Dum Maaro Dum (Abhishek, Bipasha Basu, Aditya Panscholi, Pratik Babbar, & Rana Daggubati ), Director: Rohan Sippy Options

[Annihilator]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Enterta...how/6032126.cms

Bips makes love onscreen!

It seems to be the season to get Bipasha Basu in the buff, even it is only for her screen assignments.

Recently, a decade-old commercial of the Bengali bombshell re-surfaced on a social networking site with a shot of her right breast reportedly exposed. And, now there is news that Bips has done a smoking hot love-making scene with Hyderabad sensation Rana Daggubati in Rohan Sippy’s Dum Maro Dum that deals with the glitzy drug world of Goa. Abhishek Bachchan plays a tough cop in this film but it is Rana who gets to romance Bipasha.

Sources say that the scene with Rana and Bipasha can be described as angrily passionate and “very intimate’’.

Though several Bollywood actors were auditioned for his role, Rana was chosen because he has a lot of sexual magnetism and that ‘stud’ quality.

Bipasha is wondering what the fuss is all about. “You decide when you see the film whether it fits the description of super-hot,’’ says the actress known for her plain speak. “The scene is all right. In fact, I think it is regular, like in all films nowadays. What is interesting is the new pairing of Rana and me.”

Even if the truth lies between Bipasha’s version and the Chinese whispers, those who have seen the rushes are raving about the raw physicality between the two. The scene was shot with minimum of crew around. “It is explicit but at the same time very passionate. Bipasha has a lot of sex appeal and they have paired her with someone who can match that degree of sexuality on screen,’’ says an insider who witnessed the filming. Over to you, John.

[Annihilator]

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/show-us-...-money/641840/0

Show us a film, we’ll show you the money

Bollywood has never been more confused as now. Never been more unsure about the big stars/big film formula. Does this mean the movie game will change? Who and what will be the game-changer? Our correspondent talks to the biggest players about their hunt for that elusive thing: an idea that connects

Were you one of those who went into mourning when Hrithik Roshan donned a sombrero and salsa-ed his way out of our hearts in Kites, this year’s worst mega film till now? Despite having Hearthrob Hrithik, the film was old and stodgy, a good idea killed by lousy execution. Did you send a prayer to the gods that govern Bollywood, giving eternal thanks to the unsleazy sunshine shed by India’s first all-digital film Love Sex aur Dhokha? Despite having no celebrated faces, LSD was cool and groovy, finally unshackling sex and freeing love, reaching out to a young and restless audience that is changing at breakneck speed with each tweet.

The fact that you can get such startlingly different films within a couple of months of each other defines the confused state of Bollywood today. What works, what doesn’t, is more than ever a matter of gamble, and right now, 2010 shows all signs of an industry that doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going.

On two successive rain-spattered days in Mumbai, a clutch of B-town heavy-hitters talk about where the film industry is at and where they think it is headed. There’s Karan Johar who has gone from popcorn romance to infidelity to gayness to disability and religious identity and is now back to a contemporary date flick (I Hate Luv Storys released this week). Rohan Sippy, who has braved a second-go-around with Hollywood studios after the debacle of his Chandni Chowk to China, co-produced with Warner Bros (Dum Maaro Dum releases early next year in tandem with Star Fox). Ekta Kapoor who broke the barrier with Love Sex aur Dhokha and is now busy ramping up her new production offshoot, Alt Entertainment (LSD was the first film from the fledgling company). And, of course, Anurag Kashyap, the quintessential outsider who’s attempting the straddle between art and commerce like no one has before (Udaan, which he has mentored and produced, was India’s official entry at the Cannes film festival and is out later this month).

I have my opening line ready when I meet Karan Johar in his spiffy office, his desk surrounded by trophies, a collection of healthy nibbles at hand. Closest to him is a bottle of plump almonds. I ask for coffee. He grins and says, I get that a lot. What I get, instead, is conversation with Karan, who is now contemplating a radical change for Dharma Productions: a film with new faces. This, from a filmmaker who has flagrantly and proudly declared his penchant for big stars, big films: “How long can we carry on making movies with the same nine stars ? We will die of exhaustion.”

