Akshay tweeting OMG songs but mum on Joker

You always wonder what it means when actors are not available for the promotion of their upcoming movies. Sometimes their schedule won’t permit and they are shooting somewhere else, but often it means there are differences and the actor is not happy with the end result. Or there was a mega fight on set, 8 on the richter scale.

I remember Abhay Deol shining through absentia during the promotion of “Aisha” – which I didn’t think was such a bad movie. It wasn’t GREAT but certainly enjoyable. And I loved Sonam Kapoor as his filmi love interest. I never figured out what happened there.. did he feel unappreciated? I thought it looked really awkward that Sonam was doing the promotional stuff all by herself. Doesn’t look good when the heart of the movie is a love story and only one half is showing up on the promotional parcours.

Now here with Joker we know it’s not exactly a love story, it’s about a village. But why isn’t Akshay Kumar mentioning the movie on twitter or anywhere else? What’s behind that? Apparently he is not so shy in promoting OMG Oh My God. a movie that won’t come out until end of September.

If you google News for promotion of the movie Joker, you will see that the Bollywood media octopus is scratching its head. The moloch doesn’t know what’s going on either. Farah Khan is stated as saying they want to promote the aliens and not Akki. What the….? Is she kidding us?  and that Akki and Sonakshi were ‘overexposed’ during Rowdy Rathore? Hey, that was a pretty bad movie! Not that it was Akki’s fault.

Now we learn that Sonakshi Sinha might skip all promotional gigs too. Akki complained about the lyrics of a song “I Want to Fakt You” not being family-friendly. Haha. He has a point there, I guess.  But  doesn’t FAKT refer to FACT and the A is pronounced as in PACKED? He complained also apparently about the fakt that Joker wasn’t released or shot in 3D, as originally planned.

Now my feeling is that if the end product is good and the actors believe in the movie, they will be happy to promote a film, regardless of differences, creative, financial or other.

So in this case,  are the actors pushed out of the picture and replaced by aliens in a new marketing strategy, as Farah Khan (the damage controller) wants us to believe or are Akshay and Sonakshi jumping from a sinking ship before it goes nosedown Titanic?

We shall see in the next few days.

Personally I have nothing against aliens promoting their flicks. It’s about time they get full recognition as a minority on this planet. I also pledge they should have access to free education and healthcare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mere Nishaan from OMG

Akshay Kumar ‏@akshaykumar

Sharing an exclusive footage with you’ll from the song Mere Nishaan from OMG Oh My God which also happens to be my per… http://say.ly/hId44ov

beautiful song from the upcoming movie Oh My God with the one and only Akki.

Shirish Kunder’s Joker hitting the cinemas

Shirish Kunder is back in the headlines, this time with his first cinematic oeuvre “Joker” and Akki is back with his irresistible smile. Sonakshi Sinha his leading lady. Choreography by Farah Khan.  I am in.

the trailer looks entertaining, the story, if I may say so,  ridiculous… which doesn’t mean it cannot be fun. Here is the synopsis I found on Imdb:

In 1947 when the maps of India and Pakistan were being drawn, an oversight ensured that the village of Paglapur didn’t find a place in either country. The village had the distinction of housing the largest mental asylum in the region and in the mêlée that ensued during partition, the asylum inmates broke loose, drove away the villagers and established their own republic in Paglapur. And that’s how it stayed for the next 60 years! While the world outside changed, Paglapur remained isolated, with no electricity, television or sanity. Now, decades after the world forgot this village, a NASA scientist of Indian origin, Agastya and his beautiful wife find themselves on the road to Paglapur. Agastya is working on a top secret project for creating a device to communicate with aliens. So why is he in a village whose colorful inhabitants include a man who speaks in gibberish, another who thinks he is a lamp post and everyone else who think Mahatma Gandhi is still around, fighting for independence? And more importantly, what are they going to do that will soon turn the universe’s spotlight on this forgotten village?

Heroine

Song: Saiyaan (Rahat Fateh Ali Khan). Music – Salim and Sulaiman Merchant

Watch the official trailer of “Heroine” which releases on 21st September, 2012. The film is based on the life and times of a superstar heroine from the dream factory we call ‘Bollywood’. The film is a daring, shocking, glamorous, scandalous behind the scenes account of the reality behind the world of glitz and glamour that our film stars inhabit.

Cast Crew :- Kareena Kapoor , Arjun Rampal, Randeep Hooda, Shahana Goswami
Directed By :- Madhur Bhandarkar
Produced By :- UTV Motion Pictures, Bhandarkar Entertainment
Music By :- Salim-Sulaiman

I am a big fan of Madhur Bhandarkar. His films are always interesting. Sometimes I find him too stylized, the ambiance a tad sterile. Something he shares with the Mahesh Bhatt’s type of movies. I am always looking forward to his next film though :-)  and I can’t wait for Heroine.

Too bad Tha Tiger killed Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi

it’s really shame because Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi is a charming comedy, one that makes the point that you don’t have to be young, look hip like a Bollywood star and be size 0 to fall in love.

