Desi Galaxy

Hrithik Roshan has won Filmfare award for best actor 2008 for the movie Jodha Akbar. However, Aamir Khan’s fans are disappointed by jury’s decission. There was debate going on between Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan’s fans about who will win the award this year. But jury’s decission to pick up Hrithik Roshan has surprised many. I think that Hrithik deserved the award for his role as Akbar the great in Jodha Akbar, but even I am surprised. I didn’t thought that the judges will ignore the popular opinion and would instead pick up the better actor.

Aamir Khan’s performance in Ghajini is been lauded by critics and masses alike. I personally don’t think that it was an out standing performance. It was good but not amazingly well done. In fact when I saw Ghajini I was kind of surprised that how stereo typical Aamir acted in the movie. The stories of revenge, obsessive lovers and violence are nothing new to viewers. We have seen such roles before and even though Aamir peformed extremely good in his role still it was a story told many times before. Some people are also blaming Aamir’s attitude towards awards specially Filmfare. He once even sued Filmfare for using pictures for award ceremony promotions.

Shahrukh Khan’s Rab ne Bana di Jodi was a light romantic movie. King Khan surely knows how to charm the audiences but it was not the kind of role that people will never forget. It was good but not one of his best performances. He has previously acted much better than that for example in Paheli, Swades, Don, etc.

On the other hand Hrithik was playing a real person from the pages of history, Akbar The Great. This historic love epic provided him a great room and a much bigger canvas to perform. He had to work on his Urdu, to carry on the costumes, to be as impressive as people could imagine that Akbar was. It was a story that was never told before. Critics and masses were comparing his performance with that of Prithvi Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar in Mughal-e-Azam. He comes with his own memorable performance. From walking to sitting, from dialogue delivery to war scenes, he had to perform extremely great in every scene. I think he did justice to his character.

What is your opinion, please feel free to disagree. But I would love to hear what you think about Best Male Actor award for the 54th filmfare awards and who you think actually deserved the award.

Aishwarya Rai is going to play Sita (The Indian Goddess) in Mani Ratnam’s upcoming movie Ravana. Guess who is going to play Ram? No its not, Abhishek Bachchan. According to people on locations for the film, Aishwarya looked heavenly beautiful in a gorgeous Sari. It is reported that Aishwarya’s Sita makeover is designed by Sabyasachi Mukherjee.

This is great year of Sabyasachi Mukherjee. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is not the only one in the Bollywood who has ditched designers and went on with Sabyasachi’s creations. A. R. Rahman also ditched Rohit Bal and wore a Sabyasachi Sherwani during his live performance at the Oscars. Rahman’s wife Saira, also wore a Sabyasachi creation for the big night.

Hrithik Roshan chartered a special flight to Goa for his wife Sussane and two sons, Hrehaan and Hridaan to attend sister in-law Farah Ali Khan and her husband DJ Aqeel’s wedding anniversary. Farah Ali Khan who was disappointed that may be Hrithik and Sussane won’t be able to attend her anniversary, was delighted to hear the news of couple’s arrival. She said:

Hrithik is a Capricorn like me, and we are the kind of people who always keep our promises. So last minute when he said he couldn’t make it because of a shoot, I was very disappointed and let him know through an SMS. The next thing I know, at around 9.30pm after the ceremony, he lands up at the celebration. I was really happy, as then my entire family was there as were my pals

Indian music maestro ustaad A. R. Rehman has won BAFTA award for the music of Slumdog Millionaire. Believe it or not I still haven’t seen the movie. But I have no doubt that A. R. Rehman’s music would be definitely outstanding. The man has proved himself a genius many times before. He is nominated for Oscar too and Allah Rakha Rehman is the only Indian with three Oscar nominations. Over all the movie Slumdog Millionaire has earned 10 Oscar nominations. Rediff.com talked to A. R. Rahman on his three nominations. People Magazine also had A. R. Rahman on their cover with the title Making of A Genius. Rediff.com has republished the feature on their website you can read it here.

Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif announced their engagement last year. Since then media is speculating over their wedding plans. Salman Khan has expressed a desire to get married as soon as possible, but Katrina is always telling around that she is more focused on her career right now. A week ago, some Marathi language newspaper published a story that Katrina is already married. Later the newspaper denied the story and Katrina cleared it up saying that the world will know when she gets married.

