Karan's at Cannes with Khan!

Joining the Bollywood brigade in Cannes for the film festival that started yesterday is Karan Johar.

"Anything to grab many more eyeballs," says the dapper Bollywood filmmaker who's hoping to negotiate a mega global release for his Shah Rukh Khan starrer My Name Is Khan and the Saif Ali Khan-Kareena Kapoor film Jehaad with foreign distributing giants.

Karan will be pitching his own tent at the Market Section of the 62nd Cannes Film Festival between Saturday and next Tuesday to sell the world rights of his films. But, before that, he is slated to make a grand entry by walking the red carpet as one of many hotshot international celebs at the prestigious event for a lifestyle brand. Then only, will he be free to get into the private meetings set up with international studios.

"The Indian presence at Cannes has always been tremendous but now, with the world waking up to Indian cinema, we are only growing further. It's great to see the exchange of ideas at various levels," says Karan, adding, "I hope something will work out. It's very important for me because my films have a global message."

To get his message across, the filmmaker has made a short showreel of My Name Is Khan and kept it solely for private meetings with distributors. "There cannot be a bigger platform than Cannes," he says. Incidentally, the film is only 50 per cent complete. Karan and Shah Rukh go to San Francisco to finish it in July.

Source: TOI

Shahrukh's Happy New Year to take off this year

Director Farah Khan is miffed with the reports that her next ambitious film Happy New Year starring Shahrukh Khan has been postponed to next year. The fact is that she is determined to start the film this year.

Farah said that she would start Happy New Year this year, come what may. She added that she is working on the script and is very sure that she would begin the film this year even if it's December 31st. She is finding hard to understand how people spread such baseless rumours.

Happy New Year has been in the news since it was announced for the simple reason that Farah's films with Shahrukh, Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om did very well at the box office. It will be her hat trick hit with Shahrukh if it does well.

Watch out for the 'sure success' combo!
Source: OneIndia(dot)com

Farhan Akhtar, SRK and Aamir bond with their betis

Then there's Shah Rukh. After bonding man-to-man with son Aryan for years now it seems Shah Rukh Khan is determined to forge an equally strong rapport with his daughter, Suhana.

 Last week, when Shah Rukh visited Karan Johar's mom and Adnan Sami's father in hospital, it was not his wife or son but Suhana who accompanied the star.

Says a source close to SRK, "Suhana has always been closer to her mother (Gauri) while Aryan has been his papa's pet. Shah Rukh wants to change that. He's making a determined effort to spend quality time with Suhana."

 According to close friends,  Shah Rukh has been a boys' boy, a gadgets guy all his life. The delicate dainty girlie things have been beyond Shah Rukh's realm of understanding, let alone appreciation.

Mumbai: There's more father-daughter bonding going on in Bollywood than meets the eye. As soon as Kartik Versus Kartik wraps up, Farhan Akhtar will take time off to be with his eldest daughter.

Says Farhan, "After I complete Kartik, I'm taking time off to be with my elder daughter who has her summer vacations. When her school opens in June, I leave to look for foreign locations for Don 2."

According to his guy pals, SRK would rather cheer for the IPL matches with Dhoni than sit at a fashion show with Gauri.

Says the friend, "Though Shah Rukh makes a very brave effort to be part of Gauri and Suhana's feminine activities and though he has been as much a part of Suhana's schooling as much as Aryan's it's only now that Shah Rukh is trying to make Suhana as much a part his activities."

And now with Shah Rukh, on the verge of completing his only assignment My Name Is Khan he intends to spend a lot of time with both his children.

In this, Shah Rukh seems to be united with Aamir who is currently on holiday with his son and daughter.
According to a close friend, both of Aamir's children Junaid and Ira are very close to the mega-star.

"Though the children stay with Aamir's first wife there's no dearth of empathy with their father. Junaid is bonding big-time with his dad and is already imbibing the rudiments of cinema from his father. Ira is a little shy of Aamir. But Aamir wants to change that."

Like Shah Rukh, Aamir too has taken almost a year off after his last assignment to be with his children.

source: mid-day

My Name is Khan

Release Date	:	Feb, 2010
Starring	:	Shah Rukh Khan & Kajol
Story	:	Karan Johar & Shibani Bathija
Director	:	Karan Johar
Music	:	Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Screenplay	:	Shibani Bathija My Name Is Khan

Eros releases Billu on DVD with deleted scenes

NEW DELHI: The DVD of Billu, a film by Shah Rukh Khan's home production Red Chilies, has been released by Eros, less than three months after its commercial release.

Costing Rs 299, the DVD has additional features like Making of the film, Making of Songs-Marjaani, Hit Hitand Khudaya Khair. It also contains some scenes which were not shown in the theatrical release.

Produced by Gauri Khan and directed by renowned director Priyadarshan, the film has besides Shah Rukh Khan, Irrfan Khan, Lara Dutta, Om Puri and comedian Rajpal Yadav. The film also has Kareena Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra in special appearances in three item songs. The film's music has been composed by Pritam who has set tunes to the lyrics of Gulzar.

