Hrithik Roshan is getting overly protective of his co-star from Kites, Barbara Mori. He is going to great lengths to ensure that Barbara’s stay in Mumbai is more than comfortable. We would obviously imagine a five-star suite and a luxury car thrown in, that is sort of comfortable no?  Not if you are Hrithik!

Hrithik is planning to build a vanity van with a budget of about 2 crores for the Mexican model turned actress. The van is going to be equipped with state-of-the-art amenities, the choicest food for Barbara’s taste-buds included and all the games to keep her love child Sergio entertained. This will be Barbara’s first visit to Mumbai and she is not used to Bollywood’s style of functioning. Hrithik wants her to have a really pleasant experience here. He even plans on making her meet his Bollywood buddies.

Someone please gift Hrithik a Diwali hamper of Johnsons’ baby products for this act of thoughtful caring and chivalry.

Yesteryear’s superstar Rajesh Khanna has made a comeback of sorts and has chosen a steamy thriller with a Pakistani actress half his age to complete the motion sickness. He is starring in a movie called Waafa with actress, Saara Khan. The movie is being directed by outspoken Rakhi Sawant’s almost unknown brother Rakesh Sawant. The movie boasts of some steamy bedroom sequences and a full blown smooch between Kaka and Saara.

When asked if it was justified for him to do things like these, which are well beyond his age, time and sensibility, Kaka, replied in perfect Emraan Hashmi style, that the script demanded the steam and that after doing 170 movies, he does not need to do a movie which has vulgarity as it’s theme. Well Kakaji, You might have been drunk all through this one, but it sure as hell sounds like you have!

Wafaa has Rajesh Khanna playing a Thailand based multi-millionaire who is being stalked by a sex-starved air-hostess for his wealth. Add Rakhi’s brother to that equation and it sounds like a 90’s hiked up budget soft-porn movie with Rajesh Khanna in it! Wow that sure is a first.

Bollywood’s Billy Bob and Angelina Jolie, Yashji and K Jo have taken their forbidden love to the next level this Diwali. Karan was presented with a trophy for the ten sexually confused years of association with Yashraj Studios.

What makes this gesture even more special is that the trophy was designed by Yashji himself!! And so, K Jo is on cloud nine now, with more faith in his baked good of a film making brain than ever before.
In an industry of ever changing equations, Karan claims that his relationship with Yashji has always been constant. In keeping with their F.Y.J.C lovers profile, they call each other everyday and have even gone as far as picking out nick names for each other!! Karan calls him Uncle Y and Yashji calls him Karan Uncle. Kinky.

In an attempt to play down their alleged relationship, Uncle Y is looking for a bride for Karan!! It remains to be seen which unfortunate specimen bites this bullet. The day it happens, Karan will really have his hands full. Yashji on one side, Shah Rukh on the other, and an illegal Russian Tranny in the middle!! Just the kind of love triangle that Karan can get on board with.

Lovebirds, Saif and Kareena who together lent their voices for Yash Raj Films’ foray into animation, Roadside Romeo have been missing entirely from the film’s promotional do’s. Bebo has been promoting her other Diwali release Golmaal Returns, while the Chotte Nawab has just been totally unavailable.

Roadside Romeo is a joint venture between Yashraj and Walt Disney Pictures and is one of the first major animation releases in the country. Both production houses have high hopes riding on it.

Saifeena’s absence from the promotional events has been equated to the dying clout of YashRaj Productions at the Box-Office as none of their movies have made a dent there for a while now and the fact that both of them have only lent their voices to their movie and hence don’t feel so deeply connected with it.

The director Jugal Hansraj is then the lone soldier trying his best to get the movie watched. You’ll need to try harder boy!

John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan left little to the imagination recently while shooting at Miami Beach for Karan Johar’s latest peek out of the closet, Dostana. The two Sunday actors have to play gay for a couple of scenes and by the looks of things, are discovering new things about themselves everyday.

K Jo claims that after the success of such offbeat flicks such as Taare Zameen Par (yea, that one’s really out of hand), the Indian audiences are finally ready for this sort of display. He goes on to bite the hand that feeds him by saying that all romantic movies need not end in trains pulling away from European stations. Blasphemy! Yashji must be turning over in his astro-turf mustard field as we speak.

