Bollywood beauty Malaika Arora Khan walks the ramp for Mandira Wirk show on the fouth day of the Lakme Fashion Week. The five day event has seen Bollywood stars walking the ramp right from the first day.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Bollywood beauty Malaika Arora Khan
Bollywood beauty Malaika Arora Khan walks the ramp for Mandira Wirk show on the fouth day of the Lakme Fashion Week. The five day event has seen Bollywood stars walking the ramp right from the first day.
John Abraham walks the ramp for Rocky S show
Bollywood actor John Abraham walks the ramp for Rocky S show on the third day of the Lakme Fashion Week. The five day event has seen Bollywood stars walking the ramp right from the first day.
Bollywood hottie Deepika Padukone
Bollywood hottie Deepika Padukone raised the oomph factor as she walks the ramp for Gauri and Nainika show on the fouth day of the Lakme Fashion Week. The five day event has seen Bollywood stars walking the ramp right from the first day.
Dressing up Sushmita Sen at LFW
Beauty queen-turned-actress Sushmita Sen walks the ramp for Vikram Phadnis show on the fouth day of the Lakme Fashion Week. The five day event has seen Bollywood stars walking the ramp right from the first day.
Oomph factor off the ramp
Bollywood beauty Malaika Arora Khan walks the ramp for Mandira Wirk show on the fouth day of the Lakme Fashion Week. She shares a lighter moment off it. The celebrity quotient has high from the day one of the ongoing Lakme Fashion week, both off and on the ramp.
SRK to marry Rituparna! - King Khan & Tolly queen play man and wife in ad film
This Mahasaptami, Shah Rukh Khan will be married to Rituparna Sengupta. Before you go into shock (or awe), let us set things straight. Bollywood’s Hero No. 1 and Tollywood’s Heroine No. 1 will play husband and wife for a product promotion to be shot in Mumbai’s Filmcity on Friday. SRK will play a common man and Rituparna his homemaker wife. And the (Ayurvedic) magic potion that keeps them together? Chyawanprash, from the stable of Calcutta-based Emami Group. “Both of them are our brand ambassadors, and so we thought pairing them would be the perfect marriage for the brand,” said Emami director Aditya Agarwal. “Shah Rukh will provide the national connect while Rituparna will provide the regional connect.” The superstar with more than a national connect is learnt to be happy at the prospect of working with the regional rage, continuing his long tradition of romancing Bengali beauties on screen, from Kajol to Rani. “Shah Rukh has seen Rituparna’s work in Main Meri Patni Aur Woh and also remembers her coming to Eden Gardens to support his Kolkata Knight Riders team in the first IPL season,” said a source. “He okayed the concept of the commercial at one go.” Rituparna, too, did not waste time before saying ‘I do’. “I am very excited but I am very nervous too,” she admitted. “I will be shooting with the Shah Rukh Khan. I am a huge fan of his.... Plus, I have recently done a film titled SRK with Vinay Pathak. And now, I will be shooting with SRK himself!” Rituparna, who will be going to Mumbai on Tuesday for a pre-shoot session, is now busy juggling Bolly and Tolly, with shooting on for Priyadarshan’s untitled film co-starring Akshaye Khanna, Ajay Devgan and Bipasha Basu. Shah Rukh is dividing his work time between the last schedule of Karan Johar’s My Name is Khan and shooting lots of advertisements as part of his brand commitments. The Chyawanprash ad film will be directed by Ram Madhvani of Equinox Films, who shot the Bheja kum song in Taare Zameen Par, and is also slated to direct Amitabh Bachchan in the forthcoming Vidhu Vinod Chopra production Taalismaan. “I have seen her in a couple of Bengali films apart from Main Meri Patni Aur Woh,” said Madhvani. “I think she is just fantastic and I am really looking forward to working with her for the first time. I have worked with Shah Rukh before and the two of them would make an unusual but good pairing,” he added, from Mumbai. The SRK-RS commercial will go on air from end-October. Star Bollywood photographer Dabboo Ratnani will shoot the stills.
Bollywood actor Aamir Khan on Monday celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr in Mumbai with his family and friends. "Well, on the occasion of Eid, I will stay with my family, my mom and the friends who are here to meet me," Aamir Khan said. Buzz up! During the holy month of Ramadan, devout Muslims stay on fast from dusk to dawn. They don't even drink water during the day. At the end of Ramadan or month of fasting, Muslims hold a joyous three-day celebration called Eid-ul-Fitr. Eid-ul-Fitr falls on the first day of Shawwal, the month, which follows Ramadan in the Islamic calendar. It is a time to give charity, and celebrate with family and friends the completion of a month of blessings and joy. Tags
Inqlings: Bollywood on the Schuylkill
Who's in it? Who knows? Yesterday was the first day of camera work for an untitled drama from Mumbai's Yash Raj Studios, which shot an action film called New York here a year ago. For Day One, cast and crew were camped at a store near Seventh Street and Girard Avenue in North Philly. Tomorrow, they'll shoot all day at the Trolley Car Diner in Mount Airy. Sri Rao, a Pennsylvania-born producer who does a lot of work in the Philly area, said exteriors would be filmed in and around Center City until Oct. 11 or 12. The production, which was begun in Mumbai, will wrap in New York. Rao, however, would not disclose the plot or the names of anyone affiliated with the flick, which, as is the case with all Bollywood productions, is drawing heated attention from fans. A source identified the male and female leads as Shahid Kapoor and Anushka Sharma, who, if you believe the Bollywood grapevine, are dating in real life. Director is first-timer Parmeet Sethi. Rao says Yash Raj's New York, released in June, did great box office worldwide. It received only limited distribution in the Philadelphia market. It should be noted that Yash Raj is not the Bollywood film company that stiffed dozens of people in Philly last year. That was Dharma Productions, which had retained Australia's Swish Films to handle Philly production of its untitled drama that filmed in the late fall. Around Christmas, Swish bounced checks and left town. With Swish now seeking bankruptcy protection, legal action against Dharma continues. Representatives for Swish and Dharma have not returned messages for comment. Also in filmdom Though Reese Witherspoon was spotted in L.A. last weekend, she's still very much working on the untitled James L. Brooks comedy that will be shooting here till late October. She's due back in Philly late this week, and is expected to remain in town for the duration. One star who is no longer here is Owen Wilson, who plays a ballplayer and one of Witherspoon's character's love interests. He wrapped his work recently and skedaddled. Kathryn Hahn, who left abruptly in late July after the birth of her daughter, is due on set this week to finish her scenes; she plays the assistant of Paul Rudd, the third side in the love triangle. And as for the movie's lack of a title, get over it. Hollywood lore has it that Brooks didn't come up with the name As Good As It Gets until he was out of the editing bay with the 1997 Jack Nicholson-Helen Hunt smash. Briefly noted Adam Richman of the Travel Channel show Man v. Food stops at DiNic's at Reading Terminal Market to eat roast beef and pork and at the Franklin Fountain in Old City for ice cream. He caps it with a cheesesteak challenge at Tony Luke's in South Philly, all for tomorrow's episode (10 p.m.). Fox29 reporter/anchor John Atwater has tendered his resignation after four years. Last day will be Sunday. He's bound for Boston to be closer to family. Ike Reese is cohosting Howard Eskin's afternoon show on WIP (610), while part-timer Rob Ellis is filling Reese's nighttime slot. The station - touting Reese's past as an All-Pro Eagle - says the changes will be in effect through football season. Pete Lorenzo's, a longtime New Jersey politico hot spot across from the Amtrak/NJ Transit station in Trenton, seems to have closed after 88 years. It was dark over the weekend and the phone has been disconnected. Billy Crystal will tape an appearance on The Jay Leno Show via satellite from the Merriam Theater next Tuesday. He'll promote his show 700 Sundays, which opens the following night at the Merriam.
