IBLOG SPACE

Its animated festival season! As we all set to get started with a brimming list of Bollywood movies in the year 2011, here is one thing which will give some bliss to the Indian animation lovers. Mumbai based animation house Illusion Interactive is all set to release its first animated feature Ashoka - The Hero on 7th of January 2011. To be distributed theatrically by PVR Pictures' Springboard Films, the film is made in 2D with few portions in CG. Speaking to ApnaDesi , Gaurav Jain, CEO of Illusion Interactive, shared, "Kids in India are exposed to a great deal of western animation. Ashoka - The Hero is our attempt to give them an indigenous superhero that is as action oriented and interesting as any of their western counterparts. Our intention is to give the audience a film that will not only keep them entertained but also give them a positive message" The film is made at a budget of Rs. 2.5 Cr and is being released with 50 prints. Talking about the

Ranbir Kapoor, the heartthrob of the nation, has been voted 'Sexiest Asian Man' as per a survey conducted by the London weekly Eastern Eye. Bollywood hunk John Abraham narrowly missed out on the top spot by finishing second while Hrithik Roshan occupied the third spot. R&B star Jay Sean and Pakistani singer-actor Ali Zafar bagged the fourth and fifth spots. With Ranbir topping the Sexiest Asian Man poll, one can safely state that his fan following seems to be growing manifold with each passing day.

The trend of controversies surrounding Bollywood films continues. This time, its Ajay Devgn's animation film called Toonpur Ka Superrhero that is in the eye of a controversy. The famous music director Bappi Lahiri, has sent a legal notice to the producers of Toonpur Ka Superrhero , stating that one of the characters in the film (named 'Guppy') resembles him not just in name, but also the way he looks. The legal notice was sent by Bappi's lawyer S. Mandal, which states, amongst other things that "...the movie Toonpur Ka Superhero has a character named 'Guppy' on the lines of our client right down to the multiple gold chains. The name of the character based on our client is 'Guppy' which is also similar to his name as well as visually and physically similar to the personal/appearance of our client... it's evident that our client's persona has been portrayed in a derogatory manner and it is... a clear attempt on the pa

Producer Saif Ali Khan has asked his Agent Vinod director Sriram Raghavan to shoot three every expensive action sequences. Says the director, "I will have only 3 minutes of action where I'd have had a 7-minute action sequence. But I won't compromise on quality. I've spent considerable time writing the action sequences into the script. Now comes their execution." The next schedule of Agent Vinod is in March 2011. Explains Sriram, "There are three big action sequences still to be shot. They require major prep. I want to plan them out and shoot them on priority. There was no point in going into another schedule without the required budget. We now have that in place for March. These sequences are vfx heavy and it's better to do them first before I do my balance scenes. We've shot about an hour of footage already." Sriram still hopes to release the film towards the end of next year. Reveals Sriram, "Both Saif and

Malaika Arora Khan made the whole nation swoon to her beats with ' Munni Badnaam ' earlier this year, so much so that it even boosted the sales of Zandu Balm. The actress in fact was even roped in by the makers of Zandu Balm for a special promotional campaign. Malaika recently shot for the Zandu Balm commercial in 3 different languages namely Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. While the Hindi commercial features only Malaika, in the Tamil one, she would be seen alongside South superstar Suriya and in the Telugu one alongside NTR Junior. Apparently, all the three commercials have been shot atop a train a-la ' Chaiyyan Chaiyyan ' and have been choreographed by Prabhudeva.

By now its common knowledge that Irrfan Khan and Tabu would be seen together in internationally acclaimed filmmaker Ang Lee's ambitious project Life Of Pi . However, what is surprising or rather shocking is the fact that Tabu would be playing the role of Irrfan's mother in the film. Life of Pi is the story of self-discovery of Piscine Molitor 'Pi' Patel and is based on the Booker Prize winning novel of the same name. While 17 year old Delhi boy Suraj Sharma would be playing the role of the young Pi, Irrfan Khan would be seen playing the adult Pi. It may be recalled that Irrfan and Tabu were cast as husband-wife in Mira Nair's The Namesake , a film which won international appreciation. It would now be interesting to see how the audience takes to Tabu playing Irrfan's mother in Life Of Pi .