He’s known what it is to be golden. And also what it is to be reviled. His huge Twitter following is full of people who fling all sorts of invective at him, and he says he can understand that “because a happy, shiny person like me can be irritating”. “Earlier I used to get upset, now I just ignore them”, he says. And block them off his feed. Now on a sabbatical from directing, Johar is setting into motion the process which will have four films out next year, reading a script a day (“85 out of 90 are terrible”), thinking of ways to encourage good writing (“I would give anything for a perfect screenplay”), and mentoring debutant directors in his stable (“it helps if you have Malhotra as your last name, it seems like a karmic connection!”; I Hate Luv Storys is by Punit Malhotra). Are all you budding filmmakers with that surname listening?
The one truism that comes through loud and clear through all this is that stars are no longer guarantors of success. A Brad Pitt or a Tom Cruise alone can’t rake it in anymore in Hollywood. Ditto for a Shah Rukh or a Salman in Bollywood. So is there a formula that will pull the industry out of the doldrums? The game is begging to be changed: who will be the game-changer?

“Greed and fear are the twin emotions that dictate us,” says Rohan Sippy, third generation Bollywood (grandfather GP began it all, and no one’s yet bested father Ramesh’s Sholay: it is at the top of every Best Bollywood film list), sounding like a wiser, smarter Gordon Gekko. “Because of the money having dried up, we are scared. The moment we have two hits on our hands, we will be back again doing the same thing. We need to be better behaved with each other,” he says.

Over a delicious home-cooked lunch of dal, stuffed bhindi and perfectly spherical tiny phulkis (father Ramesh joins us, and noting my delight says, she’s from Delhi, they only have large rotis there), the conversation veers towards how Bollywood has lost the ability to make films accessible to everyone. “Those were the skill sets that dad had, and Yash Chopra had,” says Sippy. “Only Raju (Rajkumar Hirani) is continuing that tradition, he is the Capra of our times. We need to get back to making great movies like we used to, those that connect us to sheer spectacle and drama. And we need to adopt new technology (yes, 3D, yes, digital),” he says.

After a dire course correction which involves re-structuring film finances, curbing greedy stars, rationalising distribution patterns (just because the multiplexes are there, doesn’t mean every film needs a 2000 screen release), ditching corporate profligacy and wasteful high-pitched marketing, ultimately it all comes down to the film.
“We thought we had everything in place for Chandni Chowk, but we didn’t get it right,” says Sippy, who is currently in the process of wrapping up the shoot on Dum Maaro Dum, a drug-buster film set in Goa. “ There is no other road map — you have to make a good film.”

So what’s Ekta Kapoor up to after making Love Sex Aur Dhoka? Her office, at 7 pm, is a beehive. Several aides hover, a potential painted K-serial wannabe waits nervously. The czarina of Balaji Telefilms escorts me in, the phalanx of garland-festooned gods and goddesses that fill a wall the perfect counterpoint to her red tilak-adorned forehead. A pale pink Ganesha is pushed to one side to make space for the voice recorder.
The moment she opens her mouth, though, all notions of fluffiness are dispelled: she’s sharp and observant, backed by an uncanny sense of what will work. “Just because I’ve made one kind of film till now (Balaji till now was identified with raunchy comedies like Kya Kool Hain Hum) doesn’t mean I can’t make something that’s totally different. That’s the whole point of Alt Entertainment,” she says. LSD is certainly alternative.

And edgy and dark in ways Balaji has not known how to be. “The moment Dibakar (Banerjee) narrated the story, I loved it,” she says. “I look around me, and I see it happening everywhere.”

Alt Entertainment will run on a cost-driven philosophy. “ We want to inhabit both ends of the spectrum— after LSD, our next film, from Balaji, Once upon a time in Mumbaai (out July end) is as commercial as commercial can get,” she says. Her team looks at the ‘feasibility pattern’ of new projects, and then it’s down to Kapoor to give the final nod. “All I want from a film is that it should engage me completely,” she says. And to see what people are watching, and liking, she catches a film every Sunday at a nearby multiplex.

