Celebrity Gossip: March 2011

Moustache magic in Bollywood

The power of the moustache is in full flow in Bollywood. Screen idols are banking on it to look different on screen - if Saif Ali Khan has gone for the zappa, Aamir Khan boasts of the chevron and Shahid Kapoor the painter's brush.When Salman Khan was seen as funny cop Chulbul Pandey, sporting a pencil moustache in the super duper hit "Dabangg", his fans went crazy, especially those from Uttar Pradesh where the movie was set.

Another popular actor to be seen on screen with a moustache is Abhishek Bachchan in "Dum Maro Dum". Director Rohan Sippy, who keeps changing his facial hairstyle in real life, has cast the actor as a cop in this suspense thriller that will hit the theatres April 22. Abhishek, who usually has a stubble, sports a moustache in the movie to look like a real cop.Aamir is also taking the trend forward with his bow-shaped chevron on his upper lip for Reema Kagti's second directorial venture.Bollywood's Mr. Perfectionist, who tries to look different in all his films, whether it was "Dhobi Ghat", "Ghajini" or "Taare Zameen Par", had earlier grown a moustache for the period film "Mangal Pandey", but it failed to impress.So far his new look for Kagti's suspense thriller has no doubt created a buzz.Another Khan, Saif Ali, has also joined the bandwagon for his role of a teacher in Prakash Jha's issued-based "Aarakshan"."A lot of men do. If you think of a teacher in a rural town, they have a moustache. Most Indians would have it. So it was a demand for the character and I had to wear it," Saif, who dons a similar look in his home production "Agent Vinod", told IANS.After the stupendous success of comic caper "Yamla Pagla Deewana", Sunny Doel has turned serious for his next "Mohalla Assi" that will see him as a pandit in dhoti-kurta, moustache and a small ponytail.Even Om Puri will be seen with one in his upcoming film "Teen Thay Bhai".Known for his offbeat roles, Rahul Bose has also grown a moustache for an untitled film, which he says "cannot be named".After finishing the shoot, the actor took to microblogging site Twitter to talk about it, saying, "My last day of shoot. Then this moustache comes off. Children can come out from under their beds. Fervent pleas from friends to keep the moustache. I was very touched till they explained it made them look irresistible in comparison."Shahid will be seen with a thick 'painter's brush' for his dad's directorial debut "Mausam" where he is seen as a pilot.Neil Nitin Mukesh of "Johnny Gaddar" fame, who sports a stubble in real life, was seen wearing a moustache as an army major in Vishal Bharadwaj's "7 Khoon Maaf"."I really liked my look in '7 Khoon Maaf', it's very interesting and different. This is the first time I ever sported a moustache and I really like it. It was inspired by my uncle (chacha) Mohnish Mukesh," Neil told IANS.It took almost a year for Vivek Oberoi to grow a thick moustache for his role in Ram Gopal Varma's "Rakta Charitra".Yesteryear dancing star Rishi Kapoor, who in his heyday preferred a clean shaven look, went for a complete makeover for "Do Dooni Chaar". He played a middle-class man in the film, and his role of a teacher required him to sport a moustache. And he did so.In fact Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, mostly clean shaven for his romantic roles, wore a moustache in Amol Palekar's "Paheli" and Yash Raj Films' "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi".To make his character more effective in "Omkara", "Aakrosh" and "Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai", Ajay Devgn went for different facial hairstyles for the respective roles of a criminal, police officer and underworld don.Heartthrob Hrithik Roshan looked elegant with a moustache in historical drama "Joddha Akbar", which also got him the best actor award.Action star Akshay Kumar was first seen with a moustache in "Jaanwar" and again in "Chandni Chowk to China".In the black and white era, some top notch actors like Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor and Pradeep Kumar sported a moustache. In the 1980s, Shatrughan Sinha and Randhir Kapoor had one. But by and large, the new crop of actors, especially those in romantic roles, have preferred the clean shaven look.Now, with the new trend, are Jackie Shroff and Anil Kapoor twirling their long kept moustaches in delight?