Anyway, the changing trends have finally allowed K Jo to show flashes of his creative samadhi in Dostana. For the greater good of humankind, I hope the ball stops here. Giving him any more freedom is not an option. The last thing we want to see is an all male Bollywood version of Dirty Dancing.

Chetan Bhagat is at it again. Why? Maybe even the almighty God doesn’t know. The author is penning a script for Ashtavinayak Films, the production house that gave us super-hits like Golmaal and Jab We Met and super duds like Kidnap and Super Star.

Why is he doing this? Hasn’t he seen the disaster that is ‘Hello’?

Someone should sit him down and give him a lecture on his writing skills. True he wrote one good book- Five Point Someone (which btw is being adapted to a silver screen version, ‘Three Idiots’ by Raju Hirani). Everything he’s written after that has been a disgrace to the name of literature!

Some may argue that One Night was a commercial success. Ask any literary critic and you will find a million reasons why the book is bad. As for ‘Three Mistakes of My Life’, let’s just say that was the biggest mistake of Bhagat’s life.

On the other hand, maybe he’ll prove us all wrong by writing a brilliant screenplay. For the sake of Indian Cinema, let’s hope he does…

Wanna ring in the New Year full-on Bollywood ishtyle? Head over to the J W Marriot at Juhu. Unless you’re super-rich, this is one party that’ll burn a deep hole into your pockets. If you can afford to buy an entry into the party, you can ring in the new year with none other than Bollytown bombshell Katrina Kaif.

Yup, Kat has signed on to perform at the classy Marriot hotel. For one night she being paid… <drumroll>… ONE CRORE! All she has to do is shake her booty to a few of her popular numbers.

With this she joins the ranks of Bipasha Basu and Malaika Arora Khan who have performed at the Marriot New Year bash in previous years. And how can one forget Mallika Sherawat who famously walked off stage when she found the media present at the gig.

Wonder if Sallubhai has already bought himself a pass?

What’s a movie without it’s share of controversy? And when it’s a Madhur Bhandarkar project, you can expect controversies galore. His latest venture, Fashion has already been the focus of many a gossip, debate and discussion at the fashion week. After all the industry would be worried about their celluloid portrayal.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Commission for Women has issued a notice to UTV and Bhandarkar, threatening to ban the movie. It seems Kangana ‘blabbermouth’ Ranaut revealed that her character in the movie is heavily derived from the life of erstwhile supermodel Geetanjali Nagpal. Geetanjali was the ex-supermodel who was found begging on the streets of Delhi. She is now under the care of DCW.

It seems that the DCW would like to see the movie before it releases so that it can remove any objectionable scenes. Correct me if I’m wrong, I thought that was the Censor Board’s job!

My ears have heard the most heartening news today after a terribly violent day with MNS activists giving India a glimpse of how over-aged post-teen punks function. This news is not about Raj Thackeray being imprisoned for life, but about the root cause of the changed equation between the saas and bahus in India.

After the young turned old, the old turned young, the living went dead, the dead came alive and the immortal baa finally turned 2000 years old, Ekta Kapoor’s haywire marathon which got the entire country hooked is finally going to end. 10th November is the day when every one who has believed in logic and the art of story telling will breathe lighter.

Thank God!

Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s marriage has not only hit rough waters, it is literally falling from the skies it once looked suspended in. After Guy blamed Madonna’s age-bending four hour workout sessions and the exhaustion they caused to be one of the reasons for their split, Madonna has called the British movie director a ‘gold-digger’ and a cruel and neglectful husband.

Guy on the other hand is accusing Madonna of spying on him ever since their decision to split has been made public. The details of his meeting to discuss the divorce has been leaked to Madonna, even his dining session with his father and sister was not spared by her watchful eyes.

With Madonna’s fierce PR machinery firing round after round, there is going to be no chance of the two of them having an amicable departure from each others lives. The world is already waiting to watch where this one goes… might lead to World War III perhaps!

Anees Bazmi is currently working on a movie called It’s My Life with the glorious Harman, who has been brought back to the summer of 69 from 2050 exclusively for this project. He will be acting across bubble-gum pop pin-up (who thankfully lives in the present), Genelia D’Souza.

