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Tusshar Kapoor in pursuit of versatility (INTERVIEW)
By Arpana, 

New Delhi, April 3   After being labelled a comic actor, Tusshar Kapoor was looking for variety and a chance to prove his versatility. And now he is happy that his forthcoming films will present him in various new avatars.

"I don't want to be typecast. I don't want people to say that he was a good comedian or a good romantic hero. I want people to remember me as a good actor. I want them to say that I could do all kinds of roles," Tusshar told IANS.

To prove his talent he signed Apoorva Lakhia's crime thriller "Shootout at Lokhandwala", Ashwin Chaudhary's romantic comedy "Good Boy, Bad Boy" and Anant Mahadevan's thriller "Agar".

Right now he is eagerly looking forward to the release of Lovely Singh's "Kya Love Story Hai", opening May 25.

"I am really excited about it because it is directed by my friend. It's a triangular love story. I play a boy called Arjun who is laid back and doesn't like doing anything. His parents have left enough money for him. Then he falls in love and things change in his life."
   

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Tusshar, who was understandably bored with his current screen image, readily accepted the role of a hit man in "Shootout at Lokhandwala" and underwent special training for flawless delivery. The film is based on a true incident that took place in Mumbai 1991.

"I attended a small workshop to prepare for the role. My friend Prakash Bhardwaj arranged the workshop and conditioned me for the role. I met Prakash while working in 'Good Boy Bad Boy'."

Talking about "Agar", he said: "In 'Agar' I play a media person who loses his mental balance due to an incident. He gets cured after some time and tries to put his life back on track but his past keeps following him."

So far Tusshar, who debuted with "Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hain" in 2001, hasn't made a permanent pairing with anybody on screen and admits that there is a dearth of new faces in filmdom.

"People thought that Kareena Kapoor and I look good on screen. But we didn't do too many films together. Right now there isn't any particular actress with whom I have formed a good on screen pairing.

"Of course, there is a dearth of new faces. People are scared of experimenting with new faces. They prefer working with established faces only."

About venturing into direction, he said: "No, I don't have any plans of getting into direction. Acting is such a time consuming job that I can't think about anything else. I just want to concentrate on my acting. I do help my sister but that's it ... nothing beyond that."

Most actors say they don't give much importance to critics' views but Tusshar thinks otherwise.

"We all know where we have goofed up. We are aware of our shortcomings. I don't read all the reviews. I pick four or five of them and while reading I try to analyse how honestly critics have assessed my performance. Of course, I have learned from their criticisms. But sometimes I don't find them convincing.

"I also give importance to a film's performance. If I feel that it is doing well and producers are happy with the profit, I feel happy too."
 

'Khanna & Iyer' music fare unappealing (MUSIC REVIEW)
By Meghna Menon, 

Album: "Khanna & Iyer"; Music Director: Tabun Sutradhar; Singers; Kunal Ganjawala, Shreya Ghoshal, Jojo, Suzanne, Sudesh Bhonsle, Madushree, Sukhwinder Singh;
Rating: *

One would expect at least a few interesting numbers from an interesting title like this but all you get is disappointment in capital letters.

Music composer Tabun Sutradhar and lyricist Rajesh Johri don't seem to have put in much effort to this soundtrack comprising eight tracks.

Kunal Ganjawala and Shreya Ghoshal flag off the album with "Rootho na", a romantic track. It makes you wonder when was the last time you heard such a typically mushy and lovey-dovey song. It's an okay number.

"Raasta pyaar ka" plays next with Jojo and Suzanne crooning to lyrics written by Sunil Jha. Honestly, nothing much can be written about it as it is just another average track that you wouldn't want to listen to again.

Ganjawala teams up with Sudesh Bhonsle in "Boom boom boom". The song is nothing close to being a hit campus number. Jha has penned the lyrics for this soon-to-be-forgotten number too.

Sukhwinder Singh croons to another forgettable number "Meri jindari" along with Madhushree. Despite being fused with bhangra elements, the song fails in its effort. Rajesh Johri's lyrics are meaningless.

Usually, the music plays a major role in bringing audiences to see the movie in theatres. In this case the music disappoints totally.
 

Fan to build Mohammad Rafi memorial in Birmingham
 
London, April 3   Singer Mohammad Rafi will soon be immortalised in the city centre in Birmingham as an architect fan is building a shrine with the idea of making the late singer a saint.

Tasawar Bashir, 39, is a former film producer and is also the festival curator for the Mirage Film Festival 2007 in Birmingham. He is keen to build a modern day memorial to one of the stalwarts of Indian film industry.

Rafi was born at Kotla Sultan Singh, near Amritsar, on Dec 24, 1924, and died on July 31, 1980, leaving behind several haunting melodies in various Indian languages, including in Marathi and Telugu.