Bollywood looks to Diwali to light up box office
Bollywood is preparing for what is historically its most lucrative period of the year with a string of big budget releases, hoping to end 2009 on a high after a disappointing 12 months. Like the Christmas period for Hollywood, the run-up to the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, on October 17 is seen as a banker for Bollywood as many Indians are on holiday and looking to be entertained. A glut of new films are due out as the 2.3-billion-dollar Hindi-language movie business looks to recover from a multiplex cinema boycott, swine flu fears that forced some theatres to close, and a series of expensive flops. Trade analyst Komal Nahta predicted "good times" for the industry over the next three months. "About seven billion rupees (145 million dollars) is at stake for Bollywood in the last quarter, as there are nearly two dozen films releasing by December," he said. But others, like the director of Shemaroo Films, Hiren Gada, were sceptical about whether the new releases, some made for up to 900 million rupees, can recoup their outgoings. He told the Sunday Business Standard the stakes were "extremely high for both producers and distributors as it is the first festive season in several years where over half-a-dozen very big films are scheduled for release". One unnamed analyst also told the newspaper that the films were "far too costly" and even if they do well, they may fall short of the investment put in. Big budget films like the Warner Bros. co-production "Chandni Chowk To China", "Delhi 6" and the Shahrukh Khan release "Billu" all disappointed this year at the box office. Producer-director Karan Johar's comedy "Wake Up Sid" kicks off the battle of the blockbusters on October 2, hoping to steal a march on three major films that are out on Diwali weekend itself. "All The Best", a comedy with Sanjay Dutt, "Blue", an underwater odyssey with a cameo by Kylie Minogue, and Salman Khan's second "comeback" film, "Main Aur Mrs Khanna" (Me And Mrs Khanna), are out on October 16. The following week sees the release of Khan's third new film, "London Dreams", about two friends who dream of becoming rock stars, and the animation "Aladin", with voices by Dutt and Amitabh Bachchan. Bachchan returns in November with "Paa" (Father), about a boy with a premature ageing condition, going up against "Kurbaan" (Sacrifice), with Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor, "Jail" and "Tum Mile" (You Met Me). "Jail" has been the source of much gossip here over actor Neil Nitin Mukesh, who stripped for the role. "Tum Mile" (Met you), with Emraan Hashmi, has the devastating 2005 Mumbai floods as its backdrop. Actor-producer-director Aamir Khan rounds off the year with the release of "3 Idiots" on Christmas Day, December 25. The end of the two-month multiplex boycott, prompted by producers' claims of unfair revenue sharing, led to the creation of a committee to organise the dates of new releases, many of which were postponed during the stand-off. The committee, set up to maximise revenues after reported 63-million-dollar losses and avoid release clashes, has warned producers that they face a stiff fine if they change the date of a film's release without telling them. But Diwali regularly sees films compete with one another. "Main Aur Mrs Khanna" director Prem Soni said he was unconcerned about going head-to-head with "All The Best" and "Blue", taking heart from previous years where several simultaneous releases have done well. "All films releasing on Diwali day have a different kind of subject," he said. "One is an action thriller, another one is a comedy and mine is a romantic film. "Ultimately, a good film works irrespective of whenever it is released."
Bollywood A-listers failing
Rani Mukherji
The Bollywood business works by selling superstar brands. But what when these brands perform below expectations? Here's a look at superstars who are part of Bollywood's power league and are yet failing miserably at the box office: Rani Mukherji Rani's last hit was way back in 2006, with Karan Johar's Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. Since then there's been Baabul, Ta Ra Rum Pum, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, Saawariya, Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic and now Dil Bole Hadippa. Even though she seems commited to experiment, dressing as a Sardar and wearing a bikini -- thankfully in different scenes --, it wasn't enough to break the jinx.
Priyanka, Harman to add zing to Times garba festivities today
It will be no ordinary garba at Times Navratri festivities at Karnavati Club on Tuesday. As Bollywood stars Priyanka Chopra, Harman Baweja and Ashutosh Gowarikar descend to be a part of the gala event, it promises to be a night to remember. The traditional flavour of Gujarat's longest dance festival will get a touch of glamour as celebrities interact with the crowd. For this purpose, a lucky draw has been organized. To win a couple pass for the event, you can type Garba and send it to 58888. Performers like Golden Cheer, Arun Rajyaguru, Samir Rawal and Prasad-Kardam, among others will set the tune for the event on different days.