Anees now wants to make a movie he has not titled yet with a cast of six heroines and (well here’s the supposedly unexpected twist) six villains! Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt and Akshaye Khanna have been finalised to play the villains in the movie. The rest of the cast is still to be worked out. All of the six baddies will be sporting different looks so people can manoeuvre their way around this clutter.

This movie, like the host of others we’re being badgered with, will be a slapstick and mindless action comedy and is definitely going to test the date management skills of the production house. I cannot be really sure about anything else.

Amrita Arora’s relationship with beau Shakeel Ladak (who works for a construction agency), has gone a step further. Shakeel took Amrita to meet her parents. This whole meeting has happened courtesy of Shakeel’s ex-wife, who believes Amrita has snatched her husband from her. This news reached Amu’s ears and she sobbed bitterly as she could not bear the allegations.

Shakeel hooked up a surprise party for Amrita to cheer her up at his place. Riteish Deshmukh with Farhan Akhtar, Atul and Alvira Agnihotri, Sohail, Arbaaz and Malaika Arora Khan attended the little party. The only one missing was Amu’s best friend Kareena, who was out shooting in Delhi.

Shakeel repeatedly told Amrita that she has done a good job in Hello and numerous other movies after which she calmed down and the gang partied till the early hours of morning.

Now that Amu’s done getting hyper about Shakeel’s ex-wife, we wonder what would be the case if all of Amu’s ex’s started doing their rounds of the Bandra café’s… Oprah style.

Priyanka Chopra recently attended the Middle East International Film Festival to promote her upcoming release - Fashion, which ultimately did not end up being there as the post-production on the film was not complete. While she was there, she bumped into Antonio Banderas, who Priyanka says spoke very warmly with her.

Whats more? Antonio was even well-versed with the ways of the Bollywood film industry and all the fat pay cheques Indian stars have been taking home.

Antonio and Priyanka watched the screening of the first movie at the festival together and he even showed keen interest in being paired opposite Priyanka. When asked if this was one of her plans to go international, Priyanka replied that the language does not matter to her and that the film could be in Hindi, English or Punjabi and it would all be the same for her.

Lifebuoy has kick-started another mindless day to create awareness about well… washing hands! The day in complete dance move perfection is called the Global Handwash Day. We have all been a part of various mindless public activities which have done nothing more than procure some socially driven publicity, but this one is just shooting funny through the roof.

Lifebouy is the newest to jump into the ‘lets have a day about it’ bandwagon. They got Farah Khan, who just gave birth to triplets and realized how many kids under 5 actually die, & Yuvraj Singh to tell us the importance of washing our hands clean. The reason for all this is because a lot of children under 5 from poor communities do not wash their hands with lifebuoy regularly, which leads to diarrhoea, pnuemonia and other ailments. This kills 41 children every 60 minutes worldwide.

Now this sounds exactly like a 30 second commercial Lifebouy has been airing for God knows how many years, the figures and statistics in the meanwhile have only gone up the cruve. Can’t make a day about it can you?

There’s good news for all the Big B fans. The superstar is recovering well and will be at his best soon. His family however would like him to stay put in the confines of Lilavati hospital till he completely recovers. They say that the 66 year old baby cannot be controlled once he is out and there is no stopping the constant flow of visitors who keep seeking him everyday. Amitabh, they say has still not learnt the art to say the much needed “no.”

Big B in the meanwhile is already keen on resuming work and is quite excited. He is particularly interested in starting work for Chandraprakash Dwivedi’s The Legend of Kunal, where he is alongside Tabu. A host of other films too are just waiting for him to come out of the hospital.

Himesh has bared it all to Zoom before the release of his much anticipated remake of 80’s hit Karzzz, The channel served him everything vegetarian and tandoori one can find on the streets of Mumbai. Himesh reciprocated by telling all the truth about himself. The song Tandoori Nights, he said was centered around his midnight food cravings as the T-series diet-plan barred him from eating anything much at all.

Sonu Niigaam when queried about the difference between him and Himesh some days back answered, “My hair is real.” Himesh in complete humility agreed to this and said his latest without-the-cap look is all because of hair extensions and transplants.

The extra Z’s in the title too were put so that it would be numerologically fit into Himesh’s lucky karmic space. He even thanked Urmila for working with a newbie like him.

With so much humility leaking from his nasal trap, I guess the film might just be a really humbling experience for the viewers and Himesh is hoping to repay the loan by being as mentally naked as possible.