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'We won't forget 26/11' says Bollywood

Have the wounds healed already? Have we forgotten the terror, the shock, the pain and the enormity of the loss borne by each and every Indian at some level? It is the first anniversary of the 26/11 tragedy, but the question remains if the attacks left us any wiser. The resilient spirit of Mumbai - one that is boasted ... More

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Masala

Akon rescues Aadesh at Aqeel's club

It isn't often that we see two entertainers stand up for one another in public. At DJ Aqeel's club Hype on Wednesday night, Akon attended to wave to the crowds. A rather ugly situation was averted when the personnel at the Club tried to stop composer Aadesh Shrivastav from accompanying Akon to the podium. Akon had to intervene and remind the Club's staff that Aadesh was like his brother. Says Aadesh, "Yes that was a rather embarrassing situation, I'd have lost my temper if it wasn't for Akon. Akon did persuade me to come on stage with him. He has treated me like a brother from the time I got to know him five years ago. When the idea of a Punjabi track came to me, I was hesitant to put it forward to Akon, considering his packed schedule in Mumbai. But he immediately agreed." The Punjabi recording with Akon on Thursday was a riot with the singer savouring the words to the fullest. Says Aadesh, "I wrote the lyrics myself. Akon sang the track about the kudi who took away his kaleja like true Punjabi munda. I have given him a rhythm section consisting of violins, the daff, a matka, dholak and table. Akon freaked out." The singer left Mumbai on Thursday night. Aadesh Shrivastav said, "The craze for Akon singing in any language is phenomenal. You've to judge how popular Akon is among youngsters in Mumbai by the crowds that gathered for him."

When Farah Khan bashed up Riteish Deshmukh on sets of JKSAH

By now its common knowledge that the Riteish Deshmukh- Jacqueline Fernandez starrer Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai (JKSAH) helmed by debutant director Milap Zaveri features some of the top names of the industry in interesting cameos. However, the one person who has probably the most interesting cameo in the film is none other than director Farah Khan. Farah plays herself (director Farah Khan) in the film and her scenes with Riteish are sure to bring the house down. Says Milap, "Farah Khan plays herself in the film. She is this top director who is directing a film with one of the biggest superstars 'Desh' played by Ruslaan Mumtaz. She is shown to be quite forgetful, short-tempered and keeps losing her cool on poor Riteish who plays her Assistant Director in the film. There is a scene in which Riteish gives her a cup of coffee and when she doesn't like it, she spits it all on his face. Basically she treats him like dirt and hardly ever bothers to acknowledge his presence. It's quite a funny scene and both Farah and Riteish have done a fabulous job."  Milap also has another interesting anecdote to share about Farah's character in JKSAH. "We shot the portions involving Farah almost a year ago and during that time we decided to incorporate a gag in which Farah's character says, 'In my next film I am not working with Shah Rukh Khan but am working with the new superstar Desh', played by Ruslaan Mumtaz. Call it coincidence or what, the same happened in real life too when Farah signed Akshay and not SRK for her directorial venture Tees Maar Khan. It was weirdly funny", signs off Milap with a smile.

Subhash K. Jha speaks on Right Yaaa Wrong

Don't breathe. Don't dare even blink. And please forget that visit to the loo. Damn, even the bag of popcorn will be forgotten on your clenched lap. Right Yaaa Wrong is the surprise shocker of the year. If you've forgotten that jump-out-of-the-seat feeling then it's time to nudge it awake again. Debutant director Neerraj Pathak deserves a welcoming salute. He puts together a thriller that's as much homage to Alfred Hitchcock and Brian da Palma as our own Abbas-Mustan and Right Yaaa Wrong still emerges original and strong. An intricate jigsaw that always stays a step ahead of the audience, Right Yaaa Wrong makes a penetrating comment on how the country's legal system can be subverted in a clever hand. More importantly the taut and briskly-paced script suggests that the yin and yang concepts of right and wrong are not only ambivalent but also interchangeable when the context is right. Sunny Deol, back in shape in every which way, plays a cop who in the first two reels loses the power to walk. But the narration simply sprints along through a series of unpredictable twists and turns that take the striking characters across a maze of intrigue and conspiracy. Truly, the screenplay is far superior to its execution. And that's entirely a comment on the above-average caliber of the writing. Writers Girish Dhamija, Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan and Neerraj Pathak pack in a walloping punch in both pre- and post-interval hours. The characters and their motivations address themselves to adventure-thriller-suspense would of James Hadley Chase and Sidney Sheldon. The men are brave and heroic, clever and fearless. Even when cuckolded Deol is dignified in the embrace of betrayal. Editor Ashfaq Makrani juxtaposes moments of tense suspense with glimpses of heightened poignancy. This is murder in mellow shades. The cop's wife played by Esha Koppikhar is unabashedly wanton. Outwardly she's the duty-bound cop's home-bound wife with a perfect home and cute son (Ali Haji). Scratch the surface and there emerges a woman who's sleeping with the cop's kid-brother. Ouch. Where's the couch??? Shades of Bipasha from Abbas-Mustan's Race? Yes? But don't let this hectic whodunit's antecedents bother you. The storytelling takes wings from the word go. And we are swept ahead. As the characters go from 'bed' to worse. However the people in Pathak's pacy plot are so hurriedly propelled to their nemesis that we never get close enough to any of them to understand their inner world. The depths are discarded for the dips and curves. The performances are even and well-informed. Sunny Deol in a role that requires him to sublimate his pain in a status of stoicism gets it just right. Irrfan creates ample space for himself in a role that's sketchy for starters but gathers substance as the yarn progresses. Konkona Sen Sharma as the stereotypical Sympathetic Shoulder gets rid of her set-expressions and comes up with a performance of restrained bravura in the courtroom. And Esha Koppikhar plays the thankless role of the unfaithful wife and a disgraceful mother with much relish. Here's a film that extends the borders of morality. It does so in the commercial language without resorting to crass situations and dialogues. For fans of Sunny Deol's fist-friendly image here's the actor telling us that strength is sometimes a matter of holding back rather than letting it all hang out.