Besides being a supermodel and one of the leading actresses of B-town, Deepika Padukone is also an athlete. By now its common knowledge that Deepika was an avid badminton player until the modelling bug bit her. However, the gorgeous beauty plans to re-connect to her sporty side by associating with the Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ). For the uninitiated, OGQ is an apex support group founded by billiards champ Geet Sethi and badminton veteran Prakash Padukone (Deepika's father) to support Indian athletes and sportspersons. Deepika has been made the director of OGQ and she would be instrumental in collecting and mobilizing funds for athletes who have a good chance of bringing home a medal in the 2012 Olympic Games. We hope the actress manages to pull off this real life role too with élan just as she has done with her many on-screen roles till date.

Nowadays thanks to the promotional tours and events for their new film together, Akshay Kumar is spending a lot of time with Katrina Kaif. And we can safely say it's time well spent for Katrina. Akshay is constantly enhancing Katrina's knowledge of Hindi films, their titles and other trivia. By now it's common knowledge that Katrina is not quite clued into the nuances and titles of Hindi cinema. Her co-star Akshay Kumar, who prides himself for being just the opposite and is a veritable encyclopaedia of filmy titles and other trivia, has found an ingenious method of educating his co-star. He plays Dumb Charade with Katrina providing her signs and hints from commercial Hindi films as clues. And boy, is Katrina getting clued in! Lets hear it, Sheila ki zubaani (voice). "I've to admit I couldn't have hoped for a more fun teacher than Akshay. I come from a place where I can't gush about how I grew up on a staple diet of Sholay and

After hosting shows such as ' Kaun Banega Crorepati-3 ' and ' Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Ho? ', Baadshah of Bollywood- Shah Rukh Khan would once again be seen hosting a show on the small screen. The show in question is the Indian version of popular reality show 'Wipeout' and is titled ' Zor Ka Jhatka Total Wipeout ' where contestants are given a series of water based adventure tasks to perform. Some of the contestants confirmed to take part in the show include names such as Raja Chaudhary, Dimpy Mahajan, Claudia Ciesta and Akashdeep. The show is likely to be shot in Argentina and would be aired on NDTV Imagine. A press conference announcing the launch of the show is happening in Mumbai today where SRK would be present.

Shah Rukh Khan is a self-confessed fan of Akon's music. Now that they have jammed together for a song in Ra.One the two have become so close that Akon has promised to give Shah Rukh some tips on "cool rapping" in exchange for Hindi lessons from Shah Rukh. R& B singer Akon has sung in Hindi for a track in Shah Rukh Khan's Ra.One . Initially it was meant to be only a smattering of words in Hindi. Now there are passages of Hindi by Akon. The absence of an accent in his singing of the Hindi words in the track took Shah Rukh Khan so much by surprise that he decided to add some more Hindi words and lines into Akon's song in Ra.One . Confirming this, composer Shekhar Ravjiani speaking on behalf of the duo Vishal-Shekhar who have composed the Akon track, says, "Akon's Hindi took all of us by surprise. It was almost like he had been speaking the language all his life. No one could believe Akon was seeing those Hindi lines for the

Banner Illusion Interactive Springboard Films Status Completed Color C Release Date December 24, 2010 Language Hindi Genre Animation Producer Gyanendra Jain Executive Producer / Co-Producer Rahul Merchant Palak Jain Gautam Jain Director Gaurav Jain Singers Shibani Kashyap Lyricist Rekha Nigam Music Director Justin Uday Story / Writer Gaurav Jain

EXPECTATIONS With absolutely nothing known about Impatient Vivek , one doesn't have any expectations whatsoever from the music as well. Add to that an unconventional title like this and one is not even clear about the genre of the film, hence making one further apprehensive about what composers Raja Ali, Neeraj Shrivastava, Shahdaab Bhartya and Anamik Chauhan have to offer. MUSIC The manner in which ' Ek Pari Pagal Si ' begins, it reminds one of the many a romantic tracks that have been composed by Pritam in the last 3-4 years, what with an English passage marking a kick start. Neeraj Shrivastava is the composer as well as lyricist here (along with Rahul Seth) and comes up with a passable tune that doesn't have anything new to offer. What catches one's attention at this point is the fact that the singer here is Vivek Sudershan who is also the lead in the film. In fact on being looked further, it is revealed that he has actually sung most of the