Holly Madison needs a dependable man'

Claire Danes 'would undergo cosmetic surgery'

Model reiterates vow to go nude if India wins

Shania Twain 'stalker' arrested at Junos

Rihanna backs expiry of ex's restraining order

Shiney Ahuja sentenced to 7-year jail for raping maid

Actor Farley Granger dies, aged 85

Elizabeth Taylor's 150 million dollars jewellery collection to go under the hammer

Lady Gaga becomes first person to have 9m Twitter followers

Cheryl Cole 'not invited to royal wedding'

Pregnant Mariah Carey tweets pic of her painted belly

Life Goes On (Movie Review)

One of the many pleasures of watching this supple evocative elegiac family saga is to see the timeless Sharmila Tagore share screen space with her real-life daughter Soha, who by the way, has never looked lovelier. That inner-glow comes from the company she keeps in this gentle drama suffused in melodious whispers and mellifluent suggestions of tunes long-forgotten and yet stored in the most inviolable chambers of the heart.

Luckily for us, and the film, the Sharmila-Soha togetherness is not harped upon. There are far bigger issues and virtues to do with family ties and cultural disaffectation, secreted in the storytelling, propelling our hearts to soar in ways that modern cinema doesn't allow. When did Indian cinema cease to be about emotions? You wonder as you watch the silken cascade of debutante director Sangeeta Dutta's family secrets and emotions gush out in an Bengali family in London, when one fine morning the mother simply drops dead on the kitchen floor.The mother-figure, a constant and non-negotiable pivot of every family, here seems to be much more in demand than usual. All her three daughters seem to be stricken with heart problems that no cardiologist can tackle. Blessedly the mother of the family Manju is played by the gloriously imposing Sharmila Tagore. She looks like a woman who can handle the problems of three demanding extra-sensitive daughters, and then some more. Life Goes On captures the suddenness of bereavement in snatches of sounds, visuals and dialogues done in hurried snatches. There's far more austerity in the expression of the anguish and despair after the sudden bereavement than in Mira Nair's masterly study of coming to terms with death in The Namesake. At times you long for more time between the members of the grieving family. There are no big breakdown sequences in Life Goes On after the mother's death. Everyone gets busy with trying to pick up the threads of life through the guiding-signs of recollective silence and dialogues. Everyone is a bit selfish in this family. That's the family secret that the film doesn't get judgemental about. A lot of the vignettes connecting the mother's memories to the present times appear predictable even pedestrian…The director, fearless in her maiden endeavour, does not shy away from making her film look familiar. In doing so she creates a comfort zone between the audience and the characters' collective and individual grief. From the death to reconciliation, Life Goes On moves at a gentle pace creating pockets of interesting if unfinished dialogue and emotions between characters whom the dead woman touched and influenced infinitely. The echoes and resonances of a life that lingers after death is created through a blend of sounds and visuals capturing the feeble but flamboyant light of London at dawn and dusk. The parks, bridges, two-storeyed residential areas and their incriminating quietude are ably captured in the film, as are the pain and postures of grief and mourning. The Rabindra Sangeet in the original Bengali and a rather quaint Hindi translation suffuse a warm and endearing quality to the proceedings. The cross-cultural references resonate across the film's somber skyline with unobtrusive emphasis. The film creates a fine balance between real-life elegies and their cinematic rendition. A lot of Sangeeta Dutta's mise en scene project a first-time director's effusive affinity to creating a defiant poetry out of the prosaic rhythms of life. But the selfconsciousness of a debutante never distracts from the film's elegantly laid-out pastiche of pain hurt and their healing…if at all the pain of loss ever goes away. Life for the Indian Bengali family in Britain never seemed more complex. At times you feel the director has 'Britain' more than she can chew. The sub-plot, on Islam-phobia brought in through Soha's boyfriend's character Imtiaz (Rez Kempton) and the rock band that Imtiaz and his friends put together despite Mullahs' objections, seems to go off into tangent away from the Bengali's family's bereavement. But at the end when we see the band playing a punk version of Hemant Kumar's Ganga aaye kahan se laced with a French rap section, you smile for the cultural shifts and translocations that the plot endeavours to establish without falling off the map of the human heart. The performances by the veterans Girish Karnad, Om Puri and Sharmila Tagore are uniformly skilled and supple. Among the younger cast members Soha Ali Khan as the youngest Cordelia-like daughter to Karnad's King Lear emerges strong and yet vulnerable. But it is the unknown young actress Neerja Naik who plays Soha's lesbian sister who proves a complete natural. The subtle delicate tender and utterly disarming play of light and shade, of mellow memories and the hard present-reality, of the various cultural cross-generation clashes…. all these could have made any film topheavy. Not Life Goes On. It is a gloriously polished and poised look at the chaos that rules the bereaved heart in our troubled times. This film is a triumph on many levels and layers. And you don't have to be a Sharmila Tagore fan to realize how resonant her presence can be even when she is lost to the plot.

