her in his films.
When contacted Yash Raj denied Anushka being replaced by the new girl but claimed that Habib wants a new face and Parineeti fits the bill perfectly.
Katrina Kaif in ‘Dhoom 3′!
Posted by Unknown Bollywood, Bollywood Movie Reviews, Featured 1:09 AM
The hunt for a leading lady for ’Dhoom: 3’ is over! Katrina Kaif will sizzle in the third instalment of the action-adventure series, which features Aamir Khan as the anti-hero.
Yash Raj Films (YRF) had been on the lookout for a fresh face for the role, which was essayed by Esha Deol and Aishwarya Rai, in "Dhoom" and "Dhoom:2", respectively.
"After almost a year of searching for a new face for ’Dhoom: 3’, we were still unable to find the perfect debutante to play the lead role. We even reached out to international talent but were still unable to find someone who stood out," said director Vijay Krishna Acharya aka Victor.
The choice was made jointly by Victor and producer Aditya Chopra.
"Once we decided to go with a known face and not pursue the newcomer route, Katrina was the obvious choice for all of us," Victor said in a YRF press statement Friday.
Katrina has been riding high on the success of films like "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara" and another YRF venture "Mere Brother Ki Dulhan" earlier this year.
"She is someone who we all know will bring tremendous enthusiasm and commitment to the film. The first time pairing of Aamir with Katrina will also certainly add value," he added.
"Dhoom: 3" is written and directed by Victor, who had also written "Dhoom" and "Dhoom 2".
Apart from Aamir, both Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra will continue in their now iconic roles of Jai Dixit and Ali, respectively.
The shooting will begin towards the end of this year. "Dhoom: 3" is slated for a 2012 Christmas release.(IANS)
Mausam - Film Review
Posted by Unknown Bollywood, Bollywood Movie Reviews 11:15 PM
There’s an old, popular Shailendra ditty in this movie that goes, of course, Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh. Kahaan Shuru, Kahan Khatam (It’s a weird legend. Not sure where it begins. Not sure where it ends).
The second time they play that Shankar Jaiskishen song on this screen, you’re convinced, this is some kind of an inside joke between the film’s director and his drooping audience. He’s ushered you into the theatre all right, seated you comfortably with popcorn, coke and other supplies for the day, it’s been over three hours (has felt like multiple mausams, seasons, of a television series), you’re still not certain when this epic tragedy will end, or if it will at all.
You do remember how it had roughly started. Sort of. The camera pans to reveal a sleepy, small pind or village in Punjab. Hero plays the fool with friends, getting cheap thrills out of challenging a train to knock his car over as he speeds across the rail tracks. That car looks like a topless Contessa, but is probably not. Homes have fat box TVs with poor reception. ‘Respected’ elder men lord over affairs of the young. Tutak Tutak Tutiya is the Bhangra number of the day. We’re in the early ‘90s. Detailing is perfect, down to the aloo puri, that looks delicious. The sweep is still wide.
It feels like a more realistic, warm, alternate route to Yash Chopra’s lush greens of Punjab. The picture, promising so far, appears comic in parts, romantic at moments, poetic in portions, and the all-genre Bollywood film otherwise. The director (Pankaj Kapur) appears to have made his debut with the same level of honesty and conviction with which he's scripted his own, rather under-rated acting career (Maqbool, Ek Doctor Ki Maut, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro). But hold on. It’s not even been an hour, bouyz -- mustn’t speak too soon.
The leading couple has barely met. They eye each other from a distance. Constantly. It’s a popular form of rural love. She disappears from the pind suddenly. He checks out from the village as well. The movie goes off on another tangent, on to another plain. So do your brains, from here on.
The gentleman before us, an officer now, is called Harry, for Harinder Singh (Shahid Kapoor). His girl’s Ayat (Sonam Kapoor). Lovely name. You’d imagine their religion is perhaps the conflict of this romance. It’s not. Don’t even ask what is. Yet.