EXPECTATIONS In Bollywood, one can't remember when was the last time when a kiddie flick actually boasted of a good, chartbuster music. There is none that comes to mind. Due to that reason, one doesn't carry many expectations from Toonpur Ka Superhero either. Moreover, the music here is composed by Anu Malik who hasn't tasted much success off late in the times when a fresh bunch of composers have taken over the musical scene during last half a decade. One reluctantly plays on the album with hopes of one or two numbers that would be catchy enough to hold your attention to some extent at least. MUSIC The beats that kick start the title song 'Let's Go To Toonpur' are actually catchy enough to make you listen to the track carefully. Ok, so lyrics by Kumaar, despite trying to be funny, aren't really arresting enough but the sound of 'Tunak Tunak' is good enough for the kids to relate to. The opening line of 'Tussi Jaa Rahe Ho' is

EXPECTATIONS One does expect the soundtrack of Yamla Pagla Deewana to be loaded with Punjabi flavoured songs from beginning till the end. Reason is obvious - the film has the entire Deol family coming together and unlike Apne , their last outing together, this one is far more 'desi' in appeal. However, one is a tad taken aback to see that instead of one single composer being entrusted with the responsibility to create an out and out masala soundtrack, there are RDB, Nouman Javaid, Anu Malik, Sandesh Shandilya and Rahul B. Seth getting a song or two apiece. Really, at this point one is not really sure about what would actually be in the offing. MUSIC  Thankfully, the album takes a positive start, what with Dharmendra's smash hit chartbuster ' Yamla Pagla Deewana ' making a comeback decades after it first made a country-wide impression. A rearranged version of the Laxmikant-Pyarelal song, ' Yamla Pagla Deewana ' retains its overall flavou

EXPECTATIONS Last quarter of 2010 is seeing a strange phenomenon. Week after week, there are at least three to four films releasing out of which at least a couple belong to the kind that have either been brought out of cold storage or have come out of thin air without any buzz whatsoever.  Payback  is one such film about which absolutely nothing is known. Due to this low awareness, one doesn't have any clue around what to expect from this film with an unknown cast, crew and music department which is led by composers Dev Shikandar and Vijay Narayan. Since the film is an action drama, one would have expected a racy track to kick start the proceedings. However, to one's pleasant surprise, it is a soft love song that actually opens the album. ' Jane Kab ', though belonging to the late 90s/early 2000s, is not a bad hear at all and for those who like their music to bear that quintessential Bollywood lovey-dovey stamp, this Vijay Narayan is a decent outing after all. Irfaa

EXPECTATIONS 2010 is throwing one surprise after another, what with multiple films finding a release in theaters out of nowhere. Mirch is one such film which has been ready for a while and is now finding a theatrical release for itself. Of course not much is known about either the film or the music due to which expectations from this Monty Sharma soundtrack, despite lyrics by Javed Akhtar, are non-existent. In fact one doesn't have any clue around the genre that the soundtrack will follow and reluctantly plays on the album. MUSIC First to come is a semi-classical 'Kaare Kaare Badra' which sees a fusion mix with a bit of rock. Sung by Shankar Mahadevan (with backup vocals by Akbar Ali), 'Kaare Kaare Badra' is strictly for those who are hunting for that Indian classical feel in their songs. Not quite the kind of song that comes at the very start of the album and makes you keenly await what's next in the offing, 'Kaare Kaare Badra' isn't

There is a lot of difference between the deaf and the hard of hearing. A common misconception is that for the deaf and the hard of hearing, dating is difficult to digest, as the deaf community is uncomfortable with it. Being deaf is a disability that can be overcome through the use of sign language and the written word. There are many families who learn sign language so that they are able to communicate with the deaf person in their family. Dating for deaf people is relatively easy as the deaf are fully trained in the universal sign language and they are able to open channels of communication effectively. If you look around on the internet you will find a lot of sites where dating for the deaf is given due importance and you can find thousands of profiles that will suit your idea of a good companion. It would be nice if you have a list of what qualities you are looking for and what you would expect from a prospective date. This will help you narrow the choice of sites on the intern