Kate Winslet struggled with 'tough' break-up scenes in 'Mildred Pierce'

Britney Spears walks into new airbrush row

Tania Zaetta wept in prison after nightclub arrest

Kashmera Shah gives Pakistan team a cold shoulder!

Aamir Khan is 'Maharashtrian of the Year'

Monica (Movie Review)

One doesn't know if the real-life journalist Shivani Bhatnagar was meant to be a kind of promiscuous enigma. But that's how she is purported to be portrayed by writer-director Sushen Bhatnagar. A kind of Madame Bovary (a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert) of the fringe world.

A cryptic woman and a mystery to others and to herself whose story is pieced together after her death through the wonderfully nimble vision of the movie camera.Alas, the camera, contrary to belief, does lie quite often.In this interesting though flawed film about a deeply flawed woman who knows not what her body or mind wants, director Sushen Bhatnagar takes a real-life incident from the newspapers and converts it into a well-meaning cinematic treatise. It's done with much restraint but not enough of a grip to keep the slippery characters from slipping off the story board. Frequently the characters appear on screen with very little to recommend them as mere human beings or even as flawed character-studies. Bhatnagar's world of politicians and media persons in and around Lucknow and Delhi appears to be colonised by self-serving stereotypes, trying hard to appear subtle in their devious machinations. Failing in that endeavour, they appear more sinful than sinned against.Frequently in the course of the narration we feel the characters are being let down more by a lack of creative and financial resources than by destiny.The saga of the small-town girl's ambitious rise from salwar-kameez to skimpy skirts and tops has been done with far more grace in the past. Madhur Bhandarkar's "Fashion" created both the fury and passion of that journey into a hurling doom that small-town girls often undertake in implementing their big-time dreams.Monica Jaitley, as played by Divya Dutta, comes across as a vulnerable vixen. Manipulated and manipulative Monica epitomises the strenuous gracelessness of over-pushy small-towners who topple over the brink in their pursuit of the designer-dream.The nexus between Monica's world of journalism and the murkier milieu of politics and politicians, as represented by Ashutosh Rana's quietly conniving character, doesn't quite become the heady mix of art and 'vulture' that such cinema has often become in the past (in Ramesh Sharma's "New Delhi" and Rajkumar Gupta's "No One Killed Jessica"). The edges in this hard-hitting story of sex and politics are raw and uneven. The tone doesn't quite catch on the immediacy and urgency required of a docu-drama. The narrative pace sometimes slackens to a slow trot taking away considerably from the why-dunnit's cutting edge.But the effort to recreate the life of a journalist who dared to dream is sincere. Monica is the kind of won't-tell-a-lie cinema that gets trapped in the labyrinth which separates the search for the truth from the truth itself. But the film does create an aura of doomed sensuality around the protagonist without resorting to lengthy cheesy shots of her journey into the bedroom.The dialogues suggest deeper thrusts of anguish in Monica's life than the ones that she was apparently resorting to for self-enhancement. At the end one isn't sure what killed Monica - her ambitions or their inherently absurd nature. For being able to bring out the contradictions in Monica Jaitley's personality, this film deserves some words of praise. The performances of Divya and Ashutosh are tuned well to the theme. But the gifted Rajit as Divya's reprehensible husband is uncharacteristically hammy.The rest of the cast is stiff, self-conscious and unremarkable.The authentic locations add a hue of familiar discomfort to the film's politics of sexuality. With better production values and more space for the characters to breed credibility, this could've been a remarkable political thriller rather than a film that gets lost in a maze of possibilities.Nonetheless worth a watch for recreating an event from the proximate past that showed how closely and precariously politics is related to journalism. And sex.