He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t womanise. In the real world, such a man would be dangerous! In the pictures, he makes for the ideal Rajshri Prem-type Bollywood hero. She, on the other hand, rarely talks, radiantly smiles, shyly whispers.
It’s been seven years since they caught each other’s eyes. He keeps her autograph and picture in his wallet. They randomly bump into each other in Scotland. Sitting in a café, they read minds, make unspoken conversations in their heads: “Are you married?” he asks her, in his head. “Why'd you think so?” she replies, in her head. “Thought you'd have had five to six kids already.” She laughs, for real. Both are single. Get me the Pringle. Because, there you go, they disappear again. He’s off to war. She’s, as usual, still placing a call from circular dials of her Bakelite phone, writing letters, tracing those eyes to somehow lock hers with.
This goes on for a decade, and more. Shahid Kapur gets to play the Bollywood superstar he shares the first four letters of his name with, as well as Tom Cruise from Top Gun. He ages well. Wish you could say that for his viewers. Between Swiss Alps, Scotland and Punjab, they witness a ball-room dance performance squeezed in somewhere, a Mozart concert elswhere, desi beats, and of course, the air force sorties.
Political events in the interim form the picture’s backdrop: from Babri Masjid, terrorism in Kashmir, through Kargil, to 9/11, and Gujarat riots. Each, in their own ways, affects the characters. You figure, this film, floating over a sea of nothingness, is undone by its aspirations alone. That ambition being? A Gone With The Wind, a Dr Zhivago, or a Cassablanca, you suppose. You can only suppose: an epic romance through passage of time and history. Crores have been pumped into the director’s convictions. Setting out with a script with better drama, leave aside a plot, could’ve helped its scale more.
Meanwhile, misunderstandings between missing couple multiply. Their cellphone numbers, addresses change. By now we’re in 2002. It’s about time, people. For God’s sake. Get yourself an email id. Seriously.
Speedy Singhs - Film Review
Posted by Unknown Bollywood, Bollywood Movie Reviews 11:13 PM
Akshay Kumar is going to be in town. Yipee. Indian families are excited. You’re not surprised. We’re in Toronto, possibly its suburb Brampton, to be more precise. It’s a uniquely frenzied outpost of Bollywood’s soft imperialism; this place. Those who may have watched this year’s IIFA awards, held in Toronto, would instantly understand.
For those viewers in Kanaada, the lead character does a Bollywood number in sherwani, on ice skates, before the Taj Mahal, by a frozen desert, in this film. Good for him. Good for them. But this is really not a Bollywood movie, in that sense. The makers have roped in a reasonably well-known western face, Rob Lowe (The West Wing, Family Guy, Austen Powers series, and, ah, Wayne’s World, my all-time favourite teenage movie ever!). Rob plays a sports coach.
They’ve also signed up Candian stand-up star Russel Peters. He does the same old, jaded gags that he’s doling out, I hear, for 22 years now! Between the two of them, the producers could have run out of money to spare. The movie’s execution remains slightly amateurish, fairly tacky, mostly "NRI movie" type.
Akshay Kumar, by the way, is also the credited presenter of this picture. Besides, he’s played the hero’s part in a similar BBCD (British-born Confused Desi) subject set in London recently (Nikhil Advani’s Patiala House).
Except, that was centred on cricket. This one refers to ice hockey. The debutant hero here (Vinay Virmani; also the screenwriter, and I presume the financier's son) is the captain of a rag-tag South Asian hockey team comprising die-hard local Sikhs. His old man (Anupam Kher; stock father, who always gives Diaspora daddies a bad name) won’t have his Indian kid participate in any such team sport. Even if the boy is excellent at it. We’re not exactly sure why. Let’s say, or as he says, “Work, future, in spare time, the gurudwara, no ice hockey for the boy.” Wokay. Besides, he reasons, who in India’s heard of ice hockey. They only know cricket. Sardar Sr also hates peanut butter, apple pie, and the necktie.
