SoggyCornflakes - Bollywood

Bachna Ae Haseeno is almost out and while Yash Raj are praying fervently that it's a hit, Ranbir Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Deepika Padukone and Manissha Lamba are doing the rounds to drum up publicity.

One story reports that Bips is stating her authority as the most senior of the actresses and has insisted that during a recent show, she should be the first one to enter on the arm of Ranbir rather than his real-life girlfriend Deepika. Deeps was supposedly not impressed by this demand and even less so when the organisers bowed to Bipasha's wishes.

I guess Bips really wants this movie and her jodi to work, since she's spoken out against the industry that has termed her as the old one in the movie.

"I may not be 20 anymore but that doesn't mean I look very old and exhausted with wrinkles on my face. I am requesting people to drop assumptions about women who reach 30. When 40 plus heroes are paired opposite much younger heroines then no one talks about it but when I am romantically paired with heroes who are just 2-3 years younger than me, a big deal is being made out of it? It is really unfortunate."

I'm not giving my opinion here. But honestly, I think BAH is going to flop...let's see if my prediction works out.

For all those who liked seeing Rishi Kapoor in those tight, sparkly white clothes, you might get a whiff of the past as Rishi joins son Ranbir Kapoor in his second movie Bachna Ae Haseeno in a updated version of the song of the same name.

There's a lot of maybes in this report however since director Siddharth Anand still hasn't asked Rishi to take part in the song. There was no guarantee that we'd even see that song unless it lived up to Siddharth's expectations...it did, now he just has to shoot the video, which obviously includes Ranbir, Deepika Padukone, Bipasha Basu and Manissha Lamba.

Sid says,

"Though I'm too scared to ask him as yet,"

"The only time Yashraj have done separate music videos for their films is for Dhoom. It's the project that determines the promotion. I think we had a great title song and it was waiting to be used as a music video."

While Siddharth is looking forward to the release of the movie, he doesn't want to give anyone any expectations, except that Ranbir that is a very good actor. He's just going to keep it a light romcom film...well, you can never really go wrong with those...

Should I even bother making an excuse for yesterday's absence? Ah whatever, I was just feeling lazy and that's the complete and utter truth.

Neil Nitin Mukesh's next movie is with Bipasha Basu and involves a camera that can see into the future. So it's kinda like that camera in the original The Omen movie, and Bollywood is taking that idea and using it in its own way. Ok, he didn't say that, I'm just talking crap, about the Omen rip-off I mean, the movie really does have a supernatural camera.

Neil says,

"We've had movies about people who could see in the future. But none where the the whole concept of the 'camera can't lie' has been used in such an unexpected way."

"To me the most interesting part of the film was the fact that though it's a film about supernatural powers and how they can destroy or build your life, there aren't that many overt F-X in the film. We've used the supernatural element in a very thrilling way."

Since Freeze is an action movie, Neil had to do a lot of stunts, which wasn't always conducted safely and like the naughty boy that jumped off the tree a few too many times, his father has punished him by grounding him...kinda.

"I never told my parents about it. If I had my father would've caught the first flight to Bangkok. He freaked out when he heard about it. Now I'm not allowed to do any action scenes, dangerous or otherwise,"

"Luckily, the new Yashraj film with Kabir Khan that I'm starting this week has no stunts."

Cute huh? But I have a bad feeling about this movie...not that the concept sound bad but I have a personal theory that movies that have a one word English name don't do that well in the box office, eg Style, Race, Welcome, Speed, Cash. What you think?

Even though Aishwarya Rai and Vevek Oberoi are ancient history, some people just don't forget...or maybe that's what Vivek tells himself to justify his mediocre career.

When Vivek and Ash hooked up, ex-boyfriend Salman Khan tended to ignore the couple, except that Vivek, with all his newcomer naivety, tried to take on Prince Khan. He called a press conference where he insisted that Sallu was harassing and threatening him because of his relationship with Ash. While Salman never replied to these allegations, supposedly, all his friends in the industry started to keep their distance from Vivek, which culminated in his lacking career.

In his last two movies (Mission Istanbul and Shootout at Lokhandwala) Vivek never had a girl to dance with or feel up...the point being that Bollywood's actresses are a bit skittish to commit to play opposite Vivek.

Sources report things like,

"But the problems were far from over for the makers. When they set out to sing up an A-list actress opposite Vivek, they met with no success. Vidya Balan flatly refused to do the film, on hearing she would be paired opposite Vivek. She gave the age old excuse of dates being the problem. The hunt is still on!"

"When K.S. Adhiyaman decided to remake his Tamil super-hit Thoondil in Hindi, he finalized Vivek for the main lead. However, he too is facing difficulty in getting a top actress to play Vivek's love interest. Actresses like Priyanka and Bipasha have declined the film, despite the script having a powerful role for the female lead. Adhiyaman is still searching for a lead actress opposite Vivek for his romantic film."

So everyone is that loyal to Salman? I kinda doubt it, they just don't want to act with Vivek.

In the industry, what is Bipasha Basu known for, besides dating John Abraham? It's her sex-kitten image, something that she's exploited very well. So what does a director do if he wants a sultry actress and can't get hold of Bips? He gets Diya Mirza? Huh? Sanjay Gupta had promised that Bipasha would be the sultry siren in his next film Acid Factory but after failing to keep her, the Cash starlet has stepped into the role and is looking forward to it.