It’s appropriate that Anurag Kashyap gets in the last word, because everyone I speak to brings up his name (Dibakar Banerjee’s follows in the same breath) as being hugely instrumental in pushing Bollywood out of its conventional rat-hole. When Kashyap began, he had no takers (his scintillating debut film Paanch is still unreleased, and it doesn’t look as if it’s ever going to see the light of day). Now, after Dev.D, he’s at a place where he’s no longer having to write dialogue for cheesy mainstream films to get by. He cranks open his laptop and shows me the ads he’s now doing for “bread and butter”: one of them has Shah Rukh prancing around a sleeping beauty.

But he, like the others, is wary of claiming game-changer status.”Dev.D was not a game-changer, it didn’t crack the box office in the way a Bheja Fry did”, he says, raising his voice to be heard over the din at hip suburban hangout Zenzi (the Rs 60 lakh-to-Rs 12 crore Bheja Fry story is now part of Bollywood lore). “I am no game-changer. Main change hotey huey game mein ek wheel ho sakta hoon ( I can be a wheel in a game that’s changing). Aamir (Khan) was a game-changer in the way he started doing one film a year, and is now taking the role of the actor-producer so seriously. Ranbir (Kapoor) can be a game-changer if he continues to pick the right roles. I am just the guy who will take your film from the paper to the theatre,” he says. Vikramaditya Motwane, director of Udaan, can vouch for that fact.

“The idea is to put the money back into the kind of films I believe in, and use it for a distribution venture with Ranjan”, he says. (Ranjan Singh, indie film marketer, whose first outing was the excellent Indian Ocean rockumentary Leaving Home). Singh, who is alongside, has been filling me up with all the new ways films with exciting, so-called “unsafe” content can be put out into theatres, and is all fired up about his next ventures, Makrand Deshpande’s Shah Rukh Bola Khoobsoorat Hai Tu, and Kashyap’s untitled next.

Kashyap recalls a visit home recently for his sister’s wedding, where his mother fished out an old letter: the 19-year-old Anurag, bursting with Technicolor dreams, had written that he would go to Bombay and change the way movies were being made, “Main filmon ko badal doonga”. He hasn’t really got all the way there, but now, when he gets an automatic mention anytime people talk about “different”, you know that he’s both a source of inspiration for the indie brigade, and envy for case-hardened industry vets, and that, in Bollywood, still surviving on mom-and pop-instincts despite all the talk of corporatising, is a big deal.

So, yes, there is acknowledgment that the game as it is being played at all kinds of levels, whether they are the smaller-budget, high concept movies or the monstrous tent-poles, needs drastic changing. But there’s no ready-made game-changer willing to take on the responsibility of the entire film industry. What we have at the moment are filmmakers ready to create shifts. The “golden period of our own” that Karan Johar is convinced is around the corner is still a way off. What the industry will have to hunt for, alongside its quest for its elusive chalice, is filmmakers who want simply to make a film, not a certified blockbuster from the get-go.

Go on, show us a movie. We will show you the money.

[Annihilator]

http://www.sindhtoday.net/news/2/152830.htm

Australian brunette turns blonde for Bollywood


By Robin Bansal

New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) Sydney-born Emma Brown Garrett, who made her big screen debut with Bengali movie “Shukno Lanka”, has gone blonde in her Bollywood avatar and even picked up Hindi – all for the love of Indian cinema.

Emma, who wants her age to be a guarded “secret”, is upbeat about her new projects – the Abhishek Bachchan- starrer “Dum Maaro Dum” and Dharmendra-Sunny Deol-starrer “Yamla Pagla Deewana”.

“Though I got discovered first by the Bengali film industry, it was a good ground before venturing into Bollywood,” Emma told IANS in an interview.

“I have just finished my first in Bollywood. It’s called ‘Dum Maro Dum’ with Rohan Sippy and I also star in ‘Yamla Pagla Deewana’. I play Sunny’s wife in the second film. I had dark hair but I went blonde for both the roles which are typically gaudy,” she said.

“I speak Hindi in ‘Yamla Pagla Deewana’ and I speak Russian and bad English in ‘Dum Maro Dum’,” she added.

