Latest news about Home And Garden and News And Events and more

After the ‘Dhoom’ series, director Sanjay Gadhvi returns with crime thriller “Kidnap”. Releasing Thursday, the film starring Imran Khan is about a young guy who masterminds a series of events and circumstances that force a rich man to commit crimes to save his daughter, who has been kidnapped.

The film, also starring Sanjay Dutt and Minissha Lamba, has been rumoured to be on the lines of Hollywood film ‘Ransom’, but the director rebuffs it.

”Kidnap’ is halfway between what I believe in and what is expected of me. But it is not a remake of the Mel Gibson-starrer ‘Ransom’. ‘Kidnap’ will establish me as a filmmaker of more gravity,” Gadhvi had told IANS.

After the hit movie ‘Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na’, this is Imran’s second film and expectations are high from the newcomer. Imran, who played a lovable non-violent guy in his debut film, has gone for a complete role reversal. He would be seen as a cold-blooded kidnapper in the movie.

Minissha too has gone for a glamorous makeover for the film.

The story revolves around Kabir Sharma (Imran Khan) who kidnaps Sonia (Minissha Lamba), daughter of a rich guy called Vikrant Raina (Sanjay Dutt) to settle old scores.

Kabir kidnaps Sonia, who was estranged from her father ever since she turned 10. Kabir does this not for money, but to play a game. The game requires Vikrant to be on the run and complete a series of tasks. He must follow Kabir’s orders to save his daughter.

While kept as a hostage, Sonia falls in love with Kabir.

Though Imran has a meaty part in the film, the director says ‘Kidnap’ is Sanjay Dutt’s film.

‘The movie is a Sanjay Dutt vehicle,’ said Gadhvi.

Sanjay apparently agreed to play Minissha Lamba’s father in ‘Kidnap’ without a second thought.

‘I think Sanjay wanted to do a father-daughter film for a long time. In the film, he doesn’t get to see his daughter for eight years. Somewhere he connected with that situation on a personal level.’

The director also feels Imran is a bonus for his film and that it took him only three seconds to decide on the actor as soon as he saw him for the first time.

Gadhvi’s ‘Kidnap’ will clash with Abhishek Bachchan-starrer action fantasy film ‘Drona’ that is being touted as the actor’s biggest project ever.

Hollywood actress Meg Ryan’s ex-husband Dennis Quaid has angrily hit back at the actress after she accused him of cheating on her throughout their marriage.

The actress spoke out last week after years of silence about her image of being portrayed as the home wrecker due to her brief affair with co-star Russell Crowe in 2000, reports dailymail.co.uk.

“It was eight years ago, and I find it unbelievable that Meg continues publicly to rehash and rewrite the story of our relationship,” said Quaid who is remarried to Texas estate agent Kimberly Buffington.

He still shares the custody of his 16-year-old son Jack with Ryan.

Actor-turned-director Atul Agnihotri says he cast brother-in-law Salman Khan in his forthcoming film ‘Hello’ not to increase its commercial value, but because the character in the movie demanded a star like him.

Salman plays himself, a superstar, in the film that is based on the acclaimed book ‘One Night At The Call Centre’ by Chetan Bhagat.

‘Salman plays Chetan Bhagat’s character in the film. But we have shown him as Salman - the film star - unlike the book which portrayed Chetan Bhagat (the narrator) as a writer,’ Atul told IANS.

‘I have not cast Salman because of commercial reasons or being a relative, but it was important for the role to have an actor who has a star status,’ said Atul.

‘Hello’ is Atul’s second film as director after ‘Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha’, which released in 2004. ‘Hello’ is slated to hit theatres Oct 10.

Though Salman does not play the lead role, he has an important role in the movie as the story begins and ends with him.

And Salman Khan fans will not be disappointed as they will get to see enough of their superstar. The two-hour movie features Salman for at least 25 minutes, said Atul.

Besides Salman, the film boasts of a large star cast including Katrina Kaif, Sharman Joshi, Sohail Khan, Isha Koppikar, Gul Panag, Amrita Arora and Arbaaz Khan.

Katrina plays a fellow traveller who narrates the whole story to Salman.

‘It is through them that the whole story unfolds and they play a pivotal part in the film,’ said Atul.

The director maintained that he had not deviated much from the novel, except for taking a few cinematic liberties.

He explained that while books need more time to introduce characters as it has only words to communicate, cinema is different, being an audio visual medium presentation.

The film revolves around a group of call centre workers who receive a call from god.

Atul said it took them nine days to film the scene where god appears as it needed special treatment.

‘It is always difficult to shoot at night, but the whole scene was shot in the night, which made things difficult for us.’

Extra efforts went into making the scene really special.