“In all my previous films I have portrayed common and very normal girls. I am quite happy and excited about my present offer of a sexy and hot character with which I can play a completely different role from my previous ones.”

Yeah, this is definitely not the Diya we know, as she gets a whole new avatar as a butt-kicking girl. Is it just me, or is India starting to like the new dominating woman? (provided that she swoons into the arms of her true love at the end of the movie, all fight gone) Diya explains her character called "Deadly Max". I swear, filmmakers are so stupid sometimes. You don't call people 'deadly' or 'scary' or 'terrifying' or whatever in their names, you let the character give off that kind of aura that people automatically fear them. I mean, there's a reason why Spiderman isn't called 'Webshooting Spiderman crimefighter' and Superman isn't called 'flies faster than a speeding bullet Superman'. You leave these things to the character.

“She is such a character who doesn’t regret any of her wrongdoings and never wish to explain them to anyone else. I have done all my stunt scenes in the film myself only. During the shoot I got the chance of playing with guns for the first time in my life and I really enjoyed it”

A girl who likes playing with guns. Not the best thing when she's PMSing...should we be scared?

Well, he might be, I just don't have the full story. Neil Nitin Mukesh recently had a close encounter. No, not one of those encounters when aliens come and suck up your body to do experiments, but the close, he-could-have-died kind of encounter. The Johnny Gaddaar star was shooting for his new movie Freeze which also includes Bipasha Basu. One scene involves a car racing towards a rickshaw in which sat Neil, and it's supposed to stop inches from the rickshaw. The scene could have gone terribly wrong when the driver of the car had some problems with the brakes and ploughed into Neil's rickshaw. Luckily, Neil and the rickshaw driver guy had the brains and reflexes to jump out of the rickshaw before being turned into filmi kid mush.

Having a relationship is hard. It's harder still if you're an actor and shooting in different sides of the world. In that case you'll have to surprise each other by surprise presents and impromptu across the world trips. I feel like I'm writing a column on how to keep a relationship alive but this article is about John Abraham and Bipasha Basu. The two have been in a relationship so long that we can't even remember the time when they weren't together. Since they aren't married, they're still making an effort to be romantic and that's why Bips has flown to Miami to be with John who's shooting for Karan Johar's Dostana.

"It's just for three days. My work got over on Monday in Switzerland, so I decided to rush to Miami for three days to be with John before I go on to my next shoot,"

Bips has been in Europe shooting for Bachna Ae Haseeno with Ranbir Kapoor and it won't be long before she's off to Bangkok to start shooting with Neil Nitin Mukesh for new movie Freeze. I'd make a stupid pun about Freeze and Switzerland and Miami, but I'd rather conserve my dignity as a blogger...until tomorrow, when I return with more bad humour.

Guess what? Until now, the World Tour is still the 'Bachchan' tour as actors have been signing up...and pulling out ac quickly as possible. Last time we heard, Akshay Kumar had some difficulty with dates...he's out, maybe...unless they pay him more. Saif Ali Khan and Shahid Kapoor would rather not see each other's faces on the same stage and they're out too. Lara Dutta wasn't interested in competing with Ash and skipped out. Bipasha Basu apparently has a hefty price-tag and you've guessed it, she's out too. I wonder if there's a record for how many times you can write "out" in a paragraph. While the concept of family togetherness is great, I don't think that's what the world tour is about...organisers are still looking for the actress that can play second fiddle to Aishwarya Rai and have decided on Preity Zinta. Hmmm, I guess when you're unemployed (Preity isn't doing any movies at the moment, is she?) even prancing on stage sounds like fun. And I'm out of here for today...more tomorrow!

Bipasha Basu is acting in her first Bengali film Sab Choritra Kalponik, I have no idea what that means though and she's really excited about the role, because her character will be something very different from her Race avatar. Her character is that of the submissive wife...you wouldn't think that she could pull that off but apparently, Bips looks very demure in a sari. A real sari I mean, not that what she's wearing above isn't a sari but I doubt her sari's the the movie will look like that. Am I babbling? About the role, Bips says,

“The secret lies in not taking any of your onscreen images seriously. I am an actress and ready to be moulded into any character." "I do work on each look and never agree to any look, if I’m not convinced about it. Indian or western, both looks can be sexy, and both can be de-glam. I can carry both with as much ease only because I have no pre-conceived image about myself and am open to experiment.”

While you're waiting for that movie, you can also wait for Bachna Ae Haseeno with Ranbir Kapoor.

Ah, one of those slow news days where I have to resort to cricket to eke out any Bollywood news. Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta, both big owners of their Indian Premier League teams are trying to garner support...Bollywood-style. Well, Shah Rukh is pulling Bipasha Basu and Rani Mukherji into his promo video and reports suggest that Preity was trying to get Sunny and Bobby Deol with dad Dharmendra. She denies this though (good choice, who'd want to support a team with the Deol's as spokespersons?) and insists that she'll let her cricketers speak for themselves.

"The playing field when the matches start in April will be filled with star-cricketers. That takes care of the glam-element. As for the music video we feel it should represent the earthy feel of Punjab and Chandigarh. We feel we can't capture the flamboyant and vigorous flavour of if we bring in film stars into the video."

Ouch SRK, she dissed you! And that's it for today...until tomorrow.