Abhishek Bachchan breaks Will Smith's record

Wipeout: 'Soul Surfer' lacks bite

LOS ANGELES: Sports writers invariably call any last-minute heroics or unbelievable upset a "Hollywood ending," yet in reality Hollywood usually does a poor job with sports stories based on real-life events.

Such stories force filmmakers to drastically alter the filmmaking playbook, draining away all color or quirks of personality from characters based on living people and removing any complications that might distract viewers from the "inspirational" message they're determined to convey.Which is what happens in Soul Surfer, a true story of courage, determination and guts that deserves a more exciting approach. No doubt, the film will reach its target faith-based audience but a wider audience may elude the TriStar release. However, if the film's real-life heroine, Bethany Hamilton, promotes the film with enough personal appearances, Soul Surfer may break through to general audiences.Her story has certainly been told repeatedly, including an autobiography and an earlier short doc, "Heart of a Soul Surfer," made by her sister-in-law. A lifelong surfer born to a family of Hawaiian surfers, she lost her left arm in a 2003 shark attack when she was 13. She returned to surfing a mere month after her harrowing ordeal and continues to compete in contests today, having perfected a one-armed surfing technique.Few stories can be more inspiring but this one apparently didn't inspire the filmmakers to think outside the box. Director Sean McNamara and no less than seven credited writers, in additional to the three that co-authored Hamilton's book, recite the basic facts in dramatic form but give a viewer little sense of who these people -- Bethany, her family and friends -- are or what makes them tick.The film's main actors do fill in some of the gaps, especially young AnnaSophia Robb as Bethany and Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt as her parents. Robb goes full-bore in her surfing scenes -- she is actually a beginner -- as well as the dramatic ones, giving the heroine the determination of youth broken only a couple of times by doubts or self-pity. Having been virtually born to surf, she had no real way to give it up. It goes against her entire upbringing.With little makeup, Quaid and Hunt play people who spend as many hours as possible in the sun: Their leathery, lean skin and unadorned faces speak to a deep love for the outdoors and especially the ocean. Taken together this trio, along with Ross Thomas and Chris Brochu who play Bethany's older brothers, present a family of pro surfers whose sport has given them a competitive spirit and a commitment to excellence that see them through this terrifying ordeal.But the filmmakers treat them with kid gloves. Put it this way, you would never create such nearly perfect, idealized characters for any fictional story. You'd bore an audience to tears.The 10-minute episode concerning the shark attack and rush to a nearby hospital is the best sustained sequence in the film. Additionally, all the water work involving cameras mounted on surfboards and jet skis is superb as is the surfing, often performed by doubles that include Bethany herself.On land though, the film suffers from the Hollywood-itis those sports writers so frequently invoke. A fictional villain is created in a rival surfer, played by a perennially scowling Sonya Balmores, who ridicules and cheats Bethany at every opportunity. The film uses a 2004 humanitarian aid trip to Thailand by Bethany following the devastating tsunami to give its heroine a sentimental shot in the arm to further motivate her to return to competitive surfing.The film curiously characterizes the media that descends on the Hamilton house as a force of terror that drives Bethany and her family to cover. This is an all too common, even cliched movie portrayal of reporters, but in this instance more than a little mendacious given the countless interviews the young woman has given in the weeks following the attack up until today.Singer Carrie Underwood makes her film debut in a superfluous role as Bethany's church young group leader while Kevin Sorbo and Lorraine Nicholson play the father and daughter who no doubt saved her life by their quick thinking and reactions in the moments following the attack.As with all the roles throughout the movie, they perform a specific function within the known storyline but are thinly characterized.Composer Marco Beltrami should be singled out for a score that brilliantly utilizes old Hawaiian music and songs. (Reuters)

Remembering Liz’ eyes...

Everett Collection In death, as in life, it is her eyes that haunt. After Hollywood’s grande dame Elizabeth Taylor passed away, people paid their online respects, searching out her biography, baby pictures, good works (AIDS foundation), her relationships both familial (children, Richard Burton) and famous (Michael Jackson, Andy Warhol). Yet most unique were those eyes, and people wanted another look into them as they sought out “elizabeth taylor eyes,” “elizabeth taylor violet eyes pictures,” and “elizabeth taylor’s eye close up.”

