IBLOG SPACE

Okay, so we have one more 'kiddie film' hoping to catch the audience attention this Friday, after the watchable TOONPUR KA SUPERRHERO last week and the avoidable RAMAA - THE SAVIOUR a few weeks ago. I must confess, when I first glanced at the poster of BHOOT AND FRIENDS, I felt it would be an extension of BHOOT UNKLE [2006]. BHOOT UNKLE as well as BHOOT AND FRIENDS are produced by the same name [Aneesh Arjun Dev], feature the same actor as ghost [Jackie Shroff] and feature 'Bhoot' in their titles. Furthermore, both feature kids in pivotal parts. Quite a few similarities… BHOOT AND FRIENDS, directed by Kittu Saluja [CHAIN KULII KI MAIN KULII; 2007], is extremely low on hype. In fact, the awareness is so minimal that you may not have heard of this one at all. And even if you've heard of it, chances are you may not be too willing to invest two hours of your precious life on this movie since kiddie films made in India, generally, haven't been successful in cutting

While on one hand the New Year 2011 has just begun and millions out there are still reeling under the New Year's spell, there are people like Vivek Oberoi, for whom work figures above all other things. Vivek Oberoi is at present in Chennai playing the exhibition tennis match, alongwith yet another star Suriya, at the Aircel Chennai Open. For the uninitiated lot, there is a lot riding on top seed Tomas Berdych going into the Aircel ATP Chennai Open that starts today, while the Indian hopes are firmly on unseeded Somdev Devvarman who is in the top half, where wild card and compatriot Rohan Bopanna plays third seed Stanislaus Wawrinka, also a wild card, in the first round. With Vivek Oberoi playing the exhibition match, one just hopes that India should come out victorious.

By now its common knowledge that Imran Khan will be breaking many a female fan's hearts by tying the knot with his sweetheart Avantika Malik on Jan 10. While the wedding would be a rather private affair, Imran plans to make-up for it by hosting a pre-wedding bash (mehndi cum reception) on January 8 where he has invited all his friends from the industry. The guest list for this pre-wedding party is quite a long one and apparently the buzz is that Imran has specially invited all his female co-stars and most of them have confirmed their presence too. Imran's first co-star Genelia, his Break Ke Baad co-star Deepika Padukone and Kareena Kapoor (with whom he is teaming up in Short Term Shaadi ) have all confirmed to attend the party. Deepika, who is currently on a backpacking tour in the UK will cut short her vacation to attend Imran's party in Mumbai. Bebo too will cut short her Swiss holiday with beau Saif to make it in time for her co-star's wed

We've hardly been hearing about Tulip Joshi at least as far as films are concerned, so it comes as a surprise that she managed to create a controversy out of the one film that she is doing currently. If what we hear is true then the producers of the film Dam 999 , Biz TV Network, a UAE based company, has filed a legal suit against the actress. The case so far, from the producer's side is that Tulip has been non responsive towards the film. They say that after paying her the initial half of her total fee, Tulip shot for just two days leaving the schedule mid-way citing health problems. Further, the producer's say that even repeated attempts to contact Tulip have failed and there has been no response from her side either. While on the other hand, it is heard that Tulip has refuted the claims stating that the film shoot ended abruptly and she has been waiting for a response from the producers.

Recession and terrorism be damned. This year Goa has recorded the highest number year-end revellers in the last ten years. A lot of Bollywood was there too. But the one Bollywood rebel who seems to have made the largest splash in the New Years Eve pool is Prateik. Prateik who took time off from the promotion of Dhobi Ghat , took off for a few days to Goa to attend the much talked-about Sunburn music festival. What followed was sheer pandemonium of the fun kind Says a prominent attendee of the Festival, "Pratik was in complete 'chill' mode. He was half-naked at the Sunburn event, wearing only a lungi with kajal in his eyes and black nailpolish! It was a sight. He had lost his shy demeanour completely at the festival and was seen mingling freely and hobnobbing with strangers." The real fun part, apparently, was when Prateik tried to get on one of the four stages where rock performers were pounding away non-stop beats for 72 hours. Prateik,

Not too long ago, the media was rife with tussle between the 'perfectionist' Aamir Khan and the stalwart of Bollywood Amitabh Bachchan, over the latter's film Black . When everything seemed lost, there was an olive branch extended and Bachchan and Aamir once again became close friends. Now Bachchan Sr. will be lending his voice to Aamir Khan Productions' forthcoming film Delhi Belly . One may recall, Amitabh Bachchan, had lent the voice earlier too for Aamir Khan's first home production Lagaan . Couple of days ago, Aamir and Kiran were seen visiting Amitabh Bachchan on sets of a film where he was shooting. After a long closed door meeting and catching up, they left almost after two hours. And yesterday morning Amitabh Bachchan dubbed in a suburban studio for Delhi Belly . Bachchan's voice-over will also be heard in the first trailer of Delhi Belly that will be attached with Dhobi Ghat on Jan 21. The said piece will be an introductory

The coming year 2011 promises to be a treat for all cricket lovers as the mother of all tournaments - The ICC Cricket World Cup- is scheduled to take place from Feb 19 to April 2nd. This time the World Cup is being hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The countdown to cricket's biggest tournament has already kicked off with just 50 days to go. When you talk about cricket, can Bollywood be far behind? Well, not really, and this time Bollywood would be making its presence felt through the musical trio of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. The trio have composed the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011's official theme song. The song is titled ' De Ghuma Ke ' which in itself is a passionate expression that creatively captures the fierce sense of competition and the desire to win. The song has been composed in 3 different versions namely Hindi, Bangla and Sinhalese that will feature in the build-up to and during the tournament in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Neeraj Pandey, who shot into the limelight with his critically acclaimed film A Wednesday , is now ready to shoot his next outing. His next directorial venture titled Special Chabbis , is a film based on a real life incident where twenty six men, posing as Income Tax officials, carried out a mock raid on a leading jewellery store in Mumbai and seized jewellery worth millions, never to return. ApnaDesi has learnt from a source close to the actor that, "Yes Ajay did hear the script for the film and has also agreed to do it, though at this point no more details are available of the film." Special Chabbis will have Ajay playing the main lead and will also have an ensemble cast. The film is scheduled to go on floors early next year.

The Kapoor legends so to say, Shammi Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor, brothers aged 79 and 72 respectively, are suffering from age related ailments. They both have been hospitalised for the past few days. While Shammiji is suffering from kidney ailments and is recuperating at Breach Candy hospital, Shashiji is admitted at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Andheri. Amitabh Bachchan who visited both at their respective hospitals tweeted and blogged about the visit, "went to visit Shashi Kapoor in hospital and pained to see him in such condition...prayers for him please." He also mentioned about the visit to Shammi Kapoor on his blog as he wrote, "I have been to visit Shammi Kapoor in hospital. He is unwell, in a different hospital. He was his most charming self as always and joked and laughed over his condition." ApnaDesi  wishes the two superstars of yesteryears a speedy recovery.

Nikhil Advani had a major dispute with the rest of his team over the content of the first trailer of Patiala House . The dispute caused a critical delay in getting the trailer ready to be attached to Tees Maar Khan ( TMK ), as per plan. Consequently, the trailer couldn't make it to all the theatres in Mumbai. When Nikhil Advani visited a suburban theatre to watch TMK on Friday, it wasn't only because he wanted to check out his own film's hero's latest offering. Nikhil wanted to see the first trailer of his own film Patiala House that was attached to TMK. To his shock the trailer of Patiala House was missing from the film since it couldn't be attached in time to all the prints of TMK. Laughs Nikhil joylessly, "All the prints of the trailers for the Dolby theatres couldn't be ready in time. So only about 70 percent of the Dolby theatres could show the trailer of Patiala House with Tees Maar Khan . Unfortunately, I landed up in one o

On 28th of December this year, Kiran and Aamir will celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary. Funnily, Kiran and Aamir have never been to a proper honeymoon till date. So Kiran was planning one in a big way for this year. Kiran was planning to go the scenic South of France, and book a chalet over there, where Kiran and Aamir would get to spend quality alone time together. Kiran even threw in a dash of the typical European back packing trip. She was really kicked about the honeymoon, as since the past 3 years Aamir has had releases ( TZP, Ghajini, 3 Idiots ) at this time of the year; therefore they have been unable to celebrate their anniversary in a special way. Kiran has planned the holiday to the last detail this year, and had even put in extensive research, behind the holiday. Both of them were very excited to finally have their long due honeymoon. Everything was in place and Kiran and Aamir were scheduled to leave on the night of 24th of December and re