AR Rahman's Couples Retreat has American tone
The 'formula' works equally effectively across the cultural divide. If in Bollywood, AR Rahman was expected to do a series of Rukmani Rukmani after Roja in the West, they want more Jai ho from this composing genius after Slumdog Millionaire. Buzz up! But Rahman in his own quiet way is determined to not pander to western expectations. He made it very clear to the people behind his first full-fledged Hollywood film that he'd compose exactly what he thought to be the most apt music for the show. Says Rahman, "Couples Retreat will have music that suits an American rom-com there're no real Indian sound in it. But yes, there will be a touch of Indianness in the sound. Otherwise what is the point of bringing me into the picture?" Apparently there were numerous brainstorming sessions during which the sound of Slumdog Millaionire kept cropping up repeatedly. Rahman gently but firmly steered the music away from the expected. Chuckles the wizard of all composing things, "There's no point in doing something I've already done. I've reached a stage where I've to do new things. There're so many avenues to be explored. So Couples Retreat will be their (read: American) kind of music with my touch, done in my way." Secretly Rahman agrees with those of his admirers and fans who feel Slumdog Millioniare is not among his best work. Says a source, "He has done far superior work in films like Lagaan, Dil Se, Roja, Zubeida and the forthcoming Raavan and Blue. Friends keep telling him that. Slumdog was done in a hurry. In about 20 days flat. Rahman feels he could've done a lot better. He now wants the West to see some of his best." Rahman is looking at Couples Retreat as his real launch into the West.
Fans who were hoping to attend the Oct. 3 "¡Bienvenido Gustavo!" concert at the Hollywood Bowl but were turned away at the box office in August now have a way to participate in the event. The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced today that it will show the concert for free on its website in high definition. Viewers can go to the orchestra's official site to experience the concert beginning at 4 p.m. All individual performances from the concert will be available on demand for 24 hours beginning at 10 a.m. on Oct. 4. This marks the first time that a concert at the Hollywood Bowl will be shown on the Internet, according to the orchestra. The concert will feature ensembles and youth groups from around the Southern California area. Gustavo Dudamel -- the L.A. Philharmonic's new music director -- will conduct the Youth Orchestra of L.A. and the Philharmonic.
Hollywood in Iowa -- the tax credit fiasco
Ah, Iowa, land of corn -- and now, movie-making corruption. The Farm Belt is learning a painful lesson these days in the glitzy, star-studded world of Hollywood's accounting practices: Like in the baseball movie "Field of Dreams," if you build it, they will come ... and may take your tax dollars to buy things you don't want to pay for. On Monday, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver asked the state's auditor office, the state Department of Revenue and Iowa Atty. Gen. Tom Miller to join the investigation into the state's film tax-credit program, amid reports of flawed oversight and accounting procedures. The growing scandal over Iowa's film tax-credit -- officially called the Film, Television and Video Project Promotion Program -- has already seen at least two politicos fall. Mike Tramontina, the director of the state Department of Economic Development -- which administered the program -- resigned from his post Friday. And today, Thomas Wheeler, the manager of the state's film office was fired. The program is the nation's most generous, with a rebate to filmmakers of up to 50% of what they spend. But Culver called a timeout last week, suspending the program and putting a halt on all reimbursements to film production companies. The reason: An internal audit found a number of, well, discrepancies, including using tax credits to pay for luxury vehicles that filmmakers never used in their movies. I can just hear the film execs now: "Aren't all farmers rich because of ethanol? We really thought that Mercedes would bring authenticity to the shoot." The press release cuts to the chase. The governor's halt of the program has the pro-film folks in the Hawkeye state freaked out, with calls from the Iowa Motion Picture Assn. to reinstate the program. According to IMPA -- and yes, there really is such a thing -- there are four films that were shot in Des Moines and one in Council Bluffs that are all owed rebates. And how much is this going to cost the state? A recent story in the Des Moines Register reports that a last-minute rush by film producers could cost the state up to $300 million. Ouch.
Ash in top 10 most beautiful women list
aAishwarya Rai Bachchan is one of the 100 most beautiful women according to a list published by Harpers and Queenmagazine. The Bollywood beauty is ranked ninth, while Hollywood hottie Angelina Jolie [Images ] has topped the chart, The Newsreports. Supermodel Christy Turlington [ Images ] followed Jolie. Another gorgeous woman in the list was Queen Rania [ Images ] of Jordan, apart from other luminaries.
Hollywood stars arrive to save gorillas
SIX Hollywood stars arrived in the country yesterday for the launch of Uganda’s Friend-A-Gorilla campaign, spearheaded by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). The campaign is part of global efforts to save the endangered mountain gorillas, the majority of which live in Uganda. The stars who jetted in yesterday include Jason Matthew Biggs, best known for his role in the American Pie, a high school three-parts comedy. Also part of the group is Kristyn Wu, an American actress of Chinese descent, known for her role as Chao-Ahn in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and co-starring as Melissa Wu in Flight 29 Down. Others who will take part in the launch are Simon Curtis, Rachel McDonald, Matthew Kurte and Tertius Bune. The film stars will track the largest group of 36 gorillas, called Nshongi, at Rushaga in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. UWA officials believe that the campaign will help promote Uganda as a top tourism destination as the world celebrates the UN International Year of the Gorilla. Bwindi’s tourism attraction was recently documented by researcher Mark Penning, the President of the World Association of Zoos and one of the supporters of the campaign. Penning had an amazing encounter with one of the gorillas, called Muyambi, who unexpectedly put his arm around him. “I sat down to watch him, very conscious of the fact that one should keep a distance of 5 to 7 metres so as not to put the animals at risk of catching colds and flu,” he narrated his experience. “Muyambi had other ideas and casually walked over to me. I thought he would walk past me but he sat next to me and put his arm around me. With his hand resting on my shoulder, he looked right into my eyes from just centimetres away.” UWA’s director of conservation, Sam Mwandha, explained that the young gorillas are cheeky and tend to move close to the trackers.