Son continues to play. Daddy doesn’t know. Few funny lines apart, you sense some script-guru’s spreadsheet (Syd Field’s?) being directly turned into a generic screenplay. There's at least promise of a speedy recovery. Stuff's still short enough. Under-dog team clears round after another of the top domestic hockey tournament. This is much to the surprise of everyone in the movie -- not those watching it, of course. The audience’s so far ahead of the film, they could be outside its theatre.
You do head home with a thought: What's with desi kids defying their parents, and racial or gender stereotype, to finally make it in sport? A whole lot. Of money and fame, that is. Remember Bend It Like Beckham? Back in 2002? It reportedly grossed $22 million in the US alone, and made Parminder Nagra, let alone Keira Knightley, an overnight star. Boy, no harm trying, I guess.
Delhi Belly
Posted by Unknown Bollywood Movie Reviews 2:04 AM
Director: Abhinay Deo
Rating: ****
It is a cliche as old as this nation - of the many Indias that breathe under one India, Indian cinema has hardly been representative of even a few of these. Yet, one would have expected, after globalization and the emergence of a new bold, urban India, that at least this class would get representation in commercial cinema.
Though there have been successful attempts in the past, it is with "Delhi Belly" that the urban, money-is-everything, foul-mouthed India has been captured with aplomb. And that, depending upon your morality, is good or bad.
Tashi (Imran Khan), a Delhi-based journalist living filthily with two roommates, winds up with a bunch of 'desi' goons chasing him and his mates after a mix-up. The three are forced to navigate the dark underbelly to survive, while encountering one situation after another and one idiosyncratic Indian after another.
The beauty of Abhinav Deo's film is not its smooth story, loosely inspired by the type of films made famous by Guy Ritchie, 'Lock Stock..' and 'Snatch' among others, neither is it Ram Sampath's catchy music that beats to the rhythm of the film, or the slick, seamless direction, or its immaculate casting and performance or even its wickedly witty dialogues.
The true beauty of the film is in all these elements together creating a madcap image of a new, unabashed, even shameless section of India.Though Delhi is referred to in its title, it is not the real Delhi that Dibakar Banerjee captures with satirical reality in his films. Instead, it is the image of a Delhi populated by young, educated, newly 'liberated' urbanites.
In that it is the splitting image of that young urban India anywhere perpetually churning like the stomach of a character in the film, a showcasing of this nations new neo-liberal underbelly.
However, the other Indias might not take kindly to the film. Hypocritical Indians okay with female infanticide and dowry would be aghast at how almost every 'bad' word that they know is spoken everywhere on the streets and in homes, finds a place in the usually moralistic Bollywood.
Cinema purists too may cry foul that the film does not really have a soul and is not really trying to say anything.
Though a legitimate accusation, in not having a soul and not really being concerned or serious about anything, the film holds a mirror to a large section of the country. And that is a big statement in itself.
For decades Indian cinema has been shackled with a morality that has not kept pace with the changing morality of life around.
Though the morality of the film is strictly of urban, young, middle-class India, and isn't representative, it is welcome as this is the farthest Bollywood has gone to truly representing urban life.And just for that, hats off to Aamir Khan for yet again, after "Peepli Live" and "Dhobi Ghat", believing in a different kind of cinema, even while he doles out a "Ghajini" in the same breath.
The last scene of "Delly Belly" is bound to become as iconic as the one in Mahesh Bhatt's 1990 musical 'Aashiqui'.
If there the lovers were so embarrassed of their surroundings that they had to kiss under a coat, here the lovers who are not even girlfriend-boyfriend are so brazen and caught in the heat of the moment that the guy kisses the girl in full view, half his body hanging out a slowly moving Maruti car symbolic of old India, unconcerned whether others are looking (which they are not).
If that isn't the urban, chic, and unconcerned-about-others India that has moved away from the morality of an un-liberalized India in 'Aashiqui' then what is?
Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap
Posted by Unknown Bollywood Movie Reviews 2:02 AM
Written & Directed by: Puri Jagannath
Rating: *** 1/2
Folklore has it that wherever the Big B stands, the queue begins. It's time to queue up for a film that reads like a running commentary on the Bachchan legend. Blessed are the generations that get to see India's most iconic and enduring screen-hero play a variation on all his most cherished roles.