But Salman Khan fans are not very happy with Katrina’s attitude. The first thing that the Salman Khan fans don’t like is Katrina Kaif’s pairing with Akshay Kumar. While talking to a die hard Sallu fan, I tried to convince him that Katrina is an actoress and film makers think it is more profitable to sign her with Akshay than Salman Khan. Even Salman Khan’s home production “Partner” had Katrina paired with Govinda not with Salman Khan.

Secondly, they don’t like the rumors about Katrina’s growing friendship with Ranbir Kapoor. Just today I read that Katrina will be spending Valentine’s day with Ranbir Kapoor on sets of “Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani” in Turkey. Deepika Padukone, who is dating Ranbir since a long time now, is not very happy with the situation. It is reported that she visits the sets more often than expected and is acting overly protective of Ranbir Kapoor. We don’t really know whats on Katrina’s mind. But Salman Khan who had always been more expressive about his love life is also acting wierd. There are rumors of Salman Khan’s interest in the new actoress Asin. We can only speculate, and most people are expecting to hear the news of a break up.

You will be seeing Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for about two or three minutes in the upcoming Hollywood movie Pink Panther 2. Its a small role, compared to what she got back at home. If you compare Pink Panther 2 with Devdas or Guru, then Pink Panther is a total trash. But hey it has white guys acting in it so it’s better than any Hindi movie. When Aishwarya Rai was asked about how much footage she has in the movie, she replied:

I didn’t work in ‘Pink Panther 2′ because it was an international project. I got the script. I happily chose to be part of the film. They shot exactly what I was offered. I don’t need to work with stardust in my eyes.

The choices I’ve made in my career aren’t just about footage but an opportunity to work with actors, directors and technicians who enrich my life. Believe me working in ‘Pink Panther’ was a joy.

She appeared at the New York premier of the movie accompanied by her husband Abhishek Bachchan wearing beautiful black dress that showed too much of her cleavage (picture on the left click to enlarge, Gossip Girls has more pictures). After celebrating hubby Abhishek’s birthday, Aishwarya will be traveling to Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Madrid to promote Pink Panther. She is really a hardworking lady. Even though she has already conquered the hearts of Hindi Cinema viewers but she does not rest and she wants to conquer the entire world. But still this is too much work for a two minute role. May be she is hoping that the success of this movie will get her more Hollywood movies in the future?

While in US she also appeared in the Martha Stewart show. Now Martha Stewart show is popular but not as popular as Oprah. But hey atleast she got interviewed on a US television show by a white woman. So much for the Indian pride.

All our male actors and models who are in their 40s are nowdays dying to show us the ruins of the wonderful bodies of theirs. I agree that even the ruins of these bodies are hot, its just that it feels a bit awkward seeing them doing things in their desperate attempts to look younger. Just when we had to see (and what an ugly sight it was) Shahrukh Khan’s six pack abs, and Aamir Khan’s sexy new all buffed up and muscled body in Ghajini. We also saw Akshay Kumar appearing in Levi’s Jeans ads (pictures below). Does he looks better than Shahrukh and Aamir? Certainly he does. There is something very masculine about Akshay, something very wild and animalistic.

I have previously talked about Akshay Kumar’s new all waxed and hair free body. Our readers agreed that they liked Akshay Kumar’s hairy chest better. But unfortunately the advertisers do not agree with the masses. They wanted a hair free shaved Akshay Kumar and Akshay had to comply. After all at the end of the day this is how he earns his bread by cashing the popularity. So there we have Akshay Kumar’s new hot sexy pictures from Levis Jean’s Ad campaign, click to enlarge for a better look:

 

 

Ghajini an Aamir Khan production directed by A.R.Murugadoss. Cast included Sanya Sivakumar, Nayantara, Asin, Pradeep Singh Remat, Riyan Khan and of course Aamir Khan himself, so yes the movie was expected to be a hit. The movie right from the first day of the shooting had created a huge hype among the fans of Aamir Khan and also the critics who were waiting with their pens ready for the movie to hit the cinema.

