Bollywood News and Bollywood Gossip | Actors | Actresses

Bachna Ae Haseeno’s music album is at the top of the charts the album is selling like hot-cake these days. All the songs of the album are good and catchy. Good music is more effective than any conventional marketing strategy and this has worked very well in the favor of Bachna Ae Haseeno. Good songs, one after the other keep up the public interest vested in the movie till the it releases.

We have seen this happen time and again, that good music and great promos is all what it takes to draw people to the theaters in the first weeks. Rock On follows next, it is the first time we see that a director, dons a cap of a singer and an actor together. To give the movie an authentic and a raw rock feel, the actors decided to take up music and play a role in the band too. A few songs in the movie are good like Socha Tha which gives you a very Pakistani Rock feel and Pichle Saat Dinon stand out. The Album kind of disappoints you because you really expected a rocking album, but it turns out quite thanda.

God Tusi Great Ho, has only one impressive track, Tumko Dekha and all the others are forgettable. The songs of Chamku are also not impressive at all. Singh Is Kinng, despite all the hype offers us average music. The only outstanding track being the title track Singh is Kinng, and Teri Ore is a good number too. The other tracks only sound good in relevance to the film and its context.

TashanTashan is the perfect example of all style and no substance. The Title of the movie goes like this: Tashan-The ishtyle-the good luck-the pharmoola. The movie is plenty on so called ishtyle but lacks the good luck to rule the roost at the box office and the pharmoola also flops. Then what is the saving grace of the flick : It’s undoubtedly Akshay Kumar.

The ishtory of Tashan goes like this:

Lakhan Singh aka Bhaiyyaji loves to talk in English the way he loves running bullets through people’s flesh. Pooja (Kareena Kapoor) works for Bhaiyyaji and charms a cool call center executive Jimmy Cliff (Saif Ali Khan) to teach Bhaiyyaji toothi-poothi English. Its love at first sight for Jimmy and he falls head over heels in love with the skinny beauty Pooja.

Now Pooja lures Jimmy to steal Bhaiyyaji’s paise wala aluminum trunk. But slutty Pooja not only betrays Bhaiyyaji she also kicks off Jimmy’s ass leaving him to fend it himself in front of Bhaiyyaji. Bhaiyyaji summons Bachchan Pande (Akshay Kumar) who is junior Rajnikant and can do gravity defying stunts with utmost ease. Pande’s job is to find the sultry con girl and hand her over to Bhaiyyaji.

Meanwhile clever Pooja divides the loot and hides it in different parts of the country. After a series of boring songs we get to know ala Bollywood ishtyle that Pande and Pooja are childhood lovers and Pooja’s father was dumped to death by Bhaiyyaji. All this crap unfolds across India and is probably called TASHAN.

When I went inside the dingy theatre ( it has not released in multiplexes ) I expected stunning performance by Kareena post her Jab We Met success, Anil Kapoor post his Welcome and Race success, Saif Ali Khan post his Race success and Akshay Kumar post his Bhool Bhulaiyya, Hey Baby and Namastey London’s success. Except Akshay Kumar everybody else burned a big hole in my expectations.

Kareena Kapoor only raises eyebrows with her bikini scene whereas Akshay Kumar steals the thunder right under the noses of Saif, Kareena and Anil. The only reason I went through the three hour Tashan hell was Akshay Kumar- this guy surely rocks. With his ‘this is my rifle(the real gun), this is my gun(his crotch)- this is for shooting and this is for fun’ histrionics he is definitely an eye candy.

The most surprising thing about Tashan is that the director Vijay Krishna Acharya is the same man who had penned the blockbuster hits Dhoom and Dhoom2 earlier. He only scores on witty and humorous dialogues and I give him no points for turning such a lousy story into a movie. Anayanka Bose deserves a pat on the back for great cinematography.

Vishal-Shekhar’s music deserves a mention with songs like Dil Haara and Chaliya, all others are hard to remember.

In the end the movie will be remembered only for Akshay Kumar’s acting, Kareena’s bikini scene and all style sans substance.

