Articles

Film: "Jahan Jaaeyega Hamen Paaeyega"; Music Director: Aadesh Srivastav; Singers: Aadesh Srivastav, Udit Narayan, Sneha Pant, Sunidhi Chauhan; Ratings: * A terribly delayed film, "Jahan Jaaeyega Hamen Paaeyega" (JJHP) stars Govinda, Divya Dwivedi and Shivani Shivananda. As far as the music is concerned, JJHP is of the kind that would fade away without anyone realising the same. It has little chance of making it to any music charts.

Actress Priyanka Chopra says she had a life-altering experience when she visited Tenga Valley in Arunachal Pradesh to record a special programme for a news channel. After her trip to the valley, she realises people in the film industry are too insulated and their entire time is taken up with shooting and catching flights.

After playing yuppie lover in several romantic films he got tagged as the best entertainer in the country. But Shah Rukh Khan has surprised everyone with his latest "Chak De! India" where his performance as a no-nonsense hockey coach establishes him as one of the finest actors in the Hindi film industry.

Film: "Alibhai"; Cast: Mohanlal, Gopika, Navya Nair and Innocent; Director: Shaji Kailas; Music: Alex Paul; Producer: Antony Parambavoor. When a star does a film just to please his fans, he often ends up disappointing everyone else in the audience. This is what happens to Mohanlal's latest film "Alibhai", an Onam offering for his fans.

Indo-US co-production "Marigold" that released worldwide to mixed reviews may not be a wholly made-in-Hollywood Indian pot-boiler. Nonetheless, given its international cast, crew and financer it gives a taste of things to come as Hollywood studios race to bring out nearly half-a-dozen Bollywood flicks.

Director Rahul Rawail has no regrets about making the raunchy sex comedy "Buddha Mar Gaya" despite discouraging verdicts, even as he prepares to base his next movie on the 2002 Gujarat riots. "I'm not making any apologies about the raunchy mood of the film," Rahul told IANS.

Film: "Marigold"; Starring: Salman Khan, Ali Larter, Nandana Sen; Directed by: Willard Caroll; Rating: ** Two things puzzled me deeply at the end of this aesthetically-shot benign cross-cultural romance between a B-grade Hollywood actress and a Bollywood choreographer. Why does Salman insist on being called Prem or Sameer in most of his films? A homage to his two filmmaker buddies Sooraj Barjatya and Sanjay Bhansali?

Film: "Buddha Mar Gaya"; Starring: Anupam Kher, Om Puri, Paresh Rawal, Mahbanoo Mody-Kortwal, Rakhi Sawant; Directed by Rahul Rawail. Decades ago Kundan Shah killed us with laughter in his "Jane Bhi Do Yaaron", a comedy about a corpse that needed curious manoeuvring. To his credit, Anupam Kher plays an inert deathly-still corpse in Rawail's crude film as convincingly as Satish Shah did in Kundan Shah's film.

Former women's hockey coach Mir Ranjan Negi, who inspired Shah Rukh Khan's role in "Chak De! India", doesn't want to hog the limelight emanating from the movie's success. "I don't want to hog the limelight. This movie is not a documentary of Mir Ranjan Negi's life. It is in fact the story of a team that becomes a winning lot from a bunch of hopeless girls," Negi told IANS in an interview.

Film: "Heartbeats"; Cast: Indrajith, Simran, Manasa, Manikuttan, Govindan Kutty, Anoop Chandran and Jagathy Sreekumar; Director: Vinu Anand; Music: George Peter; Producer: Joly Joseph. Director Lal Jose's hugely successful campus caper "Classmates" has inspired a crop of imitations. "Heartbeats" is one of them.

Amitabh Bachchan is happy he is being honoured with the National Award for his performance in "Black", but "sad" because Rani Mukerji didn't get the best actress trophy for her role in the movie. "She played the main protagonist and all the other performances were guided by her in the film. Our recognition came because of her and her incredible performance, Amitabh told IANS in an interview.

India is celebrating 60 years of independence and the film fraternity too has joined the celebrations. While young actors like Priyanka Chopra and Bipasha Basu rejoice as independence allows them to lead their lives the way they want to, seniors like Mahesh Bhatt and Victor Banerjee express their concerns over the chasm between the rich and the poor.