Emma was in the capital for the screening of “Shukno Lanka” that hit the screens Friday. Co-produced by Mumbai Mantra Media Ltd and the Moxie Group, it is directed by Gaurav Pandey and also stars Sabyasachi Chakraborty and Debashree Roy.

Emma says she was a huge fan of her co-star Mithun even before she met him on the sets of “Shukno Lanka”.

Speaking of how she came to Indian shores, Emma said: “My husband and I decided to come to India to work and we’ve been here for two and a half years now. My husband runs a financial business and I thought I can come to India and try my acting and it worked out. We’ve both been very successful here and we’ve kind of settled in India nicely.”

“I landed my first job only after two weeks of arriving here. I got myself an agent, auditioned for the role and director Gaurav Pandey was very happy,” she said.

“I was a huge Mithunda fan even before I worked on this film. My husband and I would sit and watch all Hindi films and I loved ‘Disco Dancer’ and ‘Hum Paanch’,” she added.

So did she take language lessons for Bollywood?

“I have a Punjabi guru in Mumbai who taught me from the very beginning – a mixture of both Urdu and Hindi. I see her from time to time since I arrived here. So I speak a little Hindi.

“I can read and write Hindi as well, but my conversation gets a little scattered sometimes. I am very good in communicating slowly. I see a lot of Hindi films and I pick it up from there too. I don’t know that much of Russian though. It was just a matter of learning the script and then I had a voice coach,” added the actress, who is also open to work in other regional films.

Asked if she knew the meaning of “Yamla Pagla Deewana”, she said: “Of course. It means crazy crazy crazy. I know the song. I did my research.”

Probed more on her Bollywood ventures, she said: “I’m so sorry but I can’t talk much about my characters, as I have signed a confidentiality agreement.”

Having studied films and acting and pursued singing back home, Emma is now eyeing a Bollywood career.

“I have got an opportunity to work with veterans in my early days itself. People like Mithun Chakraborty and Dharemndra ji, who has just completed 50 years in Bollywood.

“It is so different for me to be involved in these films as I don’t have the history and the background. It’s so new for me to come into the country and experience it from a fresh perspective. I am falling in love with Indian cinema every day,” she added.

[Annihilator]

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/30/201...ing-avatar.html


Rana’s gaming avatar

The South actor specialises in gaming; he made the videogame for Ghajini too


Very little is known of South hottie Rana Daggubati’s gaming skills. The actor, who will soon make his Bollywood debut with Rohan Sippy’s Dum Maro Dum, made the videogame for Aamir Khan’s Ghajini. Rana actually happens to be an ace Digital Post entrepreneur and specialises in the gaming field.



Before pursuing acting as a career, Rana was into making video games. He had his own SFX Company Spirit Media and he made several videogames for many companies.

Rana funnelled Spirit Media into an alliance with FX Labs, a game development company that has worked on popular Bollywood movies like Dhoom 2 and Ghajini. Rana says, ‘It was my past job, which I thoroughly enjoyed. We use to make games for companies. The games were also meant for media programmes which I eventually entered.’

In 2007 Spirit Media collaborated with Prime Focus and Rana acquired a seat on their Board of Directors.

He then began training for a career in acting, which he was passionate about. He said, ‘I went through two years of intensive training in acting which included dance, diction, action and stage plays. I was directly or indirectly always connected to this field and eventually got into acting. I also underwent training in a stunt academy. During this time period, I focused on developing scripts - transforming ideas into workable blueprints for films.

[Spencer]

Ash set to do cameo in Abhishek’s next

July 28th, 2010
DC Correspondent

Bollywood’s favourite couple Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan seem to be making every effort to spend as much time as possible with each other.

After enthralling the audiences with their roles in Mani Ratnam’s Raavan, Abhishek and Aishwarya in fact want to do more movies and commercials together. The latest we hear is that Ash is planning to play a cameo in Rohan Sippy’s Dum Maro Dum. Sources inform, “The couple has been seen together in a few commercials but they have not signed any films together. When Rohan wanted am actress for a cameo, he decided to approach Aishwarya for the role. The actress who often visits the film’s sets to meet her husband, agreed immediately.