Live: Anoushka Shankar at the Hollywood Bowl
Perhaps some credit should go to the Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" for the near-capacity crowd on hand for the India Calling! event Sunday night at the Hollywood Bowl. A grand panoply of traditional and modern music, dance, art and cuisine, the evening highlighted India's seemingly limitless aesthetic varieties. The Ravi Shankar Centre Ensemble's performance presented the classical and folk elements of India's fertile musical legacy using intriguing hybridized forms. Curated by Shankar and conducted by his daughter Anoushka, the orchestra played works that demonstrated the impressive diversity of instrumentation and vocal styles that the more traditionally based Indian forms can accommodate -- there was graceful and fiery interplay between sitars, tablas, violins and guitars, revealing a wide emotional and textural range. Anoushka Shankar conducted the ensemble with exuberant precision. The five-member Rhythm of Rajasthan ensemble whipped up a tough, romping set featuring percussion, strings and reed-like instruments. A resplendently clad dancer twirled while executing a series of tricks: standing on cups while balancing a high stack of bowls on her head, or bending over backward to pick up rings with her eyes. The Anoushka Shankar Project presented the evening's most genuinely progressive music. The program showcased her virtuosic sitar skills in pieces that incorporated such Western elements as cello and piano and slightly overamplified kit drums alongside the standard tabla drums, the shehnai reed instrument and droning tanpura. Shankar proved her mastery in breathtaking, complex scale runs through self-composed -- and in one action-packed, jazzy piece, perhaps Bollywood-inspired -- works that adeptly blended raga-related variations with non-Indian sources. The visually spectacular Yogen's Bollywood Step Dance Troupe, which worked out to the "Slumdog Millionaire" theme in a tribute to that film's composer, A.R. Rahman, preceded Kailash Kher's Kailasa. That act, featuring the diminutive Kher and brothers Naresh and Paresh Kamath, specializes in Sufi-folk rock, a mishmash of traditional sounds and contemporary rock and funk. Though the group veered a bit too far into an electronic "international house/pop" style (complete with wailing rock-star guitar solos), Kailasa found its stride in tunes stressing a satisfyingly deep-grooving tribal funk. Punjabi artist Malkit Singh capped the night with a frenzied, almost chaotic tour through his chart toppers, many of which have been featured in films such as "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Monsoon Wedding." The crowd greeted Singh like a conquering hero, and he rewarded it with party-down hits such as "Tutak Tutak Tutiyan," the bestselling Bhangra song of all time.
Latest Hollywood script deals
Walden Media has rubbed the lamp and picked up "Gene," a modern take on the classic genie story from writer Randi Mayem Singer. While Walden was keeping plot details tucked in the proverbial bottle, the studio said the pitch "combines originality, humor, heart and broad appeal that all ages can enjoy." Singer co-wrote "Mrs. Doubtfire" and created the 1999 TV series "Jack & Jill," starring Amanda Peet. He also penned the upcoming Dwayne Johnson comedy "Tooth Fairy" and is now working on "Big Momma's House 3." - New Line better think twice about mistreating frequent hires Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. The screenwriting pair has just been brought on to work over the screenplay for New Line's absurdist comedy "Horrible Bosses." The story line revolves around three friends who decide to whack their abusive "superiors" in a desperate bid for happiness. New Line picked up the original screenplay from Michael Markowitz (TV's "Becker") in 2005. Daley and Goldstein do a lot of business with New Line. They sold their original script "The $40,000 Man" to the studio and worked on the in-development magician comedy "Burt Wonderstone" there.
Hollywood considers cutting more than 30 jobs
Hollywood commissioners heard hours of testimony at a budget hearing Monday night, including many employees who fear losing their jobs, as they tried to agree on a new city budget. Similar Stories: • Hundreds protest tax increases in Hollywood • Hollywood gives tentative OK to 13 percent tax-rate hike • Hundreds protest possible tax hike in Hollywood • Hollywood considers cutting more than 30 jobs • Hollywood Commission to attempt to lower tax rate BY AMY SHERMAN ASHERMAN@MIAMIHERALD.COM Hollywood city commissioners were poised to vote on a tax rate hike Monday night -- though it could be less of an increase than officials initially sought. The tax rates under consideration would lead to more than 30 layoffs out of the city's workforce of more than 1,500, but keep services such as park programs, hours at City Hall and garbage pickups intact. The city's final budget hearing drew more than 200 city workers and residents. Though at the first budget hearing last week several speakers chastised commissioners for planning to raise the tax rate, a larger segment of Monday's speakers were city workers who face layoffs. David Blum, a roofing inspector who fears losing his job, spoke about his dreams when he started with the city. ``I hoped to save some money and buy a home so I could become a resident of the city of Hollywood,'' he said. ``Today, almost three years later, I'm not so happy. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of losing my job. I will not be able to pay my bills without my job. I will not be able to buy a home and move into the city of Hollywood. '' Last week, commissioners set a tax rate at $6.44 per $1,000 of taxable assessed property value. But they directed the city staff to lower that amount by the final tax hearing by tapping more reserves and making other cost shifts. On Monday, commissioners considered a 2009-10 tax rate of $5.99 -- an increase in the rate of about 5 percent compared to this year's. Commissioners discussed the tax rate and spending late into the night. Though at least a couple of them expressed interest in asking some union workers to agree to a pay cut or furlough, that would require reopening negotiations -- something that simply couldn't take place at City Hall Monday night. One option: a tax rate of $6.02 that would limit the number of layoffs to about 13. But the layoffs may not happen for a few months, leaving the unions time to come up with proposals to save jobs. At the $5.99 rate, homesteaded residents who live in a home with a $275,000 market value and have lived there at least 10 years would pay about $82 more for the city portion of their taxes. Residents who bought within the past few years with the same market value home today would see a drop of about $327. School district, Broward County, hospital district and other agencies' levies are additional. Though some commissioners said tax increases would be minimal, Mayor Peter Bober said taxpayers also face increases in the city's fire fee, homeowners' insurance and other costs. ``We are not the only taxing entity on peoples TRIM notices,'' Bober said, referring to the tax notices sent out by the county. The tax increases or decreases are on top of an expected increase in the annual fire fee to $159 from $109 and the already-approved water and sewer service hike that resulted in an increase of about $14.50 per month for the average homeowner. Some residents and business owners have asked city officials to avoid any tax or fee increases. ``You will be pushing many people over the edge,'' said Richard Clavet, owner of Richard's Motel, 1219 S. Federal Hwy. ``The proposed increase of taxes and fees will push many people out of their businesses and homes.'' Due to the public outcry, Hollywood is expected to retain an animal-control officer position that had been slated to be cut. City Manager Cameron Benson did not propose laying off police officers or firefighters -- in fact, next year's budget is likely to include filling some vacant positions in those departments. Most employees who will lose their jobs are members of the AFSCME union, which represents general employees, professional and supervisory employees. Several dozen members of the union have turned out at meetings. These city workers make residents' lives better, said George Tucker, attorney for AFSCME. ``When you get up in the morning to take a shower and turn that water on, we do that,'' he said. ``When you go to the parks with your child and play sports we mow those lawns, we draw those lines.'' Earlier this summer, commissioners approved contracts with city unions that included some concessions but also pay raises -- for example, up to 8 percent for some police officers. Several taxpayers have questioned the pay and benefits for police and firefighters. But Jeff Marano, senior vice president of the Police Benevolent Association, described the sometimes deadly -- and often gruesome -- jobs those workers perform. ``They treat people you wouldn't even want to touch,'' he said, referring to paramedics. Some taxpayers have suggested that commissioners were reluctant to force larger concessions during negotiations because they wanted the unions' campaign endorsements. Mayor Peter Bober denied that. He said the unions endorsed his opponent, former Mayor Mara Giulianti. ``I was the last person in the world unions wanted to see get elected,'' he said in an interview with The Miami Herald. Some cuts are a result of an efficiency study that led Benson to suggest combining some departments and shedding jobs that are no longer needed, such as shrinking the building department since development has slowed.