Reports from Birmingham say that the Indian high commission is supporting the project that is set to first appear at Birmingham's Festival of Extreme Building in the
summer.

Bashir, a student at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, told the Birmingham Evening Mail: "Millions of people across India and the world loved to listen to Rafi ... so when he died Bombay (Mumbai) hosted the biggest ever procession for a Bollywood personality.

"He was a cross between Frank Sinatra and Engelbert Humperdinck and I think he deserves to be a saint.

"There is no official way of making someone a saint in Hindu or Muslim religions but if I can get enough people to see the shrine then he could be immortalised."

The project is expected to cost over 20,000 pounds and will involve building the structure on Fazeley Street in the Birmingham city centre by June.
 

'Provoked' - an acid test for Aishwarya (PREVIEW)
 
New Delhi, April 3   Aishwarya Rai's much-awaited film "Provoked", based on the true story of a battered NRI wife Kiranjit Ahluwalia who kills her abusive husband, is finally releasing Friday.

The film, which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival last year and opened the International Indian Film Academy 2006 in Dubai, didn't get a good response from the people who were involved in Kiranjit's case.

The Southall Black Sisters, an organisation that helped Kiranjit, panned it saying it has "factual and legal inaccuracies". And Pragna Patel and Rahila Gupta, whose characters have been merged into one person and is played by Nandita Das in the film, alleged that it had taken a lot of artistic liberties.

Rahila, who co-wrote the book "Circle of Light" that chronicles Kiranjit's awful journey from a wife to a murderer and her fight to get justice, said it is a one-dimensional story.

Directed by Jagmohan Mundhra, the film revolves around Kiranjit (Aishwarya Rai) who moves to Britain after marrying Deepak Ahluwalia (Naveen Andrews). She is constantly
abused and raped by her husband who is an alcoholic. After bearing his atrocities for 10 years, one fine day she kills him.

Charged with murder, she is sentenced to life imprisonment. While in the jail, she meets a wealthy white woman named Veronica Scott (Miranda Richardson). They become friends and when Kiranjit tells her story, Veronica is so moved that she asks her step-brother, Edward Foster (Robbie Coltrane), a highly respected Queen's Counsel, to file
a fresh appeal in the court.

Her case grabs the attention of a group of South Asian social workers running an organisation called Southall Black Sisters. They also join the crusade and hold rallies to get public support and media attention to bring justice to Kiranjit.

Finally, Kiranjit is freed in a landmark case called Regina vs. Ahluwalia, that redefined the word 'provocation' in the case of a battered woman. She is reunited with her two children and also given an award for her crusade against domestic violence.

Except "Dhoom 2", for which the credit went to her co-stars and breathtaking action sequences, Aishwarya hasn't delivered a single hit in the last one year.

If she manages to impresses her fans with her portrayal of a battered wife in "Provoked", it will certainly put her in a different league. In short, Aishwarya's career hinges on the film's success at the Indian box office.
 

Percept believes in making films for the right reason
By Arpana, 

New Delhi, April 3   From reality based "Traffic Signal" to comical "Malaamal Weekly", from social film "Dor" to issue based "Phir Milenge" and "Corporate", Percept Picture Company (PPC) is certainly living up to its motto of producing innovative and quality films.

"Our philosophy at PPC is that if you've got a big idea make a movie. If you don't have a big idea then don't make movies. We strongly feel that one shouldn't make movies for wrong reasons - we shouldn't make a movie because we know the stars well or to be in the entertainment business," said Shailendra Singh, joint managing director of PPC.

After "Traffic Signal", the production house is gearing up to bombard the audience with variety cinema.

"We made a lot of movies last year. This year almost nine negatives are ready. We have 21 films on floor that encompasses directors like David Dhawan, Priyadarshan, Nagesh Kukunoor.... It's a long list of intelligent directors. The idea is to cater to all genres of audiences.

"We don't make movies for everybody. For instance 'Traffic Signal' was for a very niche intelligent audience. It must have appealed to someone looking for out of the box entertainment. Our intention is to create a niche through our products in the entertainment market, which is quite huge," added Singh.

Singh says that audiences' perception is changing.

"The concept of typical buffet entertainment - everything for everybody - is changing now. Audiences want to be challenged with the entertainment and such products are finding larger audiences."

And the script surely gets priority.

"Since the star phenomenon is changing, audiences want to watch a good story well told. We don't follow the star line because if you have noticed ... recently we had four big releases and all bombed. I don't want to name them but they had the biggest stars India could produce. So if you make a movie and it has a good story people are going to watch it. Stars, music are frills and they don't carry a movie too far."

Singh takes pride in offering a platform to enthusiastic newcomers.