And then some more. To the angry Vijay persona that the Big B created through those brilliantly-written films of Salim-Javed in the 1970 and 80s, the actor still sprightly enough to make all the bachcha-log of Bollywood look like performing midgets, adds dollops of wry cynicism that goes well with our times.
Make no mistake Telugu cinema's most successful director Puri Jagannath is not just a Bachchan fan. He's also a master storyteller. To the mix 'n' match tale of an Angry Young Man's journey into his advancing years of unrelenting lividness and self-mockery, Puri brings a crackling contemporary commitment to telling a story that has no room for humbug…only space for hectic hijinks.
Written with supersonic dexterity, the screenplay races through numbered days in the life of a Paris-returned gangster who is called back to Mumbai by a gangster with a serious concentration problem (Prakash Raj) to finish off a particularly troublesome cop(Sonu Sood).
It's a skilfully written yarn that doesn't stray into the yawn zone for even a second. Every character, even the relatively minor ones like the Bachchan's landlady who keeps jabbering to an unseen husband in Dubai, adds a sheen of zing to the shindig. Though the narration seems to leap before it looks, the director actually manages to create a controlled atmosphere of plot development within the chaos of Mumbai's streets clogged with scampering gangsters, cops and their minions.
Jagannath Puri displays a fabulous flair for the funny and the ferocious. The comic scenes contour the mega-star's proclivity to laugh at himself and the self-important world around him comprising gangsters, collegians, cops and other on-the-move urbanites. Vishal-Shekhar's austerely-used music creates evolved rhythms for the Bachchan persona. You can't miss the insistent beat.
As for the action, the camera (Amol Rathod) moves to the rhythm of the Big B's super-controlled body language creating for the assorted villains a kind of disembodied dynamism that we see in a far cruder avatar in the South, in the cinema of Rajnikanth.
Here, it is the Big B at work. And boy, that does mean something, doesn't it! The iconic super-hero maneouvres through his tailormade role with a devastating dexterity, creating a celluloid combustion that leaves a trail of smoking guns, screaming tyres and satiated expectations that audiences felt and experienced in the heydays of the Bachchan Raj.The reign never ends…thank God for small mercies! "Buddah…Hoga Tera Baap" offers a pleasurable romp into the star-power of the Big B. The rapport that his character builds up through some lovely actresses of several generations (Hema Malini, Raveena Tandon, Sonal Chauhan, Charmee) is so bloody robust and funny, you are left wondering how much of the sly subtle foxy flirtatiousness comes from the star and how much of it was there in the screenplay.
Undoubtedly well-written and directed with sure-handedness that cannot hide Puri Jagannath's boundless admiration for the Bachchan phenomenon, "Bbuddah…Hoga Tera Baap" is one of those garam-masala products that's far clever than the outward flamboyance of the main character and execution suggest.
Cut through the blizzard of bravura that the Big B projects so insouciantly and at heart this is an emotional father-son story. See how cleverly the director moves from a kind of italicized derringdo to a clamped emotional finale…. See how skilfully the other actors support the Big B's towering presence. Prakash Raj as the arch-villain brings a sense of madness to the proceedings while Makarand Deshpande as a quiet gangster is a glorious foil to the Big B's repartees and rejoinders. Sonu Sood as the cop who keeps running into the old-young super-hero manages to hold his own in front of the Big B. And Raveena as the Big B's besotted bombshell beloved from the past has herself a blast.
So do we. Right to the last frenetic shootout, we are with the director laughing cheering and saluting the star-power of this super-phenomenon named Amitabh Bachchan.
And when the Big B does a medley of all his old songs it's time to forget that the Bbuddah has just become a grand-baap all over again. Just get up and dance to the rhythm of the Big B's star power. Don't waste time watching the smut. "Bbuddah…Hoga Tera Baap" is the past present and future of mainstream entertainment.
Eka Veera Movie Stills
Eka Veera Movie Stills