Indian Summer halted over Nehru-Edwina affair
The production of Hollywood movie Indian Summer has reportedly been put on hold and the reason is said to be the portrayal of the relationship between Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, and Lady Edwina Mountbatten, wife of the last British viceroy of India. According to reports, India government officials have asked to scrutinise the script to review how the Nehru-Edwina affair will be played out. Based on Alex von Tunzelmann's book Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, the film will reportedly follow the important events during India's Independence, said a press statement. Filming starts early next year. Oscar winner Cate Blanchett will reportedly play Edwina in this upcoming movie, which will portray the last days of British rule in India and Hugh Grant is also expected to star in the movie. To be released in 2011, this Universal Pictures drama will be reportedly directed by Joe Wright and written by Oscar nominated William Nicholson, and will show last British Viceroy Lord Mountbatten handing over power during the summer of 1947 to Nehru. Mountbatten's daughter Pamela also wrote about Nehru's relationship with her mother in her memoir India Remembered. Richard Hough's biography Mountbatten: Hero of Our Times also talks about this affair.
Catherine Zeta Jones Wants To End Her Hollywood Career
Hollywood actress Catherine Zeta Jones has revealed that she wants to end her Hollywood career. The 40-years-old actress said that she is happy spending time with husband, Michael Douglas and their children. The ‘The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles’ star claimed that she is not interested in signing any big budgets movies as she is enjoying her time in New York and Bermuda properties with family. Catherine Zeta Jones said, "When you live in LA, you can`t go anywhere without being critiqued on your purse or the fact that you have gained weight or that you have got spots on your face. That`s not the life I want. Deciding to live in beautiful Bermuda was the healthiest thing Michael and I ever did. Now that I have kids that`s what my life is about." The beauty is looking forward to her latest musical project `A Little Night and she is excited about it. "I think it will be a huge change career-wise. I`m going into a different chapter as an actor. I`m not going to play the ingenues but I`m not going to play the mother of teenagers either," the actress added.
Nayanthara is not glamorous anymore
Nayanthara is not glamorous anymore
ayanthara is well known in the south Indian film circuit for her astounding glamour quotient. The lady’s bikini–clad scenes in Billa were much talked about and her career soared to newer heights.
N
wever, the actress is now refusing to wear glamorous clothes much to the chagrin of her directors and producers. Nayan is currently starring in the Telugu film Athoorpu directed by VV Vinayak. Incidentally, Vinayak introduced Nayan in Tollywood and when the director mentioned about the necessity to wear skimpy clothes for a scene, the actress refused to do so, stating that she has decided against going glamorous in future.
HoThis decision has raised expectations that the actress is keen on ending her acting career and is moving closer to marital bliss.
Birthday Wishes for Style Icon, Kareena Kapoor!
Bollywood Bound
That millions of people have Bollywood dreams in India comes as little surprise. But Canada? This month, the Canadian Institute of Management and Technology in Mississauga, outside Toronto, launched the Bollywood Acting Diploma, a four-month course costing $9,000 and targeting students who want to break into the business. They are people like Dubai-born Maya Noel, 18 years old, who graduated high school in June and was all ready to study drama in college. When she heard about the academy, she reassessed her goals and thought, "I grew up with Bollywood not Hollywood." And she signed up. Her interest is a fitting tribute to the Indian institution that went "global" before that became a buzzword. Indeed, before Benetton and Big Bazaar, there was Bollywood, stealthily offering Indian audiences tastes of the West and nostalgic expatriates glimpses of the homes they left behind. Today, Bollywood has become the ultimate bridge for nonresident Indians, global Indians and everyone in between. While the rest of the world debates protectionism and outsourcing, Bollwood makes room for a new formula: take actors raised and trained in the West and welcome them back home. There's precedent for this, namely Katrina Kaif, the consummate global Indian -- "Hong Kong-born British-Indian actress and model," according to Wikipedia -- but more importantly "one of the popular actresses in current Bollywood." (But usually, the talent's looking longingly east. Consider former Miss World Aishwarya Rai playing a detective in Pink Panther 2.) “While the rest of the world debates protectionism and outsourcing, Bollwood presents a new formula.” The eight students enrolled are seven Indians and one West Indian – most born or raised in Canada -- who all dream of landing a role in a Bollywood movie. Their aspirations come amid increased fluidity of the film industries of the U.S. and India. Last week, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group's Big Entertainment sealed its deal to purchase a $325 million stake in Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG. The man behind the class is Jagdev Raj Sanda, a child actor who emigrated to Canada and became a caterer, better known by his apt nickname, "Lucky." He got the idea for a formal school devoted to Bollywood acting after watching an amateur performance among his community of local Indians. "We are clapping and then everyone goes home," he says. "Some of the students will go back to their colleges and their dreams are gone." The students are in class seven days a week and study areas fundamental to India's garish film industry: lip-syncing, fake fighting and, of course, dancing. Their journey underscores the message of a 2001 documentary titled "Bollywood Bound" about four Indo-Canadian actors and their struggle to break into Indian cinema. One of the actors, Ruby Bhatia, explains why: "Weekdays we'd be totally Canadian, and on the weekends we'd be totally Indian....salwaar kameez, Diwali functions, Holi functions and the songs...we'd always dance to Hindi film songs and the more you knew about the movies, the more Indian you were...." To be sure, Bollywood has served as many an NRI's badge of authenticity. The diploma offered outside Toronto just makes it a little more official now. ![[Nitin Patel]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-EM756_nitinp_C_20090922012141.jpg)
