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via press release: “MELISSA & JOEY,” A NEW ORIGINAL COMEDY SERIES STARRING MELISSA JOAN HART AND JOEY LAWRENCE, PREMIERES ON ABC FAMILY ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 17 WITH BACK-TO-BACK ORIGINAL EPISODES AT 8:00 & 8:30PM ET/PT Burbank, CA (July 20, 2010) – In the new ABC Family original comedy series, “Melissa & Joey,” Melissa Joan Hart portrays Mel, the grown-up former wild child of a political family who is now a local politician herself. When her sister ends up in prison and brother-in-law flees after a scandal hits, Mel must take responsibility for her teenaged niece, Lennox, and adolescent nephew, Ryder. Spread too thin to manage by herself, help comes in the unlikely form of Joe (Lawrence) who, desperate for a job, moves in and becomes the family’s “manny.” “Melissa & Joey” debuts on ABC Family on Tuesday, August 17 with back-to-back original episodes, at 8:00PM & 8:30PM ET/PT. The half-hour series will air regularly on Tuesday nights at 8:00PM ET/PT. In the second ep

via release: DONALD TRUMP JR. ( Celebrity Apprentice ) is the guest judge on this Sunday’s drama-filled episode of HGTV’s top-rated reality competition series, HGTV Design Star . Based on the tease that aired last Sunday night, he’s quite disappointed with the finalists’ results. The stakes are high — but the designers seem to hit a new low! “Total disaster! I have my guys carting it out, as we speak,” a rather frank Donald Trump Jr. chastises the designer finalists. CHALLENGE: This week, the designers work for their biggest client yet, the Trump Organization. The remaining 7 designers split into two teams to create two model apartments at Trump Plaza Residences Jersey City, including bathroom, bedroom, living and dining spaces. As an added twist, the designers must each repurpose New York City souvenirs, and incorporate them into the apartments. When the design begins, one designer feels overpowered by teammates, while another seizes an opportunity to shine. As the spaces come toget

Subhash Ghai's next romantic comedy Paschim Express went on floors on 18 July with a mahurat shoot along with the debutant lead actors of the movie Sahil Mehta, Mannat (Neha Yadav), Vikas Katyal, Priyum Galav and the debut director Sunny Bhambani all of whom are from Whistling Woods International. Paschim Express is a romantic comedy about two Punjabi families who try to have a wedding on a train journey. Initially the bride and the groom are least interested in each other and this mutual dissatisfactsion coupled with other run of events leads to serious conflicts between the two families and the wedding is called off by the parents .But the real drama starts when the bride and the groom rekindle their romance and become comfortable with each other. Now how will the bride and the groom get together? Will the 30 years of family friendship stand this storm? These are some of the questions which Paschim Express answers. The film is a joy ride comprising of a serie

via press release: Where To Find The Walt Disney Company AT COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL BURBANK, Calif., July 20, 2010 – The Walt Disney Company makes its mark at the 2010 Comic-Con convention with an exciting lineup of feature films, scripted and animated series, and interactive booths providing fans with a first look at new content, experiences and merchandise, including toys, electronics, collectibles and more.

Live + Same Day Cable News Daily Ratings for July 19, 2010 P2+ Total Day FNC – 1,195,000 viewers CNN – 384,000 viewers MSNBC – 359,000 viewers CNBC – 171,000 viewers HLN – 264,000 viewers P2+ Prime Time FNC – 2,465,000 viewers CNN – 417,000 viewers MSNBC –760,000 viewers CNBC – 162,000 viewers HLN – 451,000 viewers 25-54 Total Day FNC –322,000 viewers CNN –126,000 viewers MSNBC –103,000 viewers CNBC – 56,000 viewers HLN – 116,000 viewers 25-54 Prime Time FNC – 623,000 viewers CNN – 118,000 viewers MSNBC –202,000 viewers CNBC – 85,000 viewers HLN – 123,000 viewers

USA CONTINUES AT #1 Critically-Acclaimed New USA Original Series COVERT AFFAIRS Launches to Ratings Success; Hit Series WHITE COLLAR and PSYCH Return to Help Lead USA to #1 NEW YORK, NEW YORK – July 20, 2010 – For week three of 3Q10, USA was #1 again across the board, taking the top spot in cable’s primetime, pulling in more P25-54 (1.37 million, +24% over #2 TNT), P18-49 (1.24 million, +22% over #2 TBS), P18-34 (571,000, +6% over #2 TBS), total viewers (3.26 million, +7% over #2 DSNY) and households (2.45 million, +14% over #2 DSNY). USA also earned the top coverage rating in basic cable prime this week with a 2.46 (+0.40 over #2 TNT). Total day, USA was the most watched network among P18-49 (611,000, 3% over #2 TNT).