Frustrated  45 yr old bachelor and Farsi mama boy Farhad (played by the lovable Boman Irani), seasoned lingerie salesman, who can tell your bra-size in the split of a second, is finally finding his match in zesty secretary Shirin (Farah Khan).

Romcoms for the 40+ gen are no rarity in Hollywood, but Farah Khan just set a benchmark for Indian films. If you are single in Indian films by age 40 you are either widowed or divorced but not single and looking!  Just like Vicky Donor surprised us with its topic of sperm donation, Shirin and Farhad are the new It in the mature & single department.  Not that they don’t exist in India, 40 and single, but they are frowned upon. A woman not married by the age of 30 is still the anomaly. I also know Indian guys in their forties who are still unmarried. but it’s true, they are made fun of very often.

The movie is fresh and uncomplicated and speaks right to the heart.  This movie is not flawless and some things might have looked better on paper but Farah’s fabulous choreographies come handy to bridge you any looming downtime. This girl can shake her booty all right! :-) She is full of life and utterly believable when turning sexy and  flirtatious, happy, angry and/or kicks balls in a man’s world.

And finally, we get to see the versatile Boman Irani as a romantic lead. I always loved him as an actor and often thought he is underutilized. I loved him in this role as lingerie salesman, trapped between his mom (Daisy Irani) and his love interest.

 

Nice job by first time director Bela Sehgal.

Indian photo exhibit of the work of Homai Vyarawalla at the Rubin Museum of Art, NYC

If you are visiting New York City and are interested in Indian arts and culture, a trip to the Rubin Museum of Art is de rigueur and should be your first stop.  The exhibition Candid, The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla was reviewed by the NYT today and should appeal to history and photography buffs equally. Check it out.

 

 

Candid

The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla

July 6, 2012 – January 14, 2013

Homai Vyarawalla; Indian (1913 – 2012) ; Jawaharlal Nehru caught by the camera at Palam airport while waiting for his sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the Indian Ambassador in Moscow, 1954; gelatin silver print; Alkazi Foundation for the Arts

Homai Vyarawalla (1913-2012) was India’s first female photojournalist. This exhibition, the first on Vyarawalla outside of India, will present her photography from the late 1930s to 1970, and narrate her extraordinary life with a biographical film and ephemera from her career.

From early in her career, Homai Vyarawalla documented key events from the generation around Independence, including the historic meeting of Gandhi and the Congress Committee on the 1947 plan for partition, and she recorded the visits to India of world leaders and dignitaries including Queen Elizabeth, Jacqueline Kennedy, Ho Chi Minh, and Zhou Enlai. She was revered in India and her recent death at age 98 generated tributes around the world. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in New Delhi.

Curated by Beth Citron

Travel for this exhibition was supported by Rasika and Girish Reddy, and The Pierre New York, A Taj Hotel.

 

Members-Only Reception

July 11, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Join us for a special event for members at the Friend level and higher on July 11! Contact Emilie Dufour at edufour@rmanyc.org or 212-620-50000, ext. 313 for more information.

Click here to learn about the benefits of membership

 

Open to the Public

Candid is located in our Theater Level Gallery, below Serai in the colonnade. Admission to the Theater Level Gallery is free of charge, at all times.

 

check out the museum’s website:      1721

NYT  review:

Restrained Chronicler of Tumultuous Times

‘Candid,’ Photos by Homai Vyarawalla, at Rubin Museum

By HOLLAND COTTER

 

The Indian photographer Homai Vyarawalla, who died in January at 98, spoke many times, with undiminished regret, of two opportunities missed.

Enlarge This Image

Alkazi Collection of Photography

Candid Jawaharlal Nehru in a Homai Vyarawalla photo at the Rubin Museum.

Enlarge This Image

Alkazi Collection of Photography

Homai Vyarawalla captured Jacqueline Kennedy’s feeding a baby elephant while visiting India in 1962.

On Jan. 30, 1948, she left her home in New Delhi intending to film the elderly Mohandas K. Gandhi at his daily prayer meeting at Birla House in the city. Something distracted her, and she turned back. If she had continued on, she would have witnessed, and probably documented, Gandhi’s assassination.

Two weeks later she traveled with a party of international journalists to Allahabad to photograph the immersion of Gandhi’s ashes at the confluence the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers. At the last minute the boat assigned to reporters and photographers got stuck on a sandbar. The immersion went on without them. Again, she didn’t get the shot.

But if those two crucial moments in India’s modern history eluded her, many, many others did not, as is clear from “Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla,” a small, evocative, event-filled retrospective of her work at the Rubin Museum of Art.

read more here…

candid-photos-by-homai-vyarawalla-at-rubin-museum.html?ref=design

Shahrukh suffering from Ladakh blues

 

19 Aug SHAH RUKH KHAN ‏@iamsrk

All alone on Eıd…on a thın wındıng road. Nowhere and everywhere. Just gave myself a hug after a long tıme. Wıll celebrate wıth happy wınds

 

 

 

 

 

a day earlier he tweeted:

First day breathing is a problem in Ladakh. u can’t speak long sentences…actually…u can’t. write…long. sentences. either…gasp gasp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I bet he lit a cigarette right after he tweeted that, which I don’t think is a good idea up there….)

