10.12.09 / Bollywood / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
For the first time in the history of Indian cinema, New York, including the completely forbidden Rockfeller Center’s Christmas tree, will be shot during Christmas time by director Siddharth Anand in Anjaana Anjaani.
Elaborate plans have been made and producer Sajid Nadiadwala has got all the necessary permission to shoot in forbidden areas of New York where cameras are not allowed during the festive season.
Informs Anand, “Shooting in downtown New York during Christmas time is completely prohibited. We won’t only be shooting in and around New York at Christmas time but we’ll also be shooting the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Centre which is the tallest Christmas tree in the world. The tree there is 70 feet tall. That’s equivalent two, three storey of a building.”
Any kind of film shooting around the Rockefeller Christmas tree is strictly forbidden. Apparently, producer Nadiadwala got his friend Sylvester Stallone (who worked in Nadidawala’s Kambhakkht Ishq) to pull some strings for the rare permission.
Says director Siddharth Anand, “I don’t know how Sajid did it. But he managed the near-impossible. Priyanka, Ranbir and I are very excited about it.”
Siddharth Anand is hoping for snow in New York. Without it, the whole carefully-planned concept of the lead pair Ranbir and Priyanka bringing in Christmas in New York would fall flat. Says Siddharth, “Yeah we’re praying for a white Christmas in New York.”
Ranbir who shot in artificial snow for Saawariya and also assisted Sanjay Leela Bhansali on Black which again had artificial snow is excited about the White Christmas in NY.
“My wife Mamta is styling Ranbir. He’ll be dressed the way New Yorkers from West Village are. Very trendily in jackets, scarves, coats and woollens. We’ll show Ranbir and Priyanka cruising the brightly lit-up streets of NY during Christmas. You’ll see them shopping on camera. And that would be real Christmas shopping.”
10.12.09 / News / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
Digital rights groups and bloggers have heaped criticism on Facebook’s changed privacy policy.
Critics said the changes were unwelcome and “nudged” people towards sharing updates with the wider web and made them findable via search engines.
The changes were introduced on 9 December via a pop-up that asked users to update privacy settings.
Facebook said the changes help members manage updates they wanted to share, not trick them into revealing too much.
“Facebook is nudging the settings toward the ‘disclose everything’ position,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the US Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic). “That’s not fair from the privacy perspective.”
Epic said it was analysing the changes to see if they amounted to trickery.
Control reduction
In a statement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said: “These new ‘privacy’ changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. ”
It added: “Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data.”
Facebook began testing the privacy changes during mid-2009 before introducing them site-wide. The changes let people decide who should see updates, whether all 350 million Facebook members should see them, and if they should be viewable across the web.
Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman, said users could avoid revealing some information to non-friends by leaving gender and location fields blank.
He said the changes to privacy made it easier to tune the audience for an update or status change so default settings of openness should have less impact.
“Any suggestion that we’re trying to trick them into something would work against any goal that we have,” said Mr Schnitt.
Facebook would encourage people to be more open with their updates because, he said, that was in line with “the way the world is moving”.
Assessing the changes, privacy campaigners criticised a decision to make Facebook users’ gender and location viewable by everyone.
Jason Kincaid, writing on the Tech Crunch news blog, said some of the changes were made to make Facebook more palatable to search sites such as Bing and Google.
Blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick was worried that the default setting for privacy was to make everything visible to everyone.
“This is not what Facebook users signed up for,” he wrote. “It’s not about privacy at all, it’s about increasing traffic and the visibility of activity on the site.”
He also criticised the fact that the pop-up message that greets members asking them to change their privacy settings was different depending on how engaged that person was with Facebook.
He said Facebook was “maddeningly unclear” about the effect of the changes.
Many users left comments on the official Facebook blog criticising the changes. Some said they had edited their profiles and reduced their use of the social site to hide information they do not want widely spread either by accident or design.
10.12.09 / Bollywood / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
Everyone thought 3 IDIOTS was the final release of 2009. Sure, the film is the final biggie to hit the screens on 25th December, but three more films – all medium-budget fares – are lined up for release in the subsequent week.
In view of the fact that the first week of new year is considered jinxed by industry people and producers refrain from releasing films in the first week, three independent producers have decided to release the film on Thursday, 31st December, which makes these three the final releases of 2009.
As things stand today, the three films, RAAT GAYI, BAAT GAYI?, BOLO RAAM and ACCIDENT ON HILL ROAD, have been confirmed for release on 31st December. The question is, will they stick to that date? And if they do, how will the audience react to them given the fact that its celebration time across the globe? Let’s wait and watch!