Subhash K. Jha talks about Hide & Seek

So whodunit? Put a bunch of assorted dysfunctional men and women into a shopping mall, not to shop, but to get bumped off. And voila, the whodunit takes the characters to shop until they drop, one by one. There's a Santa Claus with a hatchet in hand running around the deathly-still, sparkling -clean, spotless and eerily blood-thirsty mall. By jove! The polished surfaces of the mall glisten with a glorious promise of gore. This, we've got to see. Luckily the unravelling of the mystery of the murderous mall is not a disappointment Hide & Seek packs in a punch. Srikant Saroj's camera stalks the corridors with a restless energy. The whole project seems to have been conceived and designed so that an emptied-out shopping mall could be used as a venue for some hardcore scares. Hide & Seek offers a terrain of mild terror, more in the thought (dark empty mall, no exit) than execution. Once the sextet of helter-skelter friends-turned-enemies is clamped shut in the lap of shivery luxury the plot thickens in rapid fire motions. The characters include a North-Indian- hating Marathi politician (ahem) played rather loudly by Arjan Bajwa and a nerd turned beefy film star played by Ayaz Khan, who create a stifling circle of tension, some of it palpable, others, pale. On the whole, the mayhem-in-the-mall holds together, generating a mix of the hazy crazy and sometimes just the lazy. On occasions the characters are driven into postures of terror more by exterior forces (scared people running in an empty mall is a great turn-on) rather than by a genuine sense of plotting urgency. The most heart-in-the-mouth moments feature debutante Amruta Patki caught alone in a movie theatre and later cowering in a ladies toilet as Santa With The Axe('axe' no questions he tells no lies) stalks her down the squeaky-cleanwashroom. So what's Hide & Seek really about? Is it about 6 'high' school friends (everyone is high on some unnamed drug or the other) who once got caught in a party plastered with jealousy intrigue rape and murder? Or is it just mayhem in a mall caught on camera that knows how to zig-zag through the serpentine corridors without knocking into hard surfaces? Either way the film offers interesting possibilities of high anxiety. Debutant director Shawn Arranha displays skill and control in a way the individually aggravated characters are kept in check when they come into contact with one another. The performances are enthusiastic, Purab Kohli being particularly interesting to watch as a mentally disturbed young man who thinks love is just a wish away. Some of the acting does get over-the-top although the director seems to avoid excess as much as he can in a film belonging to genre where gore is glory. Grant the film a few extra points for inventiveness. Also for a slasher movie the slash-and-maim quotient is minimal. And the end-game where we the audience are played with as much wicked relish as the characters, is the kind of twist amateur whodunits revel in. For an evening of chills this one is sufficiently equipped. But don't look for much more in the haunted shopping mall than meets the eye.

Sonu Sood fractures his nose while shooting for Dabangg in Wai

The shooting of Dabangg in Wai seems to be quite an accident-prone event for the cast and crew. Only last week, Salman Khan was rushed to a local hospital after he complained of smoke congestion when a fire erupted on the sets. Now Salman's co-star in Dabangg, Sonu Sood has landed himself with a fractured nose while shooting for the film earlier this week. Bollywood Hungama spoke to Sonu who, despite the injury, is continuing shooting for the film in Wai. "Yes...It's true that I got hurt two days ago while shooting. We were shooting a fight scene between Salman and me that is a part of the climax. During the practice, one of the fighters jumped and his knee happened to hit my nose real hard. The pain was quite severe and I was taken to the hospital for an X-ray and scan. The X-ray revealed a fracture in my nose. The doctor advised me bed rest for 3-4 days, but since we were shooting the climax scene between Salman and me I didn't want to delay the schedule. I landed on the sets the very next day after taking some painkillers and shot for some light scenes." One must say that Sonu has indeed shown true professionalism by continuing to shoot in spite of a fractured nose. He will return to Mumbai in a week's time, after finishing the current schedule of Dabangg in Wai. We wish him a speedy recovery.

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