This film marks the coming together of Abhishek and director Sippy after their successful collaboration in Bluffmaster. Abhishek plays the role of a fearless undercover cop in the film. It is said that Abhishek’s role in the film is similar to the role that his father Amitabh Bachchan played in Zanjeer during the 60s.

The film is an action thriller that deals with the drug mafia of Goa. Abhishek plays a brooding cop on a mission. Set in contemporary Goa, Abhishek was required to study narcotic neurosis and criminal quirks to master the role of the cop.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/entertainme...80%99s-next-269

[Annihilator]

^I think that rumor has come out earlier. I guess we'll see if its true soon.

[Annihilator]

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/30/201...e-paarfect.html


Picture paa-rfect

Impressed by Vidya Balan’s chemistry with Abhishek in Paa, Rohan Sippy has cast her in a cameo

After the release of Paa, several reports talked of how fond Vidya Balan had become of Abhishek Bachchan. Vidya, who plays Amitabh Bachchan’s mother in the film, was extremely impressed by Abhishek’s caring demeanor towards his father during the shooting of the film.


So moved was the actress that she confessed her desire to have a son like Abhishek in real life. “I would prefer a son like Abhishek,” she had categorically said.


While that may or may not happen, Vidya’s chemistry with Abhishek in Paa did wonders for the audience, which wants to see them together on screen again.


The latest on that front is that Rohan Sippy’s forthcoming Dum Maro Dum, will feature the actress in a long cameo role with Abhishek Bachchan.

When asked if a special cameo role is being created for Vidya in Rohan’s film, a source from the unit says, “Created wouldn’t be the right term to use. There was a role for which Rohan was looking for an Indian face.”

Elaborating on why Vidya was chosen to play this cameo role, our source says, “Rohan has watched Paa and he quite liked the chemistry between Abhishek and Vidya. He strongly felt that the two of them looked very good together on screen.”

Apparently, Rohan approached Vidya recently, who liked the cameo role as well. She has agreed to do the film. The modalities are now being worked out. Vidya will soon join the cast of Dum Maro Dum.

Rohan and Vidya remained unavailable for comment. Abhishek, are you excited?

[Annihilator]

http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/news/2010/...4528/index.html

Bipasha to shoot her fitness video in Goa

By Subhash K. Jha, August 30, 2010 - 12:33 IST


Bipasha will be spending a lot of time in Goa in the coming weeks. First she will shoot her fitness video on the beaches quickly before winter sets in. Then she is all set to shoot a re-mix of the song 'Dum Maro Dum' for Rohan Sippy's film of the same title.

In Rohan Sippy's film, Bipasha Basu is all set to swing to the sound of the R D Burman track 'Dum Maro Dum'. The copyright issues with Dev Anand and his film Hare Rama Hare Krishna have apparently been sorted out. Pritam Chakraborty is all set to record a new version of the Asha Bhosle classic.

Says Bipasha, "I can't talk about it right now. But when it happens it will happen. Give it another two weeks."

She has another issue-based film Aakrosh coming up after Lamhaa. And Bipasha wonders how the audience would react to it. "The social issue, honour killings, is treated like a thriller. Even Lamhaa was treated like a thriller. But how many people went to see it?"

Bipasha plays a schoolteacher in a tradition-bound village in Aakrosh. "For me the interesting part of doing Aakrosh was to see how far away I can get away from my glamorous image. I discovered it was easy for me to do real characters. The director, Priyadarshan, is a delight to work with. And my co-star is Ajay Devgn who is a good dependable actor. I've another film Mr. Fraud with Ajay directed by Abbas-Mustan which got stuck. I don't know if that will ever release."

Bipasha has a message for her colleagues who are keen to lend their names to issue-based films. "Don't charge any money for working in such films. It's the only way to make issue-based films commercially viable."

Says the actress, "After Lamhaa, I am tempted to tell a committed filmmaker like Rahul Dholakia to make out-and-out commercial films. Or if you make a film on a social issue then make sure it doesn't go over-budget. The audience doesn't care about what's happening in the real world. It's shameful that Lamhaa was so costly. If it was made for Rs. 4 crores it would have been a hit. When a mainstream actor does a film on a social cause it should be done free of cost as a sign of commitment to society."

