Hollywood Bollywood News & Gossips

The Cannes Film Festival has a big place in the heart of the gorgeous Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

The Bollywood actress' first time at Cannes was to promote the lavish love story Devdaas in 2002. The Bride and Prejudice star attended last year's French Riviera festival soon after her wedding to Abhishek Bachchan .


“Last time, I got married just a month before so it was very special to be back here,'' she told a news agency at Cannes on Wednesday. ``It was literally like a reception welcome.''

About a year into married life, the former Miss World says she recommends it.

``I think what's fantastic is when you have this incredible friendship with your man,'' she said.

``I think that's what really holds real, and that's the best part of us together. I mean of course there's the love and all of that, but I won't get into those clichés with all of you.''

For the moment, she'd rather keep quiet about her plans to start a family.

``I'm a normal girl just like anybody else ... it will happen when it has to happen,'' she said.

``It isn't something that you write in a diary, but when it has to be it will definitely be, and yeah, looking forward to it as and when, but no speculations right now, please.''

Ash, who will appear with Steve Martin in next year's The Pink Panther 2 walked down Cannes' red carpet on Wednesday in her role as a model for L'Oreal.

source:http://www.apunkachoice.com

‘Jannat’ is an engrossing, touching tale of an intuitively gifted bookie who loses his love in pursuit of his idea of heaven.

At the risk of sounding blasphemous, let me confess at the outset that I, being not a fond admirer of the game of cricket, had my apprehensions before watching the Vishesh Film’s latest presentation Jannat which was touted as a film on cricket match-fixing with ample incidents and characters from real life squeezed in the narrative to give the movie a semblance of realism.

Thankfully, I liked the film more than expected solely because it sticks to the rocky love story between the protagonist and his ladylove, while cricket and match-fixing forms just a backdrop against which this romantic tale unfolds.

Writer Vishesh Bhatt deserves a pat on his back for writing a simple story and providing it two distinct yet continually intersecting layers that eventually unite at the end with a dramatic climax. First-time director Kunal Deshmukh ought to be commended for his controlled and smooth handling of the subject and for giving the love story a tone of impending doom.

However, what mars ‘Jannat’ is the lack of sufficient development in the romantic track. After a while the story seems to go in circles. On top of it you don’t strongly relate to the emotional turmoil of the lead characters.

Arjun ( Emraan Hashmi ) comes from a middle-class family, but his dreams are big and he doesn’t mind taking the short route to riches regardless of morality, or the lack of it. He graduates from being a gambler to bookie, solely by the dint of his intuition to predict correctly. He falls in love at first sight with Zoya ( Sonal Chauhan ) and eventually goes on to win her heart, her trust, and her respect with his love and his riches. But when she comes know the source from where the riches come, she hands him over to the cops.

Arjun goes to jail and vows to reform himself – all for the sake of love. But then, one sight of jannat, one last temptation to fix a match, gets the better of his senses. And situations turn around so unexpectedly that he finds himself sinking just when he was about to come ashore.

Like all the Bhatt films, the story of ‘Jannat’ steers clear of the good-versus-bad formula. It is a subject in which both good and bad coexist inside the leading characters. There is no moral message, no sermonizing, but just the poignancy of a tragic love story.

Without doubt the man-of-the-movie trophy goes to Emraan Hashmi – the blue-eyed boy of the Bhatts – who gives a skillfully restrained performance, playing an ambitious man with shaky morals and firm equanimity in the face of success or failure.

Newcomer Sonal Chauhan catches your attention more because of her looks than acting. Samir Kochar is terrific in his role as an Indian cop in Cape Town, on the trail of bookies. Javed Sheikh brings an imposing demeanor to his character of a kingmaker don who takes Emraan under his wing.

The songs by Pritam may not be chartbusters, but they go along well with the mood of the film.

All in all, ‘Jannat’ is eminently watchable. Just don’t go expecting heaven from it.

source:http://www.apunkachoice.com

Mumbai (PTI): Reliance BIG Entertainment, the media and entertainment arm of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADA) group, has finalised a slate of 69 films in nine languages for production and distribution over the next two years.

The films include those in collaboration with India's leading production houses and Reliance's own in-house films. Amongst the prominent deals include -two film deal with Vidhu Vinod Chopra including a mainstream English language film "Broken Horses", a six-film deal with Excel Entertainment promoted by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani including Shah Rukh Khan starrer "Don II".

There is also a two-film deal with director Shyam Benegal, four film deal with Madhur Bhandarkar, three film deal with Vivek Agnihotri and two film deal with Sudhir Mishra, Amit Khanna, chairman of Reliance BIG Entertainment, said in a statement issued here today.

Khanna said Reliance ADA group has 106 operating cinema screens at present and it is expected to go up to 400 by the end of the calender year 2009.

Earlier this year, the group made its foray into the US exhibition market and has expanded its film exhibition presence across India, Malaysia and Mauritius.

Out of the total films, those in post production stage are "Rock On", "Sarkar Raj", "Love Story 2050", "Pathshala", Tamil film "Yaavaram Nallam", "Hulla", "Summer 2007", Punjabi film "Mera Pind", "Shabri".

Films in production stage are "Luck By Chance","Daddy Cool", "Singh is King", "Sultan-the Warrior", "Dulha Mil Gaya", "Sikander" and animation film "Hey Krishna".

source:http://www.hindu.com