"I think PPC is the only brand that has been supporting newcomers in all fields of filmmaking. We are making a movie with Shoojit Sircar, who made 'Yahan', for the second time. We are also making a movie with Robby Grewal who did 'Samay'. His second film is called 'MP3 - Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar' and it targets youth.

" 'MP3' is very simple and entertaining. It is about the first kiss, first love and I think everybody is going to relate to it because all of us at some point of time have experienced a first kiss or a first love. It's a simple universal subject."

Bringing freshness on screen is important, Singh stressed.

"If you survey the international market, you have practically four films a month targeted to this age group (youth). We don't make cinema for this age group at all. That's why, instead of Shah Rukh Khan carrying a backpack in a university we have actually allowed an actor to play his age in 'MP3'. His name is Ruslan Khan and he was actually 17-years-old when he did it."

According to Singh, survey plays an important role in the making of a film at PPC.

"We are not putting pressures on ourselves ... we are focusing on our consumers. We do full on survey. Every year you will have films for children. We plan to build the PPC brand so that after two years people would say it's a PPC film not a Bhandarkar film."

Apart from "MP3", the production house's forthcoming releases are "Ru-ba-ru", "Kabootar" and "Dhol".

"We have spotted a formula. We have built an in-house marketing team called P9. It is doing a great job. We have in-house distribution capability. Then we have a very smart balance of Kukunoor and Bhandarkar. We are able to experiment because we have A+ filmmakers. In case I have a flop with a newcomer, I can back it up with these A+ directors."
 

Arshad plays terrifying prank on director in London
By Subhash K. Jha, 

London, April 3   Arshad Warsi pulled a terrifying April Fool's prank on director Vivek Agnihotri during the shooting of "Goal" in London, hiring two actors to play cops and tell him that an actress in the unit had been booked for possession of drus.

Well-ensconced in his cosy apartment in London, Arshad narrates the incident amidst bouts of guffaws.

"I wanted our April Fool's in London to be a memorable experience. So I hired two actors to play cops and told them my simple but scary plan to shake up our director. All they had to do was go up to him during shooting and tell him that an Afghan actress, Nadia, in our unit has been booked and arrested for possession of drugs and narcotics," Arshad told IANS.

Arshad's prank just scared the daylights out of Agnihotri. John Abraham, Bipasha Basu and Boman Irani, who are playing important roles in the film, were Arshad's partners in crime.

"At the appointed time on Sunday, the two cops played their roles to perfection. They walked up to the unsuspecting Vivek and announced, 'Sir we've to take you in for questioning.'

"All of us in unit - John, Bipasha, Boman included - were playing along giving the best performances of our lives. Poor Vivek. He was shitting bricks. He looked around helplessly. We all shrugged and acted helpless. Vivek could've died there and then if we hadn't burst out laughing eventually when he was actually being led away."

On the same day, at the Zee awards function in Malaysia, Arshad was named bext comic actor for "Lage Raho Munna Bhai". Arshad chuckles, this time with less amusement.

"This is my first round of awards, and I'm not at any of them to receive the trophy. This is god's way of letting me know that he gives with one hand and also takes away with the other. Anyway, can't complain since I'm having the time of my life here."
 

Kolkata designer to dress up Abhishek for wedding day
By Sujoy Dhar, 

Kolkata, April 3   Abhishek Bachchan will exchange wedding wows with Aishwarya Rai wearing an outfit designed by Sharbari Datta, the well known revivalist menswear designer here.

It was Ash's mother Brinda Rai's wish that the Bachchan men wear clothes by Datta, India's "only woman designer" who dresses up "only men" in traditional attires.

"I've despatched about 30 pieces of classical Indian dresses for the marriage after Brinda Rai said that I should design the clothes for Abhishek and the menfolk of the Bachchan family. I have reasons to hope that Amitabh Bachchan would also wear my collection on the day," Datta told IANS in an exclusive interview.

"They are various cuts and styles in maroon, off-white, electric blue and rust which I have used keeping in mind the 6ft 3in height and medium complexion of Abhishek," said Datta who for decades has reigned supreme in the men's fashion world, weaving magic on otherwise bland pieces of kurtas and achkans.

"Brinda Rai had met me way back in 2003 when Aishwarya was shooting for Rituparno Ghosh's "Chokher Bali" in Kolkata and bought two shawls for Ash. Now she came back to me for the Ash-Abhishek's wedding. It is a nice feeling considering that I'm not into the ramp circuit and the occasion is one that every designer would have loved to be a part of," said Datta who brought a gust of sartorial freshness to the orthodox world of male fashion a decade before the word "metrosexual" was coined.