Some of these we’ve already covered, but many of the shows were not.. True Blood’s rose 4.86 million and a 2.8 rating with adults 18-49 were up from last week’s 4.682 million viewers and 2.7 with adults 18-49.

To quote the legendary WKRP character Arthur Carlson, “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

via HBO: The debut date for the new seasons of the HBO comedy series BORED TO DEATH and EASTBOUND & DOWN has been confirmed. BORED TO DEATH kicks off its second season SUNDAY, SEPT. 26 (10:00-10:30 p.m. ET/PT), immediately followed by the second-season debut of EASTBOUND & DOWN (10:30-11:00 p.m.). Starring Jason Schwartzman, BORED TO DEATH follows a struggling thirtysomething Brooklyn writer who pretends to be a private detective, solving some cases and making others worse. Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis also star. Starring Danny McBride, EASTBOUND & DOWN tells the story of a star pitcher whose self-destructive behavior knocks him out of major league baseball, leaving him broke, delusional and desperate to regain his former glory.

via press release: 3.9 MILLION VIEWERS SIGN UP FOR LIFETIME ORIGINAL MOVIE THE CLIENT LIST Film Starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Cybill Shepherd Becomes 2010’s Second Most Watched Original Movie Premiere on Cable

Jeremy Britton is a Partner and Design Lead at ZURB, an interaction design firm that has helped 100+ startups design better products & services. ZURB is the creator of Bounce – a free, fun and easy way to share your ideas about a website without logins. You’ve got a good product, happy customers, and a solid space in the market. Now what? You can’t stop doing what you did to get here — by stopping you’ll mark a slow death for your currently successful product. Your competition can see this and will exploit your weaknesses sooner than later, so you have to beat them to it: Be your own toughest competitor. You have to take calculated risks and innovate on your product. Ask the same questions your competitors would ask: What if we threw it all away and started over? What if we tried a totally different approach to this core feature? Ask “What if,” prototype new designs, test it out, and keep exploring. Not taking any risks is the worst risk of them all. Being your own fiercest competi

The once-upon-a-time music king Venus is back and how! After the stupendous success of their last film De Dana Dan , Ratan Jain's next venture as a producer is called Bullet Train . The film will be directed by Priyadarshan. If the industry rumors are to be believed, then, the film stars the likes of Anil Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Suniel Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Vidya Balan and Sameera Reddy. There were rumors that the suave Kunal Kapoor was also a part of the starcast. When ApnaDesi spoke to the PRO of Kunal, they simply denied Kunal being a part of this flick. What's really stunning is that everyone associated with this film is totally tightlipped about this venture. From what we have learnt, the filming of Bullet Train will start from September 5 and the film will extensively be shot in London. 

Droid X owners, beware: If you mod or tinker too much with your shiny new phone it could suddenly turn into a useless brick, according to reports surfacing from people who have attempted to hack, root, mod or tinker with the massive smartphone. In the first place, the device is difficult to hack due to an encrypted bootloader. If you then change or compromise the bootloader, kernels or ROM of the device, it will become completely unusable. The only solution is to take it in to a Verizon store, where you will likely be charged for a fix since you voided the warranty. The security features focus around a technology called “eFuse,” which is designed to verify you are using the versions of your bootloader, kernels and ROM. If this check fails, the bootloader is permanently corrupted, making your Droid X useless. You can find a more detailed explanation of how this technology works on the My Droid World forums, but it boils down to this: Motorola doesn’t want you hacking your phone, even th

This Friday's big release, the Akshay Kumar starrer Khatta Meetha got itself embroiled in a controversy earlier this week. After the Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) viewed and cleared the film on July 13, a certain party lodged a complaint against clearing the film due to the presence of a scene in which an elephant is shown pulling the road-roller. The complainant seems to have found the scene objectionable as it depicts cruelty towards animals and hence asked the CBFC to order the makers to delete the scene. Such a step would have resulted in delaying the dispatch of overseas prints and could have even pushed the release date further. However, things seem to have been sorted now. When we got in touch with the PR of the film he said, "Yes there was a small issue but it has been sorted now. In fact the overseas prints have also been delivered."

Mobile advertising firm Millennial Media has just released its Mobile Mix report for June 2010, highlighting some of the latest trends in the world of mobile and connected devices. The data shows that while Android is gaining, especially in developer adoption, Apple continues to make the biggest gains in the smartphone space. The iPhone 4 was only available for one week in June 2010 so its impact on the survey results was not directly addressed. We wrote about Millennial’s May report and it is interesting to compare and contrast the two data sets month to month. Overall, Apple remains the leader amongst both smartphones and connected devices. Millennial’s report finds that Apple actually made a 4% month-over-month gain in terms of device manufacturer marketshare in the U.S., giving Apple nearly 30% of all impressions. Furthermore, Apple remained the leading smartphone OS, taking in 56% of all smartphone impressions across Millennial’s network in June 2010. This is interesting because

Apparently, Sonam Kapoor the leading lady of I Hate LUV Storys (IHLS) was supposed to fly down to Mumbai for the celebration party on Saturday. But she did not eventually show up because of the tight schedule in Edinburgh for Mausam . Says a source close to the actress, "Too much of the Mausam schedule had already been disturbed because Sonam had to take a break to return to Mumbai to promote IHLS. There was no way she could return for even a day." Director Punit Malhotra was seen solo at the party but hardly looking lost. "We had a mad evening. It was super-entertaining. I got everyone drunk," said Punit the day after the party. Everyone from Sammir Dattani to Karan Johar was hung-over the next morning, Punit made sure of that. Surprisingly, Imran Khan too came solo to the party. According to Punit his girlfriend Avantika was travelling. But another source revealed that Avantika decided to have a girls' night out with her friends while I

The forthcoming weeks are choc-a-bloc with new releases. If you glance at our 'Release Dates' chart [which is updated every week without fail], you will notice that in several weeks, two or more films will be vying for public attention, which, frankly, cannot be helped either, given the flow of new films in the forthcoming days. Initially, Karan Johar's WE ARE FAMILY, Arbaaz Khan's first production DABANGG and Sohail Maklai's KNOCK OUT were confirmed for 10th September [Eid week]. But Sohail Maklai has decided to shift his film ahead by three weeks, which means that KNOCK OUT, starring Sanjay Dutt, Irrfan and Kangna Ranaut, will now arrive on 1st October. Confirms Sohail, "Had KNOCK OUT released in the Eid week, we wouldn't have got Sanju's dates to promote the film, since he's shooting out of town. By shifting the film ahead, we are not merely avoiding clashing with two major films, but will also have actors devoting ample time to

Real characters and real stories are in. And the next two weeks will indicate how the audience react to entertainers that borrow from real life. The pre-release reports of KHATTA MEETHA and ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAAI are super-hot, with the distributors acquiring the films for excellent prices. In fact, if the films succeed [one genuinely hopes, they do!], it will pave way for films that the common man can relate to. Talking of KHATTA MEETHA, the Akshay-Priyadarshan combo has mostly collaborated on non-stop laughathons, but their new outing together, KHATTA MEETHA, has an interesting premise and is laced with straight-out-of-life situations. "I am glad the promos are radiating the right signals," Akshay tells me. Similarly, ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAAI isn't the usual story that we've watched over and over again. Reportedly, both Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi have delivered powerful performances in this film, which is decorated with real-life incidents.

Being multi-talented isn't just a boon today; in fact it has become an essential to survival, and who better to prove this than the multi facetted actress, VJ, singer, and producer Sophie Choudry. Sophie is back this season to display yet another one of her sizzling charms, but this time, live on the theatre stage with her play 1-888-DIAL-INDIA. The play which also stars theatre veterans Kunaal Roy Kapur, Ashwin Mushran, Prerna Chawla, Faezeh Jalali, Siddharth Kumar, Ratnabali Bhattacharjee. It is bound to get the audiences ecstatic with countless bouts of rib tickling humour. Sophie will be seen in 5 different avatars - right from essaying a suicidal 13yr old American girl, a nun, to a sexy corporate siren. Back by popular demand, the play is going to be performed in a fresh space and has been revived to make it even funnier than before. "Knowing that I cannot afford a re-take and I have just one shot at keeping my audience at the edge of their seats is a gr

She is beauty personified. With her light eyes and beautiful smile, she looks like a goddess. She is none other than Celina Jaitly. With a long list of brands being endorsed by her, Celina adds yet another name to the list with her latest tie up with the jewellery brand Diya. Celina Jaitly has been signed to endorse a new brand Diya Jewelry, which is a new segment of the well established jewellery brand by the Gitanjali Group. The reason the brand decided on Celina was because they have a philosophy "Born of Dreams" and that's what exactly Celina's life is all about. Celina's life has a story like what dreams are made off, a small town girl wins Miss India Crown and then enters into Bollywood. Every girl cherishes such dream and wishes it to come true. Besides Celina was perfect for this campaign wherein they have a sweet girl wandering in her own world of fantasies and fairytales. Speaking about Celina says, "Diya is the next biggest thing i

After receiving positive feedback for her feisty performance in last week's release Lamhaa , Bipasha Basu flew to her hometown Kolkata. Besides spending time with her family, the gorgeous babe also had some endorsement commitments to honour. Bips launched Mahua Bangla, a new channel in Kolkata and the campaign picture has her dressed in typical traditional Bengali attire. Says the Bong babe on Twitter, "In Kolkata to launch mahua bangla, a new channel! That's one of d campaign pix!" Must say this is one actress who looks as gorgeous in traditional Indian wear as she does in her hot Western clothes.