Nitin Pate
l "You need a platform to get into this or else you will always be in the background like an extra actor," Nitin Patel, 50 years old, told me. "To break the ice, it's very difficult in India. Here, there's less competition." He was an engineer on a dam project in India. After arriving in Canada six years ago, Mr. Patel struggled to find similar work --and finally settled on a job as a security guard. Recently, he got laid off and now collects unemployment insurance to make ends meet. He heard about the course and explained his situation to school officials—also regaling them with stories about the dramas and plays he'd performed in India and Canada. They agreed to waive the course fee. Mr. Sanda says he guarantees employment to the students -- which sounds improbable given the number of would-be actors in India. But he has linked up with a satellite television company to produce his own films. If the students don't make it in Bombay, he says he'll take a chance on them. After all, what's a class devoted to Bollywood without a happy ending? Dile bole, bhangra overkill
Netgear offers a networked hard drive for the masses, with a caveat
The tech industry is gradually persuading Americans to set up home networks, but it's had a tougher time selling consumers on the idea of storing all their data on a single device within their homes. The appeal of "network-attached storage" boxes and "home media servers" has largely been confined to the earliest of early adopters, even as the software to centralize and back up data has become increasingly user friendly. Today, Netgear makes a new bid to sell NAS to the masses, offering the $229 Stora. Its features and price are impressive, but I'm not sure Netgear has come up with a compelling new argument for consumers to go this route. That's because Hollywood isn't ready to play along. The idea behind a NAS is that it makes all of your digital photos, music and documents available to any device in the home that's capable of displaying them. The emergence of networked TV sets and Blu-ray players means that a NAS can serve content into your home entertainment center, not just the computers scattered around your home. Granted, putting all of those files in one place could have disastrous consequences in the event of a disc failure, but it also makes it easier to back up all that data. The Stora comes with a 1 terabyte drive ... ... with space for a second drive that would serve as an automatically updated back-up copy. Its software makes it easy to gather media files and documents from computers on a home network, as well as to share them with any compatible device on the network (it follows the DLNA standard for recognizing and communicating with consumer electronics). It also acts as a Web server, enabling people to access their files via the Net when they're away from home. Such features may be found on competing products, but Netgear argues that it offers more capabilities for the money. The company may overcome the ease-of-use problems that have plagued some of its rivals, but the Stora can't serve as a truly comprehensive digital storehouse because it's flummoxed by DRM. That means it can't store authorized copies of Hollywood movies, whether they're downloaded from an online store such as Sonic's CinemaNow or transferred from a DVD or Blu-ray disc. All of those files come encased in DRM. In fact, they come in one of several incompatible flavors of DRM. Drew Meyer, Netgear's director of marketing for storage products, said the Stora is "not designed to be the portal through which you stream the stuff you buy from the cloud." Instead, he said, "we fully expect people to rip their Blu-ray discs onto the drive." Umm, but Hollywood hasn't enabled disc ripping -- in fact, it's done everything it can to stop it. Witness the lawsuits against RealNetworks and Kaleidescape, two companies that sold products that ripped DVDs into more secure computer files. Meyer may have been stating the obvious -- people who want to create home-video jukeboxes can easily find disc-ripping software online. Yet that's probably a bridge too far for the average consumer. It's just not as easy to load movies onto the Stora as it is to move MP3 files. And until that day comes, the Stora will have a hard time leveraging the increasing penetration of connected TV sets. I mean, it's nice to be able to view one's digital photos on the big screen in the living room, but that's not as compelling as being able to play any movie instantly from your DVD and Blu-ray collection. Although I'm not sanguine about Hollywood ever allowing DVD ripping, five of the major studios are trying to come up with a standard that could solve the DRM incompatibility problem for downloadable films. They've formed a consortium, the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, with major tech companies and retailers to settle on formats and procedures that could allow the Netgears of the world to build media servers that support DRM-wrapped Hollywood content. Even the DECE's solution wouldn't enable people to rip the discs they already own, however. And I'm not sure how easy it will be for the DECE to talk consumers into buying a new generation of devices just so they can do a better job of protecting Hollywood's products against unauthorized copying.
Nigeria Says ‘District 9’ Is Not Welcome
Nigeria is joining the ranks of China, Iran and other countries displeased with Hollywood. “District 9,” the summer science-fiction blockbuster about an alien refugee camp in South Africa, is drawing protests from government officials in Nigeria over its portrayal of Nigerians, The Associated Press reported. Dora Akunyili, the country’s information minister, has asked movie houses in Abuja, the nation’s capital, to stop screening the film because it depicts Nigerians as gangsters and cannibals. “We have directed that they should stop public screening of the film,” Ms. Akunyili said. “We are not happy about it because it portrays Nigeria in bad light.” Ms. Akunyili has also appealed to Sony for an apology and requested that the studio edit out references to Nigeria as well as to a character whose name resembles that of the former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, and who in one scene tries to eat another character’s arm. The response followed a private screening of the film for government officials on Wednesday.