Sharbari is a designer who gate crashed to only dress up men in ethnic chic and herald the re-arrival of designer kurtas and coloured dhotis in a throwback to the rich old sartorial traditions of the country.

From Jagjit Singh, Vijay Mallya and Russi Modi to Leander Paes, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, M.F. Hussain, Baichung Bhutia and Sourav Ganguly - none could resist the elegantly intricate designs by Datta.

"I am not divulging every detail of the attires because there should be an element of surprise that all brides and bridegrooms love to unveil," said Datta.

"I have only avoided using black because that is not considered auspicious for Indian functions," Datta added.

"I can dress up Abhishek and not Ash because you know I only design for men. But from what I have heard, the bride would be wearing a benarasi sari. They have bought a large number of saris from Varanasi," said the designer.

Sharbari Datta is the daughter of celebrated Bengali poet Ajit Datta. She grew up to the rhythms of poetry on the one hand and dance and music on the other, imbibing the essence of culture deeply. She did her graduation from Presidency College and took her Master's Degree in Philosophy from Calcutta University. Yet, arts remained an enduring love.

"It was a bleak world of stripes and checks that I gate crashed into. A drab world, where the most daring sartorial adventure man could imagine was a silk tie that has, over the years, managed to shift from diagonal bands to paisleys and floral motifs. Or a dhoti with a border and a kurta with modest embroidery at the neck and shoulders," recalled Sharbari.

"The traditional cuts and styles that you have seen in period films found a social place in my works. I am a revivalist designer. When I started it was a new concept. They said it was effeminate but I changed all those notions," said the designer proudly.
 

Shah Rukh Khan joins Tussauds' India gallery
 
London, April 3   Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan became the latest Indian to be featured in the Madame Tussauds museum when his life-size wax statue was unveiled here Tuesday morning.
Shah Rukh is the third Indian actor to figure in the popular tourist attraction - the other two are Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. The actor was present with his family when his statue was unveiled.

The decision to have a wax model of King Khan was based on feedback received from thousands of visitors and tourists who visit the museum featuring prominent personalities every year.

A spokesman of the museum said that Shah Rukh's statue reflected the growing popularity of Indian films in Britain, which are now watched not only by British Asians but others too.

Guests will be allowed to stand next to Shah Rukh's duplicate and take pictures. The backdrop of the statue could be changed - to one from the star's latest hit "Don", the spokesman added.

Other Indians featuring in the museum include former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

 

Naveen Andrews upset over not knowing Hindi
 
Los Angeles, April 3   British Indian actor Naveen Andrews, who plays Aishwarya Rai's abusive husband in "Provoked", calls himself a fraud because he can't speak Hindi.

Andrews' parents migrated to Britain in 1965 and endured all kinds of hardship and racism before his birth.

Now, the "Lost" star is ashamed of himself and feels bad for his parents who might be disappointed in him because he can neither speak their mother tongue nor does he
have any interest in discovering his roots, reports www.hollywood.tv.

"As I get older I appreciate what my parents had to go through... They had to endure a lot of what I would've found unendurable," he said.

"Life was very hard for them and yet they had this kid (Andrews) growing up in the 1970s speaking differently, acting differently, moving differently. It must've been very distressing to them. I'm a complete fraud. I go to India and I can't even speak my own language. They laugh at me."
 

Sanjaya's MySpace blogger quits hunger strike
 
Los Angeles, April 3   Sanjaya Malakar, the Indian-American contestant on "American Idol", had an obsessed MySpace blogger "J" who has finally quit her hunger strike after 16 days.

The blogger, who had gone without food for so long as a protest against Sanjaya's continuing appearance on "American Idol", finally began eating again only because a doctor told her to do so, reports www.hollywood.tv.

She wrote in her blog that she will continue to fight to get Sanjaya booted off the show, but from now on she will do it the same way as everyone else by casting her vote for any contestant other than him.

She also asked those who have gone on hunger strike to stop and to stay tuned for a "voting strategy" for the coming weeks.
 

Anand Jon wins freedom
 
Los Angeles, April 3   Indian fashion designer Anand Jon, who was charged last month with multiple counts of rape, has been released from an immigration court.

Jon was freed April 2, although www.hollywood.tv reports that he was originally released March 26 from the Los Angeles County Jail.

He was being held in lieu of $1.3 million bail, but attorney Ronald Richards was able to win his freedom after claiming that a detention hold on his client by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was improper.

The fashion designer's attorney had retained the law offices of Jaehoh Suh to represent his client in connection with the immigration detainer.

"Mr. Suh successfully convinced the government to terminate all immigration proceedings and Mr. Jon was released from custody at approximately 8.30 p.m. today (Monday)," Richards said.

Jon will be appearing in person in Division One of Beverly Hills Superior Court Wednesday morning.



IANS