 

 

 

 

OK,so  first of all let’s give him a group hug!  It sounds pretty much like he needs one.   And for good measure let’s blow him some happy winds! :-)

Poor Shahrukh, it’s the holidays blues.

 

Secondly, what I wanted to ask, what happened to the dots of the i?  too cold? they fell off? :-) I want to lose my dots too, they weigh me down all for sudden, and I am not even akeli in the Himalayas on Eid. are the dots supposed to make us happy? dotless looks like the new cool.

 

 

 

 

 

OMG, a divine comedy starring Akki

 

OMG Oh My God! is starring Paresh Rawal, as an antique store owner Kanjibhai and Akshay Kumar, looks like Krishna to me, but I am no expert on Indian gods. Other cast members include Sonakshi Sinha ( in an item number) and Mithun Chakraborty.

The film is  written and directed by Umesh Shukla.  Plot: Antique store owner Kanjibhai is taking God to court.

…is about time somebody does! :-)  can’t wait to see the outcome

 

Mere Brother Ki Dulhan

I was rewatching Mere Brother Ki Dulhan the other day, and loved it just as much as when I saw it at the theater last year.

Katrina is just so super hot. And I loved Imran Khan and Ali Zafar in this colorful romantic comedy about a brother who sets out to find an Indian bride for his London based sibling and then falls in love with the girl he chooses for him.  Written and directed by Ali Abbas Zafar.

A must see for any romantic at heart.

 

one song better than the next..

 

 

making a mental post-it to buy the DVD …

 

 

Dear God,  thank you for Bollywood flicks! :-)

 

 

 

 

 

Salman and Katrina on 200 cr track with Ek Tha Tiger

 

I hope Ek Tha Tiger keeps going strong at the box office. The action-packed, romantic thriller takes you on a highly entertaining roller-coast ride through several continents. The stunts are just magnificent, Bollywood action movies are getting better and better. I loved this movie! I would say hiring Hollywood’s stunt coordinator Conrad Palmisano has paid off gloriously. Same can be said about Aseem Mishra, whose cinematography is borderline poetic.

The foreign locations were awesome,  especially Istanbul and Havana, Cuba.

Ranvir Shorey, as secret service agent looked great with beard and slightly threatening. You could never be sure if he didn’t work both sides.. He created some moments of good suspense. I liked him and wish they had given him more screen-time and his role a bit more complexity and substance.

The soundtrack was very nice too.  Of the songs,  I liked Laapata and Mashallah best.

 

 

I am not surprised at 200 crore. It’s a great family entertainer. Even grandma will like it. Just make sure she sits far enough not to get dizzy..

Part of the box office success of Ek Tha Tiger  hinges undoubtedly on Salman & Katrina’s chemistry, which is plain undeniable and makes you wonder where these two are headed relationship-wise. They make a fabulous couple, not just on screen but they look right together.  Let’s talk about body language.  It seems that Katrina’s role as ISI secret service agent Zoya, served two purposes, one to showcase how good she looks on a high speed chase, who thought she had it in her,  and secondly it appears like the perfect platform to woo her back from Salman’s point of view.  “Oh Kat, It’s part of the role that you should lay down on me.. that I nibble on your ear, dance a waltz with you..and hold you tight n whisper in your ear..” and you can see Katrina looking at him as if she were saying “oh yeah? so are we in character now..??”  He is wooing her with his eyes in every single scene, 99% convinced that he got her back, and not just on tiger track.  The question Katrina will have to answer.. should she stay or should she go.

 

Salman, aka RAW secret service agent Tiger is asking himself on and off screen the same question, but it looks like he has made up his mind.. No wonder, Katrina looks sexier than ever! Round in all the right places but muscular and healthy, just wonderful to look at. This woman is beautiful even without any make-up, as she dared to show us in a rare glimpse of her beauty ‘au naturel’ – that was gutsy! and btw, heads up for her stylist and costume designers. From innocent to femme fatale, wearing a traditional Pakistani dress, she looks stunning in whatever she wears!

The movie is a bit heavy on romance for being a thriller and action movie, but,  let’s say, I don’t hold it against them. :-)

Well done. Shabash!  Salman Khan, your charm and charisma never fails.  This movie will turn into another Salman classic and I bet it’s not the last time we get to see Zoya and Manish.  calls for an encore.

 

 

btw, if you are interested in reading about the real Tiger, Ravinder Kaushik, the ending of his story slightly differed:

Ravinder_Kaushik

.. not exactly a James Bond story,  sailing into the sunset with a pretty girl. No, Ravinder was caught and jailed in Pakistan, tortured. He eventually died in jail.