The story of Ghajini was based on the old and much used concept of short term memory loss faced by Aamir Khan in the movie. However, It had its own unique charm of a different narrative. A new approach to retell the story of revenge. It all fits well, how Aamir and Asin met, the chemistry, the charisma and the comedy is fun to watch. How Asin is killed and how Aamir khan prepares himself for vengeance and helps himself with tattooing himself to remember everything which he forgets. The songs are great; one becomes speechless when it comes to the cinematography. No one can have relevant criticism when it comes to the way Aamir khan movies pay attention to every detail in each and every scene. Every minor detail is given high importance which is rarely found in Bollywood movies but we always find it in Aamir Khan’s production.

Talking about the movie I believe that other than Aamir Khan all of the characters were merely supporting characters even Asin because the whole story revolves around Aamir Khan. Even if there was someone else in place of Aamir Khan then I would say that the movie would have had 60% chances of being a flop. The power packed performance of Aamir Khan made the movie blockbuster which it is today. Of course majority of the audience was here to see Aamir Khan marvelous body which he had to workout on for three months straight and I mean a heavy workout!

Other than that the movie rating is for everyone but parents should watch out when the naked rage takes over the movie as it is harmful for children. A social activist requested the Supreme Court to have the movie rated as adult rating. As a result a few scenes were removed from the movie but still the movie does have some disturbing scenes and parents should watch out.

Even though it had disturbing scenes and OK story line but still critics and the audience came out with huge smiles on their faces after the first show and almost everyone gave compliments. The movie truly speaks for itself by doing a business of 200 crores in the first two weeks and making itself a truly blockbuster, breaking all records of 2008 and opening new boundaries and new challenges for our Bollywood industry. I would not want to rate the movie as it is just a remarkable piece which adds up to the list of Rang De Basanti, Taare Zameen Par and Jaane tu ya Jaane Na but just for official records I would give it a 4.5/5.

While my friend Addy is comparing Shahrukh Khan with Aamir Khan. I would like to spend sometime on comparing Shahrukh Khan with Akshay Kumar. You will find lots of people saying that Akshay has given many more hit movies than Shahrukh Khan during last few years. Unfortunately, these Akshay lovers are terribly wrong. Shahrukh Khan still rules the box office.

In 2007, Shahrukh Khan had two major releases. Chak de India and Om Shanti Om. Both did amazingly well on the box office. Shahrukh was praised for his role as “Kabir Khan” in Chak de India by critics. Critics didn’t like him much in Om Shanti Om but movie’s hype and better marketing techniques made it a blockbuster. 2007 was also the luckiest year in Akshay Kumar’s career. He had four hit movies back to back. Namastey London, Heyy Babyy, Bhool Bhulaiyaa and Welcome. What I don’t like about all these four movies is that Akshay never moved away from his Hera Pheri style. There was no change in his acting and character development was extremely poor. His character looked the same in all these four movies. There was no versatility and nothing new in his acting.

In 2008 two Akshay Kumar movies were released. Singh is King and Tashaan. Tashaan was a huge disappointment at box office. Singh is King did fairly well and it was the third highest grosser in Bollywood. However, Shahrukh Khan had only one movie as the major release in 2008. Rab ne Bana di Jodi which was the highest grosser movie of 2008. Akshay Kumar’s latest movie Chandni Chowk to China Town has caused distress to the film makers who has signed him at very high prices. Chandni Chowk to Chinatown went flat on box office and it seems like no one is yet ready to buy the rights for his upcoming movies. Rohini Bhandari at the Business of Cinema suggests that producers may need to re-evaluate Akshay Kumar’s upcoming movies.

If you take TV shows, advertising campaign and International tours to measure the market value and popularity of the stars then Shahrukh Khan clearly beats Akshay Kumar.

Honestly, I don’t really care about who is more popular. I love these kind of comparisons because I think such healthy rivalry improves the quality of Hindi Cinema. This race to be the no. 1. Bollywood star benefits the audiences. So I would say that we the audiences of Hindi movies should encourage such debates. By the way I dont think that Aamir, Shahrukh, Akshay or Salman could ever beat the charisma and stardom of Hrithik Roshan. Who is, in my opinion, the best male performer in Bollywood right now.