Could someone’s eyes truly be purple? If photos or her namesake perfume — Violet Eyes, which debuted just last spring — weren’t proof enough, eyewitness accounts certainly testify to those riveting orbs. A remembrance by Hollywood Reporter film critic Todd McCarthy recalled a meeting in the 1970s, when the actress had essentially retired from the big screen. “What should abruptly stop me in my tracks,” he wrote, “but a pair of eyes unlike I’ve ever beheld, before or since; deep violet eyes of a sort withheld from ordinary mortals that were suddenly looking up into mine from mere inches away.”David Stratton, a film critic for the Australian, also swooned in a 1973 encounter following a festival premiere of her movie “Night Watch”: “I was ushered into her presence at the official reception and found myself transfixed by her famous violet eyes. I have never seen eyes of that color before or since and I don’t believe cinemagoers were able to appreciate how remarkable they were.”Eye of the BeholderViolet is indeed a rarity, more so than green eyes, although theories as to what makes them purple vary. Color, of course, is determined by how much melanin pigment the eye has and, to get really scientific, those variations in single nucleotide polymorphisms (thankfully shortened to SNPS) near the OCA2 gene, which are responsible for the color of eyes, hair, and skin.Then again, the simplest explanation would be the same one her doctor gave her mother when describing baby Elizabeth’s double row of eyelashes: a “mutation,” according to the 1996 book Elizabeth.Those eyes inspired longing, envy, and a few beauty products: Chicago optical company Wesley-Jensen created violet contact lenses in the 1980s. Before their debut, a W-J spokesperson told The New York Times, “pictures of Elizabeth Taylor are pasted all over our R&D lab.”A California ocularist, one of the few in the world to create artificial eyeballs, fulfilled one patient’s request for “Elizabeth Taylor eyes.”If you wondered what the scent of violet eyes might be, that would be “light shades of purple rose and violet peony, combined with velvety accents of white peach” with a “voluptuous blend of cedar wood and amber to convey the power, sensuality, and mystery of Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes.”Credit : dailymailnews

Kylie Minogue spends GBP 10m on designer costumes for latest tour

Happy birthday Lady Gaga

Sonakshi Sinha 'finds ally in Sarah Palin'

Game (Movie Review)

“What a story!” Abhishek Bachchan, playing a cross between a fugitive and a guardian-angel, says wrily at the of this elegantly crafted whodunit. What a story, indeed. And full marks to writer Althea Delmas Kaushal for crafting a jigsaw that would have made Agatha Christie smile. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say, they don’t make movies like this anymore.