10.12.09 / Bollywood / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
Indian cinema’s finest premiere comes to an end. People all over the world are doing the monkey dance. Such is the hysteria. Facebook status of various friends read that all those who’ve watched Paa proclaim it to be one of the biggest hits of it’s time. It’s strange, but it’s true, a newly wed couple decided to watch Paa and postponed their honeymoon for a day. Is Paa becoming a revolution in itself? UK’s Harrow Observer columnist and Bollywood Hungama’s London correspondent Devansh Patel asked a few rapid fires to the Paa himself, Abhishek Bachchan, on the feedback he’s been receiving or has received so far. “The kind of reactions that I have been getting be it on facebook or twitter or via SMS or via email has been overwhelming. Overwhelming because I still haven’t managed to answer all of them, there have been so many of them! And without trying to sound very pompous I think 99% of it is all very very positive. The response has been fantastic, I don’t think I have ever received response to any of my films like the way we have received for Paa”, answers Bachchan junior. We recall the day when Big B was all tears after watching Abhishek perform in Guru and so we asked the multi-talented Abhishek, “Did that happen to you while you were watching Amitabh Bachchan as Auro?” Surprisingly, he replied, “Yes”, and after a long pause, said, “No too, because every time I got sucked into the film and tried to react to it emotionally, the producer in me would wake up and try and find ways that I could have done certain things better. So for me, it was like balancing – being an actor and a producer, and a lot of times the producer in me would not allow me to be the actor whole heartedly. So although I do think its Pa’s best performance till date, I still feel that as a producer I could have performed a lot better.”
For the two days after the film was released, all the social networking sites were flooded with comments, suggestions and some interesting and thought provoking reasons to go and watch Paa. One such interesting suggestion read – Don’t you feel that a film like Paa should be doing the rounds of the international film festivals and should be screened especially for the BAFTA members? To which Abhishek comments, “I think that’s being a bit presumptuous, I am more than happy that our Indian audience and the Indian diaspora is watching the film – I think film festivals and BAFTA and all are although very prestigious, are things that the international jury will decide. If that is the fate of the film, I am happy. What I am most excited about is that our audience is currently enjoying the film.” Getting Abhishek Bachchan over the phone these days is like making a call to the White House. AB is a busy man and an even busier producer. All the running around has boiled down to many one liners – Paa is a hit! Paa is a super success and Paa is inspirational. One last question to the busy man, “How content is the producer today?” we ask. The answer was filled with content. Abhishek replies, “I am very content, it’s been just a few days since the release and my film is already in overflow which means it has covered its costs, I am in profits. So as a producer, economically speaking, I am very happy!”
09.12.09 / Bollywood / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
First SRK did it for his role in Om Shanti Om, then Aamir did it for his act in Ghajini, later Shahid did it for Chance Pe Dance and now its none other than Emraan Hashmi who has gone ahead and developed a ripped, chiseled physique with six-pack abs for his role of a gangster in Milan Luthria’s Once Upon A Time In Mumbai.
Though Emraan has always been known as an intense actor, this is the first time that the actor has gone all out and physically prepared for the role. Speaking about his newly acquired ripped physique Emraan says, “My role in Once Upon A Time In Mumbai demanded it. It’s not just about six-pack abs; my character had to look physically tough. That was one of the key requirements of the script.” Emraan undertook special personal training from Praveen Tokas, a strength and conditioning expert from USA and Canada. After conducting a detailed postural analysis and fitness assessment, Emraan was given ‘Angular training method’ developed by Tokas, which is a successful strength and conditioning program used by athletic teams.
Speaking about Emraan’s dedication towards the role, director Milan Luthria says, “Emraan has always been the underdog and his character is that of a rebel, a dark horse…styled on the lines of James Dean. I wanted to break his ‘Serial-Kisser’ image and add shock value to the film. I chose Emraan and them styled him this way as it was extremely difficult to find a youngster who, in levels of intensity, could be equal and the same time opposite to that of Ajay Devgn’s character”
Once Upon A Time In Mumbai is based on the underworld scene in Mumbai during the 60′s and 70′s. Emraan plays Shoaib, a budding gangster who challenges the rule and authority of the underworld don played by Ajay Devgn. The film also stars Kangna Ranaut and Prachi Desai in lead roles. Shooting for the film will finish by January 2010 and the film is likely to hit theatres in May-June 2010.