‘Lightning and thunder needed to be created. Besides, special effects were also used for the scene,’ said Atul, who debuted as an actor in Mahesh Bhatt’s ‘Sir’ in 1993.

Atul said he has no plans to return to the big screen as an actor.

‘I had always planned to be a director and had assisted Pankaj Parasher for five years. In between, I went into acting and had a bad experience. Now I want to concentrate on direction as this was always my first choice.’

Best Buy will be the exclusive retailer for Guns N’ Roses‘ long-in-the-works new album “Chinese Democracy” before year’s end, sources close to the situation told Billboard.

Some details of the deal are still being worked out, including the release date.

The news brings a semblance of closure to the bizarre history of “Democracy,” which Guns N’ Roses has been working on since the mid-1990s. Since then, every original member, with the exception of vocalist Axl Rose, has left the once-mighty group, and millions of dollars have been spent working on the new material.

“Democracy” was most recently on the Interscope release schedule in March 2007. The endless delays encountered by the project reached comic levels this spring, when soft drink manufacturer Dr Pepper offered to send a free can of the beverage to “everyone in America” (excluding ex-GNR members Slash and Buckethead) if “Chinese Democracy” were to arrive during the calendar year 2008.

In June, nine purported “mastered, finished” tracks from the album were leaked online, prompting an FBI investigation into their source. A sign that “Chinese Democracy” was perhaps nearing release came in July, when the band agreed to debut new track “Shackler’s Revenge” in the video game “Rock Band 2,” which hit stores earlier this month.

Guns N’ Roses is now managed by Irving Azoff’s Front Line Management, and Azoff is a well-known proponent of issuing albums through exclusive deals with retailers. He released the Eagles’ “Long Road Out of Eden” through Wal-Mart in 2007, much to the chagrin of other merchants, but the album was a runaway hit, having sold 3.1 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Republican running mate Sarah Palin, after again laying claim to foreign policy expertise because Alaska is near Russia, suffered a media roasting Friday with one conservative calling on her to quit.

Pro-Republican columnist Kathleen Parker, writing in the National Review,
said the Alaska governor was now such an embarrassment to the party
that she should step down as John McCain’s vice presidential nominee.

“Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson (ABC News), Sean Hannity (Fox News) and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League,” Parker said.

In her third session with a television interviewer, this time with CBS News anchor Couric, Palin struggled to offer examples of McCain’s claim to regulatory zeal at a time when Wall Street is reeling from financial crisis.

In the interview, which aired in two parts on Wednesday and
Thursday nights, Palin also said that US forces had already secured
“victory” in Iraq, a bolder assertion than McCain himself has offered.

Pressed on why Alaska’s geographic location enhanced her world
knowledge, Palin said: “Well, it certainly does, because our, our
next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am
the executive of.”

She said that when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin “rears his
head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where
do they go? It’s Alaska.”

“It is from Alaska
that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this
very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right next to, they are
right next to our state,” Palin added.

The socially conservative governor, whose polling boost to McCain
appears to be flagging, also said the US economy could be staring at
another “Great Depression” — which McCain backed away from in his own
interview with Couric.

Asked to give examples of legislative action taken by McCain that
could have headed off the current financial crisis, Palin pointed to
his call two years ago to rein in the bailed-out mortgage giants
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Couric, noting that McCain had been in Congress for 26 years,
pushed Palin for further examples. “I’ll try to find you some and I’ll
bring them to you,” the Republican running mate said.

Baltimore Sun television critic David Zurawik contrasted Palin’s
interview with Couric to McCain’s no-show on another CBS program, “Late
Show with David Letterman.”

McCain cried off a scheduled appearance in New York with the
acerbic funnyman, citing his urgent need to return to Washington to
attend talks in Congress on an enormous economic bailout package.

But Letterman cut to a studio shot of McCain getting face powder
applied at the very same time for his own interview with Couric, and
then mercilessly poked fun at the Republican during the rest of his
show.

Zurawik said that “between the two (TV appearances), it looks like some serious damage might have been done to the GOP (Grand Old Party/Republican) ticket.”

The Boston Globe opined: “The honeymoon is over for Sarah Palin.

“After a third major TV interview during which her performance was
uneven at best, even fellow Republicans are having trouble
enthusiastically backing their vice presidential nominee,” it said.

Palin wowed the conservative base when she was selected by McCain
four weeks ago, but a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey suggests
that 49 percent of voters believe she lacks the leadership qualities
required in a president.

The McCain campaign has kept Palin largely sequestered from
the media, and several conservative writers had attacked Gibson for
adopting a prosecutorial tone in the governor’s debut national
interview with ABC.

But in the National Review,
Parker wrote that Palin had betrayed insufficient knowledge of
economics or foreign policy to show that she was ready to step up
should something befall the 72-year-old McCain.

“As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem,” she said.