Bipasha is all set to go to Goa well in advance of her earlier plan to shoot her video. "I want it to be shot outdoors in Goa. Winter gets too crowded. And I've a film to shoot in September. So I've to rush the video. I am going crazy doing my calorie counts. This time I've no team. I am doing everything on my own. It's a little boring to do it by myself. But I've always been a loner."

And yes, all is well between Bipasha and John. Says Bipasha confidently, "If God forbid, anything were to go wrong between me and John, he would be the loser not me."

John Abraham may go right ahead and insure his body parts. Bipasha isn't doing any such thing. Bipasha can't see the sense of John insuring his butt.

She says, "I'm a body person and I am definitely into fitness. But I'd never insure any body part. He's welcome to do what he likes. I just want to know which insurance company is insuring his butt."

[Spencer]

DH! Interview: Karsh Kale is Headed to Bollywood

By: Zaynah Rashid

Karsh Kale is a musician, producer, and artist who has truly broken all boundaries on the music scene. His sound is a fusion between Indian classic and American rock among other music styles and Karsh has become an international success! As Karsh is headed to India, DH! caught up with him to talk about what he has been up to and what he has planned for his trip. Check out the exclusive interview here.

DH: What have you been up to?
Karsh: I am finishing my album right now, my next record. I am getting ready to go to India to score another movie this month. I will be doing the new Abhishek Bachchan movie Dum Maro Dum; doing the background score for that. I will then be going on tour in India with the Midival Punditz and The Dhol Foundation. I'll be working in Delhi and Bombay, but will be touring in Chennai, Hyderabad, all over.

DH: Will we catch paparazzi shots of you hanging out with Bollywood royalty?
Karsh: (Laughs) If you are lucky.

I grew up in a rock’n’roll environment playing drums in bands. That is always a part of everything I do.

DH: Can you tell us about your inspiration for your new album?
Karsh: My inspiration for this record is making a soundtrack of my own journey, I hadn't done that yet. I always tried to make stuff relevant. Right now dub-step is really big on the electronica scene and a lot of times producers will listen to what's being played at the clubs and bring it back to their albums. I listened to myself and wrote music. Some is instrumental, some is quite abstract. It's a journey; it is something I feel really honest about.

DH: Who inspires you musically?
Karsh: When I first listened to music it was The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd, a lot of rock bands. Then I started listening to Indian classical music like Ravi Shankar. Listening to fusion projects, I listen to Shakti. Even people like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I continued to listen to a variety of music like electronic and jazz.

DH: What is on your iPod right now?
Karsh: Everything! I tend to listen to old records as well so I'm listening to the old Led Zeppelin record Houses of the Holy.

DH: How would you describe your sound?
Karsh: I think, for me it's more than anything rock and roll. To me it's not so much the sound as much as it is the attitude. I grew up in a rock'n'roll environment playing drums in bands. That is always a part of everything I do. That's where it starts. My sound is all of my influences put into one without leaving my cultural background.

A lot of times producers will listen to what's being played at the clubs and bring it back to their albums. I listened to myself and wrote music.

DH: You have worked with quite some amazing musicians and producers. What has been one of your most memorable collaborations to date and why?
Karsh: I would say because of the length working with Anoushka on the album because there were so many different people we got to work with as well. Growing up I had idols such as Sting and Ravi Shankar so when I got to work with them, these were definitely highlights for me.

DH: Who would you like to collaborate with in the future?
Karsh: I would love to work with the Radioheads. There is a long list but one is the Radioheads.

DH: What's next?
Karsh: I will be touring the album in the winter through to the spring. I'm working with people like Shanti, more projects. Plenty of stuff coming out, but pretty much the same; new music, Bollywood, and touring.

DH: Do you have a final message for DesiHits!'s readers?
Karsh: Celebrate the diversity in music and in people. Let us not do to our art what we have done to everything else.

http://www.desihits.com/news/view/dh-exclu...-india-20100831