Main Page                                                 Archive

BOTTOMLINES

Bollywood stars to sparkle at Pak Oscars

      Lahore: Scores of Bollywood stars are expected to sparkle during the upcoming Pakistan National Film Festival, better known as the 'Oscars of Pakistan'. The list of Indian invitees for the ceremony, to be held in Lahore on April 30, includes Bollywood biggies like Dilip Kumar, Saira Bano, Boney Kapoor, Sridevi, Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Randhir Kapoor, Mani Ratnam, Satish Kaushik, Sharmila Tagore, Gulzar, Rakhee, Rajesh Khanna, Dimple Kapadia, Pooja Bhatt, Pooja Bedi, Akshay Khanna, Arbaz Khan, Malaika Arora, Urmila Mantodkar besides others, reported The Daily Times. The sparkling ceremony will also feature a host of Pakistani stars such as Zara Sheikh, Veena Malik, Shahida Mini, Sana, Resham, Meera, Momer Rana, Shan and others, said the report. Javed Jafri will host the award ceremony, that is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Central Board of Film Certification.

Hillary Swank denies her marriage is on the rocks (Go To Top)

     London: Oscar winning actress Hillary Swank has rubbished reports that her marriage to actor Chad Lowe is on the rocks because the latter is struggling to come to terms with her phenomenal success. The Million Dollar Baby star was horrified by rumours that Lowe was seeing a top Hollywood shrink, to save their 12-year relationship. And she denies Lowe is jealous of her career, insisting that as a fellow-actor, he understands and supports her movie career. "Being married to an actor helps because he understands the ups and downs, and what they mean. It's not like Chad is going to get my roles," the actress was quoted by Ratethemusic, as saying. "If you're not comfortable with someone's success, you shouldn't be with them. We've been happy for 12 years but wouldn't want people to look at our relationship and think it's easy, because it's not," she added.

Women may no longer have to try on clothes (Go To Top)

     New York: If you hate trying out several pairs of jeans before you get the perfect fit, now the Intellifit system can save your time by selecting the right fit in just three minutes. The Intellifit system, is a new electronic scanner that measures body size and then suggests appropriate clothing matches. For many consumers, that's already a small victory. "The average woman tries on 15 pairs of jeans before buying," said Emily Hood of Levi's. The Intellifit system is housed in a transparent glass cylinder 10 feet high by 8 feet wide. A vertical wand sweeps around the interior perimeter, measuring a shopper's figure by bouncing radio waves off the body. The process takes about 10 seconds as the system calculates measurements for 200 body parts, using what's called 200,000 data points, and quickly prints out a list of suggested jean styles and measurements.

Jackson mortgages his songs to raise 30 million pounds (Go To Top)

     London: Michael Jackson, who is facing trial for child abuse in California, has reportedly mortgaged the rights to his hits like Thriller and Billie Jean as security to raise 30 million pounds. According to The Sun, prosecutors at his sex-abuse trial had recently claimed that he is crippled by 155 million pounds of debts and the court had permitted him to sell the footage of his trial to beat his cash crunch. Jackson took a 30 million pounds' loan two years ago, according to a biography of music industry king Paul Russell who is a friend of the star.The singer is also reported to have borrowed 65 million pounds from banks in 1999 against his back catalogue of Beatles songs he owns.

Kidman's dinner-date with Gaddafi's son (Go To Top)

     Melbourne: Nicole Kidman reportedly enjoyed an intimate Sydney dinner with the casinova son of Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi. According to Herald Sun, Al-Saadi Gaddafi, 31,who had originally planned to hire the Inter Continental hotel's state suite for 15,000 dollars and fill it with fresh flowers and candles, later opted for the 31st floor lounge to dine privately with Nicole Kidman and discuss the investment potential of the Australian film industry.

Ashton Kutcher makes mince meat of Britney's hubby (Go To Top)

     New York: Britney Spears' dancer husband Kevin Federline became the butt of mockery on Saturday night at the hands of the 'Punk'd' host Ashton Kutcher . According to Contactmusic.com, Kutcher stripped down to his underwear to play Federline in a fake TV ad on US comedy show Saturday Night Live. Rolling around a bed wearing just a white pair of boxer-briefs with 'Federline' boldly spelt across the band, Kutcher remarked, "I look like I might stink, yo, but I don't... Britney thinks I look best in my underwear. By the way, Britney keeps her underwear over there and over here, and over there in that big pile. Most of the time she keeps 'em in my mouth.", the report quoted him as saying.

Why Bhansali's `Black' and Eastwood's `Million ... ' are similar (Go To Top)

     Mumbai: Interesting parallels can be drawn between "Million Dollar Baby" (MDB) and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black". While the former won several Oscars, the latter is touted to win one too. Both films are not original, though their screenplays are brilliant. MDB is based on a short story written by fight manager Jerry Boyd (pen name FX Toole), while "Black" drew inspiration from Helen Keller and The Miracle Worker. The relationships between the two main characters (Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukerji) are that of teacher-student. Eastwood plays a reluctant teacher prejudiced towards women, while Bachchan is a willing master who adopts cruel measures to teach. Both pairs come to discover that they share a common spirit. Finding solace in the other, they fight battles that demand more courage than they can gather. While Swank wants to be a boxer, deaf-blind Mukerji aspires to be a graduate. Eastwood isn't keen on taking up the responsibility, but Swank's determination forces him to give in. Bachchan also almost walks away, only to return.

---