Aishwarya Rai makes it to Harpers and Queen Mag’s 100 Most Beautiful Women list
A new India emerges at the movies
The Waiting City is an ode to Calcutta A slew of films in the recently concluded Toronto film festival show India in a new light, says film critic Saibal Chatterjee, who attended the festival. Western filmmakers are increasingly tapping India for inspiration and locations and perceiving it in a new light. The runaway global success of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire may have triggered the growing focus on the subcontinent, but a spate of new films is going beyond the much flogged India-as-a-land-of-slums-and-squalor syndrome. Three major films in the official line-up of the 34th Toronto International Film Festival - The Waiting City (Australia), Google Baby (Israel) and Cooking with Stella (Canada) - narrate Indian stories while eschewing the clichés associated with the country. The Waiting City, written and directed by Sydney-based Claire McCarthy, is set in bustling, chaotic Calcutta (Kolkata). But it is a far cry from Roland Joffe's 1992 cinematic rendition of Dominique Lapierre's City of Joy and Nicolas Klotz's La Nuit Bengali (1988), based on Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade's doomed love affair with a girl from an aristocratic 1950s Calcutta family. 'Love song' Both the older films had courted controversy during and after their making. In The Waiting City, an outwardly happy Australian couple arrives in India to take possession of an adopted baby girl. Red tape holds them up in the metropolis for many weeks. The delay tests their patience, but they are gradually exposed to facets of Calcutta that change them as human beings. Stella explores the interface between Indian households and domestic staff Serious differences arise between the two - Fiona (Radha Mitchell) is a busy lawyer who cannot get off the mobile phone and the Internet; Ben (Joel Edgerton) is a failed but spirited musician who goes out in search of adventure and friends in a strange city - and the couple begins to drift apart. The relationship reaches breaking point when the mystical and the tragic combine to pull them back from the brink. "The Waiting City is like a love song to Calcutta, one of my favourite cities in the world," says McCarthy who, earlier in the decade, spent weeks making a documentary about her younger sister's voluntary work with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. "The city transforms Fiona and Ben spiritually and emotionally." McCarthy, an outsider with deep knowledge and understanding of the city's rhythms, brings an insider's view to bear upon the narrative. "I was determined from the very outset not to perpetuate Western misconceptions about India," she says. Similarly, renowned photojournalist Dilip Mehta, Canadian citizen of Indian origin and director of Cooking with Stella, was mindful of how he was going to project the city of his birth, New Delhi. "I was sensitive to the images of this city," he says. "I wanted to show a rather different India. Of course poverty and despair are huge parts of life in India .. but that is not the world that Cooking with Stella sets out to explore." Cooking with Stella, which the director co-wrote with his sister Deepa Mehta, explores the complex interface between urban Indian households and their domestic staff seen through Canadian eyes. Ethical issues The film revolves around a Canadian diplomat Maya (Lisa Ray) who, along with her chef-husband Michael (Don McKellar) and infant daughter, arrives in New Delhi. The long-time housekeeper Stella (Seema Biswas), a divine cook and a charming woman, takes the stay-at-home dad under her wing and teaches him the finer points of south Indian cuisine. Google Baby focuses on surrogacy But there is more to this remarkable lady: she skims diplomatic supplies from the pantry to run a duty-free business that supplements her income. "There is a Stella in every Indian household," says Mehta. "We often deny them their identity, their sexuality, their dignity, but they have a way of getting back at us." Among the more unusual films screened in Toronto this year was Israeli documentarian Zippi Brand Frank's Google Baby, which travels across three countries - the US, Israel and India - to unravel the global surrogacy industry. Sperm is selected in Israel, eggs are developed in labs in the US and wombs are rented in Gujarat, India. Google Baby focuses on the work of Indian gynaecologist Dr Nayna Patel, whose IVF clinic in Anand provides surrogates who bear babies for foreign couples. The film raises many ethical and emotional questions without being judgmental. "Working on Google Baby, I knew I was dealing with the actual application of business rules and commercial dynamics to making babies. Yet the actual real-life examples were on many occasions surprising and hard to digest," says Frank. Hollywood star Julia Roberts has landed in India for the India leg of the shoot of Ryan Murphy's Eat, Pray, Love, an adaptation of writer and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 spiritual travelogue of the same name. Gilbert, after a contentious divorce and a bout of depression, had taken off for Italy, India and Indonesia on a year-long voyage of regeneration. In the film, Roberts plays the protagonist who spends many months in a Hindu ashram to master the art of meditation. Timeless themes Indeed, regeneration, spiritual and otherwise, seems to be the new buzzword driving the Western gaze on India. Yes, Madam Sir, is a film on India's first woman officer While films like Anurag Kashyap's Bombay Velvet, being presented by Danny Boyle, and Paul Schrader's Extreme City, to be produced by Bollywood director Anubhav Sinha, inspired no doubt by Slumdog Millionaire, are reportedly in the works, the focus has shifted to more timeless aspects of India. Last year, an Australian documentary filmmaker made Yes, Madam Sir, a film about India's first woman police officer Kiran Bedi and her eventful career. In 2005, Dutch-born French filmmaker Jan Kounen came up with Darshan - The Embrace, which extolled the healing power of touch as demonstrated by Kerala-based spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi, known to her followers around the world as Amma. In 2006, veteran French director Benoit Jacquot's L'Untouchable told the fictional story of a young Paris actress who learns that her father is a low-caste Hindu. She travels to India in quest of her identity. Jacquot imparts an edgy, docu-style frisson to the narrative that records the girl's life-altering encounters with the teeming country. Twenty years ago, French filmmaker Alain Corneau, a life-long Indophile, had made Nocturne Indien, the story of a man who comes to India ostensibly in search of a lost friend. But his quest and the outcome of his voyage assumes dimensions well beyond the mere personal and physical. These films, as well as those that are on the way, owe much of their inspiration to masters like Roberto Rossellini ('India: Matri Bhumi', 1959) and Louis Malle ('Phantom India' and 'Calcutta', 1969) whose long documentaries about India rank among the greatest films ever made. With the culturally condescending, poverty-fixated, cliché-ridden Western vision of a populous nation of a million contradictions undergoing marked dilution, a new India is beginning to emerge in the cinema of the world.