Billu is the story of a simple ordinary man Bilas Rao Pardesi, a barber by profession and lives with his wife Bindiya and two kids in the village. One fine day a superstar enters their life. Changes are witnessed in their life, in terms of the people residing in the village and friends, but Billu does not change.

Source: Indiantelevision(dot)com

Shah Rukh to give IFFA a pass?

Just when I was beginning to believe that cock and bull story of SRK-Big B rivalry ending I was told this: Shah Rukh Khan has planned his annual vacation in such a way that he won't be able to attend the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards. And if one notices it has almost become a ritual of sorts every year.

Now the awards ceremony is said to be the bastion of the Bachchans. And that's reason enough for Shah Rukh Khan to avoid it as diplomatically as possible. But when Amitabh Bachchan publicly expressed his desire to invite SRK, everyone's ears perked up!

A little birdie tells me that Big B has also kept his word and sent out an invite to SRK. Needless to say our man has already found a suitable excuse.

Apparently SRK plans to vacation with his family in London for some 10 days. I am also told that he will address a select section of the media there before going to an undisclosed location after that.

And what is so unusual about this? Well SRK, I am given to believe, is free as a jaybird right now (he's to start shooting for My Name is Khan at the end of June). His children too are enjoying their summer break. And while he could have well gone on a break right now, our man has taken special permission to excuse them from school whenever it starts!

Meanwhile Farah Khan – who has won an award for her choreography – has also opted out of the function saying she needs to spend time with her kids!

Seems like this war is far from over...

Source: Buzz18(dot)in

Fans root for mystery IPL blogger’s identity, vote in thousands

May 12th, 2009 - 4:04 pm ICT by IANS -

By Anik Basu
New Delhi, May 12 (IANS) Even as the general elections head towards a climax, there's another poll unfolding - in cyberspace.

Between Saturday and Monday evening, nearly 29,000 readers of fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com - an Indian Premier League (IPL)-related blog that has spawned a cult following within the country and the Indian diaspora - have cast their vote to decide whether the mystery writer should reveal his identity or not.

The unknown blogger may not have turned out even once for his Kolkata Knight Riders team owned by actor Shah Rukh Khan, his rib-tickling posts have endeared him to thousands of fans, and attracted coverage by prestigious newspapers such as Britain's Telegraph and Independent.

"You rock, dude", is one of the most common refrains among fans, an overwhelming bulk of whom now wants to know who the cricketer-writer is, or if he is a cricketer in the first place, given his "mastery" over the English language.

Interestingly, the poll process has been initiated by the blogger himself, who goes by the moniker FIP (Fake IPL Player) and describes himself as a no-hope bench-warmer in a team that is at the bottom of the IPL heap with three measly points from 10 outings.

The voting follows a May 9 post headlined "It's decision time folks", where FIP wrote: "I had mentioned (in an earlier piece) about my decision to reveal my identity at the end of IPL… Whether FIP's identity should be disclosed or not, or how it should be taken forward, is as much as your decision as mine. I am putting up a poll on the right side. Pls take a few seconds to make your decision."

Alongside the post, FIP put up six categories, against any of which the blog's fans are required to mark their votes:

Yes, stick to your word man (to reveal his identity)

Yes, I'd like to see your a** kicked

No, let it (identity) remain a mystery

No, I fear for your safety

No, I want this to continue

Who cares a f**k?

Till a little before 8 p.m. Monday, nearly 19,000 blog fans or 64 percent of the total "voters" till then had plugged for the faceless writer's identity to be revealed.

Wrote a fan under the pseudonym "Anonymous", echoing thousands of others: "of course! want your identity to be revealed. be a sport man! ppl wl love u all the more!"

There are others who noted his "celeb status", and advised him to hire a consultant to guide his career post-cricket, while another - clearly a die hard groupie - appeals rather plaintively: "If you reveal your identity and get your a** kicked, how can you do this next year?"

The popularity of the posts, most of which have attracted over 500 comments, stem from FIP's wicked wit, tongue-in-cheek sexual innuendoes, juicy details of players' drinking binges or womanising, and outrageous nicknames for fellow cricketers, the support staff, team owners including Shah Rukh, and IPL bosses and commentators.

Wrote he after a particularly humiliating loss that fuelled talks of staff sackings: "While our fielding coach was busy browsing naukri.com, our Throwing Coach accusingly glared at our wicketkeeping coach every time Skipper and Buddhiman Baba (Brendon McCullum and Wriddhiman Saha, both wicketkeepers) had their slip-ups in the outfield."

Then, not contented with taking a dig at these two coaches, FIP went for chief coach John Buchanan, referred to as "Bhookha Naan" in the blog: "I am waiting for the day Bhookha blames global warming for our performance."

Understandably, FIP's team management is livid, but the readers find the blog "awesome". Little wonder that the online edition of Britain's Telegraph newspaper ran a story under the headline "Fake IPL Player lights up Kolkata Knight Riders camp in South Africa".

And light up it has, and promises to do so for at least four more days - when polling ends.

Source: thaindian(dot)com