Johnny Depp will preside over the manic tea party in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” as the Mad Hatter. Depp and Burton — who first worked together in 1990’s “Edward Scissorhands” and most recently collaborated on “Sweeney Todd” — have formed one of the longest-running director-actor partnerships in modern Hollywood. When Burton committed to filming a new live-action/CG-animated version of “Alice,” Depp was touted as the most likely candidate to play the Mad Hatter — after all, having worked with Burton on “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” he’s practiced in wearing a top hat.

Clay Aiken acknowledges he’s gay

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former “American Idol” contestant Clay Aiken has acknowledged he is gay, confirming in an interview with People magazine what most of his fans have suspected for years. Aiken, 29, a born-again Christian who forged a successful career after being named runner-up in the 2003 “American Idol” television talent show, said he decided to come out after becoming a father in August.

Clinton and Bono say crisis no excuse to ignore poverty

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. financial crisis making global waves is no excuse for governments and companies to walk away from helping the world’s poor, former U.S. President Bill Clinton and rocker Bono said on Wednesday. As Congress debates a White House-proposed $700 billion bailout for the worst financial crisis since the Depression of the 1930s, Bono questioned why wealthy countries had not been able to come up with enough aid for the world’s problems.

Rapper DMX hospitalized, misses court date

NEW YORK (Billboard) - A day before he was scheduled to appear in an Arizona court, rapper DMX was admitted to an Aventura, Florida, hospital Monday (September 22), according to his lawyer Bradford Cohen. Cohen wouldn’t confirm media reports alleging that DMX’s hospitalization was for “fear of stroke,” but he did say that the rapper’s condition was “serious enough at the time, but ultimately he should be OK.”

Keanu Reeves ruled not liable for photographer’s fall

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles judge on Monday threw out charges of assault and battery brought against Keanu Reeves by a photographer who claimed the “Matrix” actor deliberately hit him with his car. “There was no evidence of the slightest contact or the slightest touching,” Los Angeles Superior Court judge Elizabeth Grimes said during a court hearing.

Knightley eyes starring role in Zelda biopic

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - British actress Keira Knightley is in negotiations to play Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald in “The Beautiful and the Damned.” Actor-turned-helmer Nicker Cassavetes (”The Notebook“) will direct the biopic for independent production company the Film Department. Hanna Weg wrote the screenplay.

Miley Cyrus says committed to “Hannah Montana”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Miley Cyrus and Disney Channel sought to shoot down rumors on Monday that the teen sensation of the TV hit “Hannah Montana” was seeking to part ways with the show that made her a star. Patti McTeague, a Disney spokeswoman for the “Hannah Montana” show, told Reuters that reports of on-set turmoil were “absolutely not true, pure gossip.”

Janet Jackson parts ways with Island Def Jam

NEW YORK (Billboard) - After just 14 months on Island Def Jam, Janet Jackson announced Monday (September 22) her departure from the label. According to Jackson’s publicist, the label agreed to dissolve its relationship with the artist at her request. After a long stint with Virgin, Jackson inked a deal with Island in July 2007 and released her label debut, “Discipline,” in February. When album sales failed to meet expectations, the singer expressed dissatisfaction with Island Def Jam, first telling SOHH.com that the label “stopped all promotion whatsoever on the album” after releasing the first single, “Feedback.”

Filmmaker Ken Burns criticizes McCain’s VP pick

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Count renowned documentarian Ken Burns as someone who isn’t enamored of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The maker of “The Civil War” and “The War” didn’t hesitate to criticize GOP presidential candidate John McCain and Palin when asked about them at a panel discussion Monday at Fordham University’s law school.

Ambrose, Kaufman take “Unorthodox” roles

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Lauren Ambrose and Adam Kaufman lead the cast of “Unorthodox,” a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation for CBS. Susie Essman, Ricki Lake and Mercedes Ruehl co-star in the film, which is now in production.

Popstar Britney Spears and ex-husband Kevin Federline are reportedly considering getting back together.

According to National Enquirer, the ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ hitmaker and Federline are considering the move in a bid to raise their two sons together.

Within a year Britney has drastically changed and has come a long way - she has lost excess weight and won awards at the VMAs.

“Part of their therapy involves going on formal dates and Britney is so excited,” Courier Mail quoted a source, as saying.

“She’s never stopped loving Kevin or hoping they’d get back together. Kevin still loves Britney too and if all goes well after six months of counselling they’ll move back in together with the boys,” the source added.

Britney’s father and mother have been trying their best to persuade the two to raise their sons as a family.

“But Kevin’s always believed it would be best for the boys to be raised by both parents, and he and Jamie spent weeks looking for a counsellor who suited both his and Britney’s personalities and could come to their homes,” an insider said.