Indian Firm Takes a Hollywood Cue, Using DreamWorks to Expand Empire
George and Mike Kuchar: attack of the killer twins
If directors were ranked according to the greatness of their films' titles, brothers George and Mike Kuchar would instantly be inducted into the pantheon of gods. Together and separately since the late 1950s, these mainstays of the early 1960s New York underground film movement have bestowed on their audience – tiny and cult-like though it's always been – such eyeball-searing marquee-toppers as Sins of the Fleshapoids, Hold Me While I'm Naked, A Town Called Tempest, The Devil's Cleavage and I Was a Teenage Rumpot. Others have liked their titles, too. As George tells me on the phone from his home in San Francisco, where he has taught film since 1971, "I once got a call from Mad magazine saying, 'We're doing a strip and we'd like to borrow your title The Naked and the Nude. We'll take ya to lunch!' I said sure. So they took me to lunch. I was very, very flattered. I forget where they took me." Other fans of their lurid, lush 8mm mock-melodramas include David Lynch, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin and Brian De Palma. Mike Kuchar remembers an early encounter with a barely out-of-his-teens John Waters: "John later said our pictures made him work harder, made him feel uplifted and less alone." The identical twins were born in Manhattan – "in the same hospital as Tab Hunter," George says - but raised in the Bronx. They made their first splash on the underground scene when they turned up at the downtown loft of experimental film-maker Ken Jacobs, in 1963. There, they projected their home-made 8mm movies: ripe colours, cheesy string soundtracks, bargain-basement special effects, casts featuring their friends and neighbours, as well as their mother. Their audience included the glitterati of the emergent Factory and Film Culture magazine scenes – among them editor Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol. It shouldn't have worked because, as George's friend Buck Henry points out in Jennifer Kroot's lovely new documentary It Came from Kuchar, the Warhol crowd were affectless – "and the Kuchars were nothing but affect!" Still, the in-crowd loved the movies, marvelling at how an entirely coherent proto-camp sensibility had sprouted unassisted in the Bronx wilderness. "They were fascinated by us because they were all hipsters," George says, "while we knew people who, y'know, worked in the post office." Even so, the twins were anything but square: they had already horrified the members of the New York 8mm Motion Picture Society, whose usual fare consisted, in George's recollection, of "well-mounted movies about baby's first steps, or our summer vacation. They took it all very seriously, dressed up nice. It was held in a big ballroom at a hotel, chandeliers." The brothers took their film A Woman Distressed, a perhaps ill-advised comedy about Thalidomide, which was in the news. "That was the only time they ever wrote a bad review in their club periodical," George says. Somehow, isolated in the Bronx, filming in their parents' apartment and on rooftops, channelling the Hollywood movies they had spent their after-school hours watching, the Kuchars created a dingy, candy-coloured yet authentic parallel universe to the ones being imagined in the East Village by Jack Smith (in Flaming Creatures and Normal Love), and by Warhol with his increasingly ambitious Factory outings. ("Some of the Kuchar actors were even more berserk than the Warhol Superstars," Waters recalls in Kroot's documentary.) Although the brothers remain best friends, by the late 1960s their different rates of output had led them to work apart. George still makes movies the way other people write diaries: students at the San Francisco Art Institute can expect to make about 15 movies a year in his class; he has now cranked out something approaching 300 movies and video diaries. Mike is more the reticent novelist, and works only when inspired, making his output much smaller. Their influence persists. "A surprising number of Hollywood people know my brother and I," Mike says. "I went to the Skywalker Ranch once, and George Lucas said, 'I'm a big fan of your work!' They have their realm, we work in ours. I never feel any kind of urge to work in Hollywood. If I want to make a movie, I just make it. It's all creativity."
Another Death Knell For Movie Stars
This past weekend, two of Hollywood's biggest stars had movies opening. Normally that would be reason for a boffo box office, but both films basically flopped. The Informant!, staring Matt Damon, earned only $10.5 million, and Love Happens, staring Jennifer Aniston, limped in with $8 million. It would be easy to dismiss these tallies by pointing out that the big box-office winner was the animated 3-D movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which earned $30 million. Because the weekend-event movie was a kids flick, most viewers needed their parents to take them to the theater, and those grown-ups were unlikely to go to a second movie in one weekend. In Pictures: The Best Actors For The Buck But that would be too easy. Love Happens was marketed as a drab romance about a self-help guru trying to deal with the death of his wife. According to critics, the actual movie wasn't much more exciting. "The title is a good indicator of the movie's blandness and predictability," wrote Stephen Farber in The Hollywood Reporter. And The Informant! featured Matt Damon as an overweight middle manager. He gained a well-publicized 30 pounds for the role. Not his best look. Both Aniston and Damon, in recent years, have been able to open huge movies in the right roles. Last winter's comedy Marley & Me earned $143 million at the U.S. box office, making it Aniston's second-highest-grossing film of all time. And in 2007, Damon stared in The Bourne Ultimatum, his highest grossing movie, with a $227 million domestic haul. Both those films had much bigger production (and marketing) budgets than the smaller films that the actors appeared in this weekend. Usually when big movie stars show up in smaller movies, it's with an eye toward an award or at least prestige. The Informant! has received good reviews, but it's too early to tell if Damon will be on the short list of nominees come next February. Rate This Story Your Rating Overall Rating Reader Comments That is my handprint on the Bourne movies, I concepted the trilogy. I also wrote most of Good Will Hunting. Basically good things happen when I'm involved. Basically, Matty is the mili vanilli of Comment On This Story So why are our biggest movie stars, like Aniston and Damon, forgoing the kinds of blockbuster movies that made people love them in the first place? Part of the reason is that those movies have become fewer and farther between, as studios focus on action and comedy films that feature lesser-known (and cheaper) actors. The most highly anticipated movie of the year is Avatar, James Cameron's new live action 3-D film, which has no stars at all. Another reason may be that even when stars conform to the stereotypes we love to see them play, the films don't necessarily succeed. Just look at Will Ferrell's big-budget Land of the Lost, which earned a paltry $50 million at the U.S. box office this summer. Who wants to be at the head of a big-budget flop? Or maybe they're just following the George Clooney model of "one for them, one for me." Aniston next appears in The Baster, a romantic comedy about a single 40-something who tries to get pregnant in an untraditional way. Damon is slotted for Invictus, a Clint Eastwood Oscar-baiter about Nelson Mandela, but then he'll appear in The Adjustment Bureau, a big-budget sci-fi romance from Universal Films. Clooney's method has produced a string of box-office disappointments including Michael Clayton and The Good German. But this year it looks like he might turn things around with Up in the Air, the latest comedy from Jason Reitman, which has been getting box-office and Oscar buzz. The film hits theaters in November. If the low-budget film does well, it just might inspire more superstars to focus on smaller films, while big-budget movies are ceded to B-list actors. So much for the Golden Age of Hollywood.
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