The Smita Patil's family is going through a lot of mixed emotions. It has been a month of emotional upheaval of where they are proud to see Prateik making a debut on celluloid through Kiran Rao's Dhobi Ghat . While at the same time, they are missing their Smita Patil the most. To mark the beginning of the 25th death anniversary of Smita Patil, the Smita Patil Foundation, an organization that has been instrumental in keeping the memories of Smita Patil alive, wanted to organize a retrospect of her films in India in various metro cities just like they had a retrospect in New York by Lincoln Film Center. Arth, Bhoomika, Manthan, Bhavani Bavai, Mirch Masala, Umbatta, Bazaar, Mandi, Akaler Sandhene, Abhinatree were the shortlist films to be screened at the festival. It was for this that Patil family approached Kiran Rao and Aamir Khan to help with logistical support and sure enough that Kiran wanted to do anything to make this happen. However, unfortuna

They say that old incidents always comes back one way or the other, either to make you feel nostalgic or to haunt you. In case of Sanjay Dutt, it's the latter that holds true. The Bombay High Court has passed an order to seal Sanjay Dutt's Mumbai property after producer Shakeel Noorani dragged the actor to court over losses incurred due to him abandoning a film. The case so far: In the year 2002, Shakeel Noorani launched the film Jaan Ki Baazi that had Sanjay Dutt in the lead along with Priyanka Chopra. Noorani claims that halfway through the shooting of the film, Dutt cancelled the shooting and that despite repeated attempts to contact him, he didn't respond. That's the reason why Noorani took a step to move to Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association (IMPPA) seeking help, who in turn, had called Sanjay for hearing him but the arbitration committee adjourned the case twice on his request. The IMPPA, then, told Noorani to move to court

It's been a while since we saw Neil Nitin Mukesh on the silver screen and the same sentiment goes out for Soha Ali Khan. It now seems that we'll have to wait a little more as their upcoming film Tera Kya Hoga Johny is indefinitely delayed. Though the statements issued for the reason are "market conditions" the truth is definitely much more than just that. Major distributors have backed out at the last moment following a spat between the film's producers over pending payments. Though the film was to release on 31st December, now the film is postponed indefinitely. Karan Arora, a UK based businessman has filed a criminal and civil case against the film's producer Manu Kamaran, as the cheques issued by him bounced. Arora was supposed to receive Rs.1.25 crore a month before the release of the film. One would think, that the release date would be finalised once the payment issues are resolved but apparently distributors are not keen to

Last year when Akshay Kumar introduced his National Karate Tournament, it met with an overwhelming response, and this year too the entries have been pouring in from all over. The overload has been so unexpected that the organisers are apparently flooded with contestants. Thanks to such unprecedented response and taking into consideration the fact that last year's tournament winners went on to win a silver and three bronze medals at the Japan Karate tournament, Akshay has now decided on expanding. Akshay, who is well pleased with the response, has since decided to take the tournament to the next level by inviting participants from across the seven seas thus providing a bigger field of techniques. For this aspect, logistically the organizers are planning on getting international talent from the US and other European countries as well as from most South Asian countries to participate in the tournament. Whatever be the case, with Akshay's international

...and the Golden Globe goes to....and the Oscar goes to....wait! There is still time to announce the winners. Just a few weeks ago, A.R Rahman tweeted about his Golden Globe nominations for his film 127 Hours under the Best Original Score category. Then a few days later an article gets published about his soundtrack 'If I Rise ' with Dido from the film 127 Hours stating that the song is shortlisted in the Best Original Song category at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. So if you think that A.R Rahman is going to get an easy way out this time around too, you're mistaken. 'The Mozart of Madras' is facing his toughest competition till date at the Golden Globes this year and surely to face the same at this years Academy Awards too. The competitors are fierce, strong headed and acclaimed for their original score in films like Inception and The Social Network . They are Hans Zimmer and the duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Add A.R Rahman to the l

Banner PVR Pictures Status Announced / To Go On Floors Color C Release Date April 1, 2011 Language Hindi Genre Drama Producer Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Director Mrigdeep Singh Lamba Star Cast Om Puri Shreyas Talpade Deepak Dobriyal Lyricist Gulzar Music Director Ranjit Barot Sukhwinder Singh