I watched “My name is Khan” last night. Without spoilers, here are my impressions.
This is a Karan Johar movie and yet it seems to be Karan Johar all grown up. No group dances, Manish Malhotra costumes and very little glamor. I’ll say this : though the movie is too long, it still manages to be watchable and interesting through out. The movie’s protagonist is superbly played by Sharukh Khan . He plays a man with an autistic  disorder, on a mission to convince the President of USA that his name …

And are you a celebrity? Or for that matter even an average person somewhat considerate of unwarranted exposure of your body.
Conspiracy theorist – Alex Jones on his website prisonplanet.com has this to say:
Claims on behalf of authorities that naked body scanner images are immediately destroyed after passengers pass through new x-ray backscatter devices have been proven fraudulent after it was revealed that naked images of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London.
The report is related to a yahoo news article …

Raj Kumar Hirani is the bearer of a lost art, the art of story telling. The problem is sometimes, he overlaps his piece of art with another of his own, that is still fresh in your memory.
And I’ll try to keep the review clean of any spoilers.
3 idiots is a movie ‘loosely’ based on one of India’s ‘best-selling’ novels, “Five point Someone, what not to do at IIT“, by Chetan Bhagat. A book, that critics love to hate and take a jab at it’s ‘popularity’, while a particular section of …

You probably noticed it, I certainly did, so did the Huffington Post – over the past decade there has been a significant rise in the number of foreign artistes in Indian movies – Bollywood or not. [HuffPo]
While most foreign-born artistes, ranging from countries in Latin America to the United States to Russia and even closer to home like Sri Lanka, are largely restricted to bit roles of back-up dancers and extras, breakthrough stories of such foreign born are becoming more common place.
The most popular among them, is half Brit-half desi, …

Another Bollywood version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, this time courtesy the Ramsay brothers.
This one is so bad, it’s not half as funny as the Chiranjeevi version of Thriller.

Not unlike Hollywood of today, Jews were quite prominent in Bollywood in the early 20th century. [TabletMag]
The TableMag, a Jewish magazine, has an interesting take on actors of Jewish origin in Bollywood movies, in the early half of the 20th century, particularly two leading ladies, Ruby Myers (Sulochana) and Farhat Ezekiel (Nadira).
Of course, we all know that Raja Harishchandra by Dadasaheb Phalke, was the first Indian movie. A side story to this movie is the fact that the movie had an all male cast, even the female characters were …

*ing Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan, Katrina Kaif and John Abraham

New York is a good watch! Especially since it’s not a typical Hindi film that we are so used to. And as any other movie, there are certain aspects of it that I liked, and certain that I didn’t. I was VERY surprised to see the Rediff rating for that movie, and I can’t understand why in the world someone would trash the movie and its actors that bad, especially since the acting was reasonably good.
**spoilers ahead**
What I liked –
All …

He Man comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress – Bollywood ishtyle. Bollywood created a musical rendition of the cheesy cartoon show complete with junior artistes in florescent skeleton clothes and a Skeletor idol with flashing eyes. He Man is played by a random white dude, yelling “He Man, He Man, I’m He Man”.
The movie is a generic 80s action movie. In case you were wondering, the music is by, who else, Bappi Lahiri. Which brings us to the next important question: what would a Yash Raj-Karan Johar …

Contestant on the Taiwanese (best guess from the comments section) version of American Idol sings a Bollywood song complete with a getup that oddly looks like a bearskin lungi. The contestant went all out with dance movements thrown in. On Indian Idol, he would be criticized for issues with pitch and tune and such. But as a cross cultural effort, comes off as a reasonably good effort. The song is “Tujh mein rab dikhta hai”.

I’m not much into writing tributes for dead Bollywood personalities but this maker of über stylish movies way ahead of their time in terms of trends, certainly deserves a mention. With stylishly made potboilers like Dharmatma, Qurbani and Jaanbaaz, often imitated never duplicated comes to mind. FK was famous for his guy movies – stylish, fast paced, foot tapping music, phoren locales, dazzling music videos, stunning women and packed with action. The best part? He was unapologetic about any of it. His movie making style would spawn hundreds of copycats …

Yup – we sold out. After years of sneering at the Peoples,OK Magazines and TMZs of the world – we decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
So : Here’s to our latest desi Brangelina – call ‘em Fridev,Patinto whatever. In fact , send us your best suggestions and we will use the moniker that we like the best and give you credit.
Freida Pinto and Dev Patel are a confirmed item.
Patel’s mother Anita has confirmed to a British newspaper that the pair are very much a couple.
“First it was …

Israeli arms-maker Rafael takes the route of torture. How else can you describe this music video that is supposed to resemble a Bollywood number? [Wired] (Anantha via email)
Warning: the following video contains a weird combo of a dude that somehow reminds us of Kishan Kumar, Israeli women in Indian costumes, a leading lady who looks like she really wants to be somewhere else, really bad English lyrics (how do I know its English, read the subtitles) and an even worse tune that goes “Dinga dinga, dinga dinga, dinga dinga, …

Anil Kapoor, him of the million hair fame, who also played the host of the Indian version of “Who wants to be a Millionaire” on Oscar-nominated, Slumdog Millionaire, meets Regis Philbin the original host of the American version of “Who wants to be a Millionaire”. img: via Fox

Where does one start in the saga of Sanjay Dutt?  This spoiled brat son of highly respected parents Sunil Dutt and Nargis Dutt- both actors and Members of the Indian Parliament – has time and again proved that he seems to be a few cards short of a full deck. The gossip rags in the des have to thank him for providing unending fodder – from his days doing drugs, stints in rehab, numerous romances, broken marriages to Richa  and Rhea , his arrests for anti national activities , transcripts …

A Mumbai based professor has filed a P.I.L demanding that Aamir Khan’s latest movie Ghajini be recertified as “A” – adults only for Indian movies. [DNA]
Her reasoning? Too much violence.
Naitthani has said in her petition that she saw Ghajini on December 28. The overdose of violence and blood spill made her cringe. “It was more shocking to see that children, right from the age of three to 15 years, in the theatre, watching the film,” she has stated.
Now I’ve not had the opportunity to watch this movie yet, so I’ll …

I have been off the blogging scene for the past few weeks for various personal reasons but this was one opportunity that I would not have missed for anything in this world – a chance to listen and interact with one of my musical idols, A. R. Rahman. Thanks to SAJA, I had a chance not only to listen to him talk, but to actually ask him questions and then participate in a discussion later.
After mulling over different things in my head, I asked him about his experimenting with different …

To say India is a land of paradoxes would be a cliche, but considering the latest trends would be true.
Not much unlike America where homosexuality seems to be a point of contention for the religious right but accepted by Hollywood, in India Bollywood seems to be embracing homosexuality, albeit in their very own unique hackneyed Bollywood way. [TOI] (tip Runa via email)
Meanwhile, thanks to Victorian laws, same-sex sex is still considered criminal and punishable under the law. The latest salvo against decriminalizing homosexuality comes from (who else?) the religious right. …

For most level headed people, falling in love with a person that you have only spoken to over the phone is the stuff movie scripts are made of. Yet for others, it is what marriage is all about.
Priya Sethi is one of the latter. Even though she is engaged to marry a suitor chosen by her father who disapproves of her working in a call center, she is intrigued by the prospect of falling in love with advertising executive Granger Woodruff, a customer who calls in to report fraudulent charges …

Dial 1800-ROMANCE! Ever imagine picking up a phone and talking to a customer service person and ending up falling in love with them? What? That’s the stuff movie scripts of made up of? Oh well. You caught me. That is the plotline of “THE OTHER END OF THE LINE”, the latest comedy from Ashok Amritraj productions
Shot in the Über beautiful cities of San Franscisco and Mumbai, The Other End Of The Line stars Desperate Housewife alum Jessie Metclafe and Thalaivar Rajinikant’s one time on-screen squeeze, Shriya Saran in leading …

The creators of on-screen rendition of Chetan Bhagat’s “One night @ the call center” – a movie named “Hello” – were slapped with a censor cut, one that’s for the ages. In the words of the Gul Panag, the female lead actor: [DNA]
Gul says, “The scene has me and Sharman making out. Like any educated woman I ask Sharman whether he is carrying a condom before we get into the act. Though the lovemaking scene will be retained, the ‘condom’ dialogue has been chopped off. While we have ads running …