[ItzToday.com] Abhishek Bachchan thrilled to complete a decade in Bollywood

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• Abhishek Bachchan thrilled to complete a decade in Bollywood
• 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se' Movie Review
• Jennifer Lopez tries to stop sex tape public release
• Rahul Mahajan to participate in 'Jhalak Dikhlaja 4'
• Vidya Balan to star in 'Kahani', a woman-oriented thriller
• Bollywood Diva Madhuri Dixit joins Twitter

Abhishek Bachchan thrilled to complete a decade in Bollywood Posted: 03 Dec 2010 02:30 AM PST Abhishek Bachchan, who has had more misses than hits in his 10-year-old acting career, says he never thought he would be able to survive this long in the Hindi film industry. "I never thought I would make it through 10 years. I didn't think they would give me a chance," Abhishek, the son of megastar Amitabh Bachchan and seasoned actress Jaya Bachchan who made a not-so-successful debut with "Refugee" in 2000, told IANS in an interview. "I didn't think I would get any films after my first film. I genuinely didn't believe it. I haven't really given them any reason to like me or like my work; so why should they spend their time and effort on me?" said the actor who is being appreciated for his performance as freedom fighter Surjya Sen in his just released "Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey". For Abhishek, acting is a tough job, but he believes he has grown up as a better actor in the last decade. "I find all my films difficult. Acting is very tough. I think you should always challenge yourself with every film. If you don't, then you will start stagnating. I want to do films which will push me every day to work harder; so I find every film harder," said the actor. Though Abhishek had a shaky start, he tried to find a firm foothold in filmdom with box-office successes like "Yuva", "Bluffmaster", "Dhoom", "Bunty Aur Babli", "Sarkar", "Guru" and "Dostana". "I would like to believe that I learnt a lot. I can definitely say I am a better actor today than I was in 'Refugee' - 100 percent. If you are not improving with every film, then there is something seriously wrong with you. "I see my father today - after 40 years in the industry and having done over a hundred films, he still tries to do better than his last performance. That's what you have to keep doing," he said. The 34-year-old does not shy away from admitting that the failure of a film takes a huge toll on his confidence. " 'Raavan' was one of the toughest films I have ever made. I had really worked hard for it; so did everybody. When a film doesn't work, it really hurts. It's disappointing, it ruins your confidence. It takes a huge toll on an actor and then to come up and face the camera again takes a huge amount of courage and effort," he said. Abhishek also revealed he finds it difficult to swiftly shift from one character to another and he always carries some trait of his previous character to the subsequent one. "I think you put a lot of yourself into a character and you take back a lot. Whatever you take back, somewhere or the other it is used in the next character you are doing. May be in a different form. It's difficult to shift from one character to the other very fast. But it's not insurmountable," he said. All said and done, Abhishek is determined to stay and play a long innings. He has a handful of projects, including "Game", "Dum Maro Dum" and "Players" - all of them will release one after another in 2011.

'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se' Movie Review Posted: 03 Dec 2010 02:23 AM PST Film: "Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se"; Director: Ashutosh Gowariker; Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Sikandar Kher, Vishakha Singh; Rating: **** There's ongoing sense of serenity compounded by a feeling of sincerity and transparency in the cinema of Ashutosh Gowariker. This filmmaker never hides life's most essential truth in cinematic subterfuge. Rather, Gowariker goes the other way. He strips the emotional content of cinema of its accessories and trappings and leaves the screen with just that right amount of drama that does complete justice to the characters without making them a casualty of excessive creative freedom. Celebrate the creative freedom of a fearless and honest cinema. "Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey" (KHJJS) is an inherently dramatic story about a large group of young people who fought an unknown chapter in India's freedom movement, told on screen with a minimum amount of flag-waving bravura. The source material, Manini Chatterjee's novel, is open to an acutely pompous and self-important treatment. But when has Gowariker's cinema ever been a prey to pomposity? If he can make Akbar's court look so cool, casual and muted in spite of its inbuilt flamboyancy, the super-committed sepoys of self-government in KHJJS are not capable of even a second of verbal or visual overstatement. Going to a world that is strongly redolent of historic ramifications, Gowariker pulls the real-life material out of the textbook and transforms it into an eminently engaging story about anti-colonialism. This is certainly not Gowariker's first visit into Colonial India. Who can forget the director's neo-classic "Lagaan" where one villager gathered a whole team of ragged villagers to beat the Brits at their own game. KHJJS is not as playful, lyrical and lush as "Lagaan". This time Gowariker tells his story with brutal straightforwardness, a quality that is a hallmark of this exceptional director's cinema, here more prominently on display than in any of his earlier works. The epic satire of "Lagaan", the grandiosity of "Jodhaa-Akbar" and the transparent nationalism of "Swades" peep out of Gowariker's latest work in measured doses, though never in a way that suggests any calculated attempt to create a pre-given ambience. The setting, Chittagong in Bengal in the 1930s, is created with a fluency, virility and scrupulousness that make us believe in the characters and their mission from the word go. Watching out for those sleeping-dogs of over-statement, the narrative moves across a an artless criss-cross of patriotic plotting without tripping over in anxiety and nervousness. A sense of calm camaraderie prevails even during moments of unsettling bloodshed. This is no one-day mataram. The patriotic zeal never felt more tranquil before. This is history without hysteria. In KHJJS, each one of 70-odd characters seems born into his or her respective parts. Much of supporting cast does what it is expected to. It supports the drama and the tension with restrain and skill. Standing tall in the supporting cast is Sikandar Kher expressing indignance and ire without going over-the-top. Deepika Padukone sheds her pouty movie-siren's image confidently. She gets unexpected competition from debutante Vishakha Singh who seems to get under the skin of her character. But the film finally 'belongs' to Abhishek Bachchan in the way that films become the property of actors who own characters not for a display of histrionic vanity but because they grasp instinctively the world which the character inhabits. Abhishek's empathy with his character is complete and unimpeachable. As Surjya Sen, he conveys a muffled but obstinate idealism. Abhishek's eyes become his window to a world where pain governs the journey to a greater glory. Just as it's impossible to imagine Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black" and "Guzaarish" without Amitabh Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan, or Gowariker's "Swades" without Shah Rukh Khan, what, we wonder, would Surjya Sen be if Abhishek had not played him with such quelled anger, dignity and grace? Or for that matter where in our cinema today would history find a place if Gawariker was not committed to making compelling films on the indelible relationship between the present and the past? On the technical front, Kiran Deohans' cinematography and Nitin Desai's art direction are subtle delicate but evocative. Sohail Sen's music fits in like a glove with the film's theme and mood of restrained revolution. Don't expect the bombastic patriotism of Manoj Kumar's "Kranti" or the tax-exemptible desperate nobility of "Gandhi - My Father". The effectiveness of Gowariker's drama is drawn from the director's determination to keep his drama denuded of exhibitionism. "Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey" is the kind of rare and precious cinema on the theme of idealism, nobility and nationalism that is being progressively pushed out of our cinema by crass boorish comedies. It must be seen not because it retrieves a forgotten chapter from our history, but simply because it's a story so well told you forget it's a true story. The truth of the moment in the cinema of Gowariker is the only truth that matters for the audience. The rest is history.

Jennifer Lopez tries to stop sex tape public release Posted: 03 Dec 2010 02:18 AM PST Singer Jennifer Lopez is facing a legal battle to protect her image from being tarnished by the public release of a sex tape made by her ex-husband Ojai Noa. The 41-year-old singer has taken to the court as she tries to stop Noa and his agent Ed Meyer from selling and marketing videos made during the couple's 11-month marriage. "Jennifer Lopez is riding a scooter while talking to the camera and numerous by-standers, with her private parts in as plain view similar to how Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan have flashed in the past," dailymail.co.uk quoted Meyer as saying. Meyer claimed that this was just one among several such tapes of the singer. "This is among other nudity on her part in the 21 hours of home movies that we have so far recovered," he added. Lopez has however refused to let these tapes go public, saying they are private, personal and claiming that Noa and filmmaker Meyer are violating an injunction which blocks the release of the videos.

Rahul Mahajan to participate in 'Jhalak Dikhlaja 4' Posted: