Akshay kumar in contravarsies... Saturday, December 8, 2007

Akshay Kumar’s Sikh look in Vipul Shah’s forthcoming ‘Singh is Kinng’ has been facing objections from the time the first promotional still of the film was released. It is being said that his clean-shaven face with a trendy turban is a mere mockery of the Sikh culture.

Now, there is another photo from the film’s sets which is doing rounds on the net which is facing objections from the Punjabi community in Australia over the way Akshay is wearing a turban.

However, director Vipul Shah insists that the photo does not depict Akki’s real look in the film. It was taken without permission. Vipul Shah defends saying that Akshay is himself a Punjabi and is working in close coordination with stylist Shabina Khan for his look in the film. Apart from this, a local Sikh is always on the sets to guide Akshay about how to wear a turban.

Vipul Shah is shooting almost half of ‘Singh Is Kinng’ in Australia in his two month long schedule. After this the film will be shot in Punjab, Mumbai and Egypt.

Abhishek-Aish Photos on Ashray Child Home Friday, November 30, 2007

Bollywood News : Photos

Rani might replace Bipasha Basu in Dhoom III

Bollywood Gossips :
Well Apart from Ash and Uday everyone else is being replaced in Dhoom III! Aditya Chopra will replace Director Sanjay, Saif Ali Khan will replace Abhishek, Hrithik by the King Khan and the latest is that Rani Mukherjee will replace Bipasha Basu. Person in question who took this decision, Aditya Chopra of course! So there will be no more Shonali, the cop or Monali, the dreamer and to be truthful there will be no oomph in the movie then! Ash, though she looks fit, has to try hard to sizzle the screen whereas Bips could do it so easily. And Rani I don’t think will look sexier than Bips in a bikini! So altogether no scope for boys to check out Dhoom III but but but …Girls can of course wait for the Khans to do the magic.

Home at last: Actor Sanjay Dutt coming out of the Yerwada jail in Pune on Thursday.

MUMBAI: Bollywood actor

Sanjay Dutt, who was released from Pune’s Yerawada jail on bail, came home to a tumultuous welcome on Thursday.

Dutt, convicted and sentenced to six-year rigorous imprisonment under the Arms Act in the Mumbai serial blasts case, had been lodged in the jail since October 22.

His lawyer Satish Maneshinde told journalists that the actor flew in a private aircraft, and drove straight to his house at Bandra here.

A group of supporters distributed sweets and burst crackers before his arrival, accompanied by Yusuf Nulwala who was also released on bail. A huge media contingent had been waiting there since early morning.

Dutt’s friends and relatives, including brothers-in-law Kumar Gaurav and Owen Roncon, and Maharashtra Minister of State for Labour Baba Siddiqui were there to greet him.

Mr. Roncon, Priya Dutt’s husband, told the media earlier that the actor had not made any special request and he just wanted to eat home cooked food and relax.

Later, speaking briefly to the media, the actor thanked his senior advocates Fali Nariman, V.R. Manohar and Satish Maneshinde and all his supporters.

As the journalists continued to ask questions, he asked them to wait for a few days. “Let me be with my family and take some rest,” he said.

“Do you want to see Munnabhai part three or no,” he asked when the questions did not stop.

Bollywood producers heaved a sigh of relief as Dutt has to complete some films.

Gets Rs. 38.25 as wages for labour

PTI reports from Pune:

Dutt tried his hand at weaving bamboo chairs during his 37-day second stay in the Yerawada jail. A prison official recorded the hours of manual labour put in by Sanjay Dutt which earned him wages totalling Rs 38.25.

He belonged to the category of ‘unskilled worker.’ in the sprawling prison that houses around 3,000 convicts — ironical for an actor enjoying top billing in Bollywood, with an estimated Rs 200 crore film business riding on him.

A senior prison official told PTI that Dutt carried on with cane weaving separately in his barrack number three, as his high-profile convict status did not allow him to mix with other inmates doing their shifts.

The actor performed pooja regularly in the mornings.

SRK apologises to Manoj Kumar

Bollywood Stuffs :

MUMBAI: TimesOfIndia

Actor-producer Shah Rukh Khan apologised to Manoj Kumar a day after TOI reported that the veteran actor had felt offended by a few scenes in Om Shanti Om .

"After I read the story, I called up Manoj Kumar and apologised to him. He told me not worry and has invited us over for tea," said Shah Rukh at a press conference at his residence in Mumbai on Friday.

The press conference was also addressed by the film's director Farah Khan. "We will go to his house, along with Farah, on Saturday or Sunday," said Shah Rukh, adding that Manoj Kumar had in fact promised to "give me a homeopathic medicine to get rid of my smoking".

Shah Rukh accepted his mistake as a producer, saying, "It was a mistake to overlook the fact that it might hurt anyone. I truly apologise to everyone who think I have made fun of him. Honestly speaking, I didn't mean to show anyone in a negative manner or run down anyone."

Farah Khan, who too spoke to Manoj Kumar, offered to cut the scene. "But he said not to do it or even apologise as I was like his daughter. He said, ‘Daughters maafi nahi maangti '. I told him that he could've called me and scolded me."

When a scribe wondered if Manoj Kumar was overreacting, Shah Rukh was quick to defend the senior actor, saying, "He is a legendary actor. If something like th

Hurt Manoj Kumar wants to sue SRK

From timesofindia website:

MUMBAI: Dil mein mere hai dard ... is what '70s star Manoj Kumar is feeling after seeing Om Shanti Om . While the chorus from the hit number dard-e-disco in the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer is sizzling screens across the country, a scene from the film has made the thespian hot under the collar.

So hot, in fact, that he wants to sue the filmmaker and Shah Rukh for "a clear-cut defamation and deliberate attempt to humiliate" him.

"I am hurt. Shah Rukh Khan has injured my soul. It's a conspiracy to humiliate and ridicule me. This is not filmmaking...My devotion to filmdom for the last 50 years has been insulted," said the Purab Aur Paschim star who had turned patriotism into an art on celluloid. He was referring to the 70's scene in OSO where his young double is beaten by police outside a theatre when he lands up for a premiere.

"Are the Mumbai police so stupid that they can't recognise Manoj Kumar and lathicharge him in the '70s when he was a star? It doesn't stop there. Inside the theatre too, the scene continues in the same vein. At another place where Shah Rukh is shown giving a mock thank-you speech in a drunken state, he says he is Manoj Kumar...," Kumar told TOI on Thursday, less than a week after 'OSO' hit the screens.

"If it was for humour it was okay, but to do it like this showed bad taste," he added. "A junior artist told me he had played my double. About two months back when I met Farah Khan I told her that if she had asked me I would have gladly appeared in the film. But she said it was only a double to portray him in '70s scene for a film premiere.

She was very respectful. She also said I looked lean and fit. I told her I was exercising. I even spoke to her husband." Kumar, who had won two Filmfare Awards in quick succession in 1972 and 1974 for Be-imaan (best actor) and Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan (best director), said though he has never celebrated his silver, gold or diamond jubilee he was "not a man to keep quiet when someone is hitting below the belt".

He said, "I am a peace-loving man. I don't like goondaism otherwise by now the film's banners and posters would have been torn."