Sonam Kapoor is in her mid twenties. But when you meet her, you wonder, and that maybe the IMDb has got her age incorrect. Sonam looks like she is just about to turn eighteen in her new film Aisha . She is getting younger with each film, and that's so true when you see her from Saawariya to Delhi 6 to I Hate LUV Storys . This paradoxical mix of adult and youth goes someway to explaining why Kapoor is the talk of the town. Sonam has made a remarkable career out of such intriguingly offbeat decisions. In fact, it's easy to think of her as the 'Nutan' of films - beautiful and defined by her quirkiness. But the real similarity between the two is their talent. She is a wonderful combination of an intellect far beyond her years, and yet there are qualities of hers that are still a young girl, and those qualities charm the pants off you. She's a perfect combo, and her ability has shone in every role she's played. No mean feat when you think about her choic

Twitter has become the latest celebrity micro blog space with the likes of SRK and other bigwigs chipping in every now and then. The latest being Dia Mirza, the beauty with the hourglass figure, has tweeted her images from the latest issue of Marie Claire. In this issue, she says, "I find not having to wear any make up in front of the camera truly liberating". She also adds, "Some of the most beautiful women in the world are the ones who are not entirely aware of how beautiful they are." And as far as the secret of the real beauty is concerned, she does give away the secret that, "The power of meditation has been the most enchanting discovery of my life". She also gives out some 5-point tips for a no-fuss pretty plan. All in all, a must-must issue.

After an extensive schedule in Goa and Hyderabad, the team of Rohit Shetty's Golmaal 3 started shooting the final song (the title song) at Film City in Mumbai. This is the last shoot of the film after which the post-production begins. Almost the entire cast comprising of Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade, Kunal Khemu were present at this shoot. Arshad, who is quite active on Twitter, posted this pic with a rather interesting line, "here are the 7 samurais of G3...enjoy" Golmaal 3 is scheduled to release this Diwali.

Salman Khan is all set with his next action film titled Dabang . Much has been said and written about the film in the past few days, but leave it to Sallu bhai to surprise everyone. Salman posted two images of his look from the film, which show him in a well toned moustached demeanour, albeit the perfect cop with a cool pair of aviators to go with. The film, which is set within the backdrop of the state of Uttar Pradesh, is the story of a corrupt police officer played by Salman Khan and highlights the flaws and loopholes within the judicial system. The basic plot of the film deals with the unlawful practices in the states of UP and Bihar and the involvement of police in it. The first promo of Dabangg is going to be unveiled in theatres next week.

'Oh this film has been the toughest in my career so far as it belonged to the real world' 'Because I had to go totally de-glam in the film, I had to work extra hard to gain audience attention' 'Working in this set up was the biggest challenge ever as it made me come out of a comfort zone and do something that was far closer to real life' And so say most of the leading ladies when they act in a realistic film, deal with an issue based subject and go totally de-glam for a role. However, Bipasha Basu has a different take on the state of affairs and this is what makes her stand apart from the crowd. Making no big deal about doing films where she is required to wear minimal make up, she instead goes on to state that working in such films is far easier than the 'fantasy world' of hardcore commercial blockbusters. "Because of the kind of person that I am, I am constantly on the edge while working in commercial entertainers. When you d

There is no denying the fact that Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai has fast turned out to be one of the most awaited films of the season. Credit it to the Ajay Devgn factor as he seems to be walking in straight from the days of Company , the charm of Emraan Hashmi who seems to be on a role reversal of sorts after Gangster , the music by Pritam which has everything going right for it, the Bobby nostalgia that has been created by Prachi or the mystery called Kangna Ranaut which seems to follow her film after film. Kangna Ranaut - a mystery, something that led to names like Madhubala and Meena Kumari being thrown around as the reference points for the role of an actress that she plays in this Milan Luthria directed film. Still, there was no concrete information coming in from any quarters. Now that the film is just a few days away from release, a couple of shocking truths have been revealed. First and foremost, it has been declared that Kangna's character is indeed based

So here's how Dibakar Banerjee describes Ram Gopal Varma - 'A game changer'. Next up, Mani Ratnam - 'Epic', Abhay Deol - 'Revolution' and Anurag Kashyap - 'Indispensable'. So the question - How does one describe Dibakar Banerjee? The answer - 'A mix of all the above'. Need I say more? UK's Harrow Observer columnist and Bollywood Hungama 's London correspondent Devansh Patel brings you Part 2 of Dibakar's quest for cinema. Film Festivals Whenever I go to the film festivals around the world, I look out for the documentary type of films and small films which are alternate cinema. There were two films which caught my attention at the Munich Film Festival. One was an Italian film called Videocracy . It's about the power of television in trusting a political agenda down on the people of the nation as the political propaganda. The second one was a docu-drama called Defiant Brasilia . It's about a girl from a