The 26 year old popstar is doing all that she can to have her two sons full time, as she is selling her home in Beverly Hills to move nearer to Kevin and their sons.

‘If all goes well they’ll move into Britney’s new house together,” the source revealed.

Britney and Federline’s three-year marriage ended in a divorce in July 2007, followed by a custody battle over sons Sean Preston, three, and two-year-old Jayden James.

Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy, Bob Hope, Henry Fonda and other stars of the 1930s and 1940s were paid millions of dollars in today’s money for promoting cigarettes, according to a new research.

The researchers claim that the legacy of these deals can still be seen in the high profile given to smoking on today’s cinema screens.

For the study, the research team accessed cigarette endorsement contracts between tobacco companies and studio-controlled movie stars, as well as adverts of the period, from university and major US newspaper archives.

The period under investigation covered the years 1927 to 1951, from the advent of talking motion pictures to the rise of television.

The research shows that in return for the paid testimonials of their stars in cigarette ads, major studios benefited from nationwide print and radio ads for themselves and their movies in lucrative “cross over” deals, paid for by tobacco companies.

The studios with the most “cross over” deals were Paramount and Warner Bros, with the peak of activity occurring in the early and late 1930s, particularly for Lucky Strike (American Tobacco) and in the 1940s for Chesterfield (Ligget and Myers).

And this was despite previous attempts to curtail the practice.

The research shows that almost 200 actors took part in the cigarette endorsements, including two thirds of the top 50 box office Hollywood stars from the late 1930s through to the 1940s.

Sometimes, very rarely at that, just a single show can hold the full fashion week. When the curtains fell at the HDIL India Couture Week on Sunday evening, the show by the enfant terrible of Indian fashion Rohit Bal did just that.

Rohit Bal’s show was the most reverberating at the Couture Week. It not only had the punch in terms of larger than life creations but also all the gimmicks one would expect at a couture show.

What about a few golden lotus placed on the runway that slowly moved up towards the ceiling as the show began and #8230; what about dancers making rhythmic moves on the runway and #8230; what about the stunning backdrop of a thousand lotus motifs and #8230; what about an Olympic bronze medallist as the showstopper and what about the designer’s exquisite creations? Rohit’s line-up was devoid of India in its abundant form. In fact, the majority of his creations were out of fantasy and colour.

His interpretations of velvet and the silhouettes he made out of it, for example, should well be a case study for designers in India. An occasional lehenga or a sari with muted glitter, that, too, stylised to the extent that it blended well with rest of the western silhouettes proved to be a very good mix.

And the showman’s entry itself at the end of the show with his signature dancing on the runway and #8230; the audience just stood there well after the show ended, applauding and refusing to leave the venue for several minutes and #8230; One hell of a show it was! Festive creations Earlier, Manish Malhotra presented his collections that mostly had Indian wear. His collection stuck to the theme of festive wear with definite intentions of festival season in mind.

Creations were pretty and elegant,with generous display of detailing on the surface.

Although USA’s “Psych” merely hints at the possibility that some psychics could be frauds, CBS’ “The Mentalist” argues forcefully that self-proclaimed seers (and you know who you are, Jonathan Edwards and Allison DuBois) are as supernaturally gifted as pet rocks.

“There’s no such thing as real psychics,” says Patrick Jane, who used to make a handsome living pretending to be one while fooling gullible people with his keen powers of observation. Those who profess to have psychic powers, he continues, are “deluded or dishonest.”

The dialogue comes during one of Jane’s rare moments of candor. Mostly, this reformed psychic-turned-police detective played by Simon Baker is glib, cocky, spirited and irrepressible. Although Jane is technically part of a five-person homicide unit and subordinate to Robin Tunney’s Teresa Lisbon, the show rests squarely and firmly on his shoulders.

Baker, as we quickly see, is capable of carrying the load. Jane is a clever blend of characters he played on “The Guardian” and “Smith.” This role is tailor-made for Baker, who has a flair for playing irreverent characters who are crucial to the success of the system even as they tweak its authority figures.

In addition to “Psych,” the show invites comparison to NBC’s “Life.” Although Jane is not nearly as quirky as Damian Lewis’ Charlie Crews, both detectives are driven to find out who killed people once close to them. In Jane’s case, his wife and daughter were shot by a serial killer he had disparaged during his phony psychic days.

“The Mentalist” has an appealing low-tech approach to crime-solving. Jane’s unit might get a few facts from an autopsy, but Jane invariably carries the day by spotting clues and applying logic. At the same time, the show benefits from the lively direction of executive producer David Nutter, who time and again makes even ordinary scenes jump off the printed page.

Competition will be keen. “The Mentalist” will butt heads with Fox’s well-received “Fringe” and the results show of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.” But if any show fits seamlessly between “NCIS” and “Without a Trace,” this is it.