Stylishly crafted, cunning in plot and nubile in its narrative thrust, Game is one of the most aesthetically-mounted Hindi films in recent times. Huge efforts and resources have gone into shooting the murder mystery in places where intrigue seems infinite, escape seems undesirable and redemption appears as distant as the sound of the waves splashing against rocks that have centuries of stories to tell. Welcome to the Greek island of Samos. Anupam Kher, looking pricey in his tycoon’s avatar invites four of the most distinguished elitist-outlaws on this side of Charles Sobhraj. Each has a past tense and a future imperfect. Everyone has a history and a back-projection. This is a world defined by a wealth of unexpressed resentment and smothered anger waiting to erupt. Debutant director Abhinay Deo displays a remarkable grip over the proceedings. Though the narrative moves through a number of continents and exotic cities (Istanbul jumps out at us from the James Bond movies) propelling his tortured characters forward into motions of restless salvation, there is a quietude and grace at the heart of the narration that we’ve scarcely ever seen in desi whodunits. The crime and its denouement are worked in graphic details. But the narrative is never bogged down by over-punctuation. For a crime thriller that pays a homage to the best traditions of the genre represented by Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and James Hadley Chase, there is a tightly-wound feel to the storytelling, as though the director were moving contrary to the dictates of the genre, without slipping up with the details.If God lies in the details then why does the devil seem to have taken over Game? At heart Game is a love story about a high-profile gambler and his doomed lady-love…a kind of Bonnie and Clyde with the inherent desperation of the duo’s togetherness reined-in and qualified by ripples of elegant punctuation. No hiccups, then, in Abhinay Deo’s directorial debut. Like all cinema by filmmakers who come from the ad-world Game is a visual feast. Contrary to films by other ad-turned-feature director Deo doesn’t unnecessarily abbreviate the shots in the fear of losing audiences’ attention.The characters, specially Abhishek Bachchan’s, get sufficient breathing space in a script that favours flirting with fate rather than fornicating with flamboyance. There is a delicacy in the textures and colours used to bring forward the tensions in the plot. Shashank Tere’s art direction and Kartik Vijay’s cinematography imbue a gritty cold edge to the spill of blood and the smell of greed. The portions shot on the Greek island are particularly hypnotic, the splashing waves creating a ripple of anxieties in the turbulence of the characters’ lives without toppling the storytelling boat over into the sphere of the stormy. Whether it is Anupam Kher as tycoon-host on the mesmeric island or Gauhar Khan as his seductive secretary, the characters never cease to appear glamorous on screen. The performers are eminently watchable. Anupam Kher, Kangna Ranaut, Boman Irani, Shahana Goswami and the underrated Jimmy Sheirgil get the tenor of tantalizing terror right. Sarah Jane Dias is quite a find, though she needs to work on her dancing skills. Her fabulously choreographed dance number suffers from the Two Left Feet Syndrome (hint hint!). Abhishek Bachchan proves once again a master of silences, his eyes conveying the pain of lost love, his lips curling up to convey the cynicism of a man who has seen it all and couldn’t care anymore. His two ey action key sequences are heart-stopping in their credibility. Waltzing wickedly between the incredible and the inevitable Game succeeds in sustaining our interest right till the devilish denouement at the end. Game is a film that never lets us forget that the whodunit attains an enticing aura only when the characters assume framed postures. Abhinay Deo’s narrative walks a fine thin bloodied balance between dread and delight.Game is one helluva stylish knick-knack. We haven’t seen any Hindi film shot in these colours or with such an attitude of restrained resplendence.

Elton John 'planning royal dinner party'

Kate Moss 'buys own engagement ring'

Alex Reid 'considered suicide after split'

Winslet, Dicaprio voted most romantic onscreen couple

Bachchan's wax figure at Madame Tussauds in Hong Kong

Hugh Jackman, Aishwarya Rai bag top honours at FICCI-Frames

The 12th edition of the three day FICCI-Frames conclave concluded Friday with Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman and Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai bagging the top awards.FICCI Frames Excellence International Honour was awarded to Jackman, who is best known for his role as Wolverine in the "X-Men" series. The actor is also famed for his versatile style of acting and his rugged on-screen roles in films such as "Kate and Leopold", "Van Helsing", "The Prestige" and" Australia".Aishwarya was honoured with the Decade of Global Achievement award for her contribution to Hindi cinema. Vidya Balan bagged the best actress award for her performance in "Ishqiya" and Shah Rukh Khan was honoured with the best actor award for "My Name Is Khan".A film that has sky rocketed at the box office, breaking all records in collections, "Dabangg" also scored two awards at FICCI - Best Film of the Year and Best Music of the Year Award. It also fetched its heroine, Sonakshi Sinha, the award in the the Best Debutant (Female) Category."Band Baaja Baaraat" was another film that made a mark at the box office delivering the Best Debutant award - Male to Ranveer Singh for his acting and the Best Director Debut to Maneesh Sharma."The entertainment industry in India is booming along with business excellence and we are happy to recognise such levels of talent in both fields. We take pride in honouring best performers for their contributions in their area of work," said Yash Chopra, Chairman, FICCI Entertainment Committee.Another highlight of the evening was the impromptu gig between Vidya, Shah Rukh and Jackman where the three shook a leg together on stage, entertaining the audience.Other awards were:Best TV Series - Non-Fiction - Indian Idol 5 (Fremantle Media, SET and Wizcraft Television) Best TV Series - Fiction - Pavitra Rishta - Balaji Telefilms Best TV Actor - Male - Sushant Singh Rajput in Pavitra Rishta (Zee TV) Best TV Actor - Female - Rashmi Desai in Uttran (Colors) Best General Entertainment Channel - STAR PLUS Best Radio Channel - Radio Mirchi Best Director - Karan Johar (My Name is Khan)

Advertisement