Watch Tashan if you have nothing better to do.

My rating: **/5

This week’s Friday release Black and White gives us info about quite a few bombs, – how to tame a suicide bomber and how to sit through a movie, which will eventually bomb at the box office. Its time to relieve Subhash Ghai of the “Showman” tag and award him with a ” No Show ” tag. And its high time for him to step down from the director’s seat, after giving a hat trick of bombs- Yaadein, Kisna and now Black & White (which can instill suicidal tendencies amongst audiences for sitting through them) and just stick to being a producer.

There is nothing white about this movie as everything is black except for the performances by Anil Kapoor, Anurag Sinha and Shefali Shah. Couple of years back we saw Amir Khan-the terrorist disguised as a flirty guide, but being a perfectionist he made it look real. Now come back to B & W guys, we have our Anurag Sinha as Numair Qazi- Fidayeen from an Afghan terror camp, a hardcore terrorist with a heart of stone, comes to Delhi on a mission. A mission to blow up the Red Fort on August 15- Hah! As if it was possible for this guy to do it single handedly, and I guess there is something called security too, Mr. Ghai thinks we are dumb enough to take it??

But then our quiet and grim terrorist must have seen the famous movie Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Ghum, because he heads straight to Chandni Chowk, saare Delhi mein Chowk hi mila tha?? Our stone cold terrorist is given aasra by a wise poet (Habib Tanvir) in Chandni Chowk, our Afghani hunk does his homework well and passes himself as a victim of Gujarat riots justifying his hatred towards disbelievers. Neighbors to our poet are Rajan Mathur ( Anil Kapoor ), an Urdu professor at Delhi university and his red-hot-chili-pepper social activist wife ( Shefali Shah-she is superb). Now our Professor Rajan is a believer of secularism, and makes no stone unturned to bring peace amongst Hindus and Muslims of Chandni Chowk, so he is a part time peacemaker.

The story moves forward, as our suicide bomber bumps into our peacemaker couple, who welcome him into their own family, loving, caring and giving happiness to him (which he never got back home), as they would have given to their own son. Now this results in conflicts in Numair’s mind, and we are left to wonder which part of the mind he will eventually listen to. Great and sensitive story we can say, but it fails miserably to keep the audience gripped to their seats- Chalo yaar jaldi suicide bombing kario, I cant sit through this crap, is what the audience starts to think.

Naah! Numair is not the real suicide bomber of the movie it’s the screenplay. Mr Ghai ruins the climax of the movie, making it unreal and unconvincing, even a child with a lollipop in his mouth will laugh at it. The only way to understand the ending is to rip off the main plug of your brain or you can become Paris Hilton, only if you really want to.

Anurag Sinha, does a good job as a debutant, with few dialogues to mouth, he manages to express through his eyes and body. Anil Kapoor acts convincing and composed. Shefali Shah is as usual great. Aditi Sharma-huh does she deserve a mention, I wonder how did she won that superstar reality show. Habib Tanvir has a great screen presence. The background score of the movie is good,and the songs are bad. Surely Mr Ghai deserves a pat on his back, for venturing into this dangerous territory, the thought and possibility that terrorists can be reformed makes the viewer bound to think about it.

But the whole package is a real disappointment, with nothing exciting and gripping. The bad movie at the end of the day overshadows the brilliant performances by the cast. We can say Black and White is a suicide bomber at the Box Office.

Rating: ** 1/2 out of 5

Verdict: Can be watched once, but beware- watch at your own risk!

Tough the title calls for less ‘cheeni’, the music surely has lots of it. Prepare to get swayed off your feet with a composition that stays loyal to all the Illaiyaraaja music in this industry.

Illaiyaraaja proves himself to be the best choice for ‘Cheeni Kum’ music and kudos to Balakrishna for bringing back the ace music composer to the forefront. Not to mention the excellent vocals rendered by Shreya Ghoshal for the title track and also for the track ‘Baaten Hawa’. The album doesn’t have much in quantity but has a lot to offer you in quality. Just go get it!

1. In Dino
Singers: Soham Chakraborty
Album / Film: Life In A…Metro
Music: Pritam Chakraborty
Lyrics: Sayeed Quadri, Amitabh Varma, and Sandeep Shrivastava

2. Hey Shona
Singers: Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan
Album / Film: Ta Ra Rum Pum
Music: Vishal-Shekhar
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar

3. Mausam
Singer: Mithoon
Album/Film: The Train
Music: Mithoon
Lyrics: Sayeed Qadri

4. Alvida
Singer: K.K
Album/Film: Fool N Final
Music: Himesh Reshamiya
Lyrics: Sameer

5. Tere Layee
Singers: Kunal Ganjawala, Himani Kapoor
Album/Film: Fool N Final
Music: Himesh Reshammiya
Lyrics: Sameer

For all the music buffs out there who still can’t forget the muses of Colonial Cousins’ “Krishna nee…”. Here is the good news. They are back after seven years- Hariharan and Leslie Lewis are back together with their latest. So what are we to expect this time? “It will definitely have the Colonial Cousins sound, with bits of the past, present and future” answers Gazal and contemporary singer Hariharan. The duo shot to fame in the 90s with “Krishna…” and “Sa Ni Dha Pa Ma”. It was a blend of Indian Classical, folk and western instruments. Ask them why the gap of seven years after such a nationa wide hit was delivered; the answer was “We just thought it was not musically conducive to come out with a fusion album all this while.” Never mind the gap at least they are coming together!

It’s a brand new week and the cool duo of Sowmya and Sandeep bring you a round of all the happenings in Bollywood over the weekend. Here is what you can look forward to catch up in this capsule of our podcast

1. Karan Johar’s collaboration with NDTV to come up with an entertainment channel.
2. Ram Gopal Verma makes another change to his starting line up in his own version of Sholay.
3. Sanjay Dutt wont marry and so says Abhishek in Geneva.
4. Big B ko gussa kyun aata hai… and also a bit more on the Abhishek-Aishwarya romance.

All this and more on this Monday edition of our podcast…

Himesh Reshammiya’s starlit concert at Surat brought some uncomfortable moments for him. Apparently his loud mouth invited Asha Bhonsle’s wrath when he passed a statement that R.D. Burman….hamare Panchamda…sang with a nasal twang. To this Asha retorted: “If anyone says Burmansaab sang through his nose he should be slapped.”

And the effervescent Asha was calmed only after Himesh apologized for his statement. I think instead of retorting Ashatai should have acted upon her instinct…it would have been a relief for others who were offended by this statement.

Gulzaar sahab after his first surprise- ‘Beedi Jalaile…’ for the audience in ‘Omkara’ has decided to continue with the naughty stuff that he’s been writing. Next on the screen will be “Ek lo ek muft paoo…” in ‘Guru’.

46

Of course Abhishek is dancing for the offer penned by Gulzaar… but not in real life. The dance is only for the reel life in Guru when his wife gives birth to twins. Bappi da sings this funky song for the ‘bhang mein tull’ Abhishek. So the news is not just about Gulzaar continuing the trend of naughty lyrics but also Guru sporting a Bhang mein tull Abhishek…does it remind you of Big B in ‘Rang barse’? Well let’s wait and watch if the ‘Beedi’ magic repeats and if Abhiskek does the bhang one better than Big B. The ‘Buy one get one free’ offer is also not bad for the audience. Thanks to Mr Mani!

Bollywood could be the biggest film industry across the globe but at the same time it is also famed for its copycats. One name that comes first to our minds when we think of copy paste jobs is the one and only Vikram Bhatt. But our joining the list of such ‘acclaimed’ people is Dhoom’s music director Pritam.

Reports suggest that Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai, his much famed composition in the flick Woh Lamhe is rather cheekily similar to a an Indonesian composition from a movie called Alexandria. The soundtrack made by Pritam, whose fame reached its peak when Dhoom became a rage, needless to say fades infront of the ‘original’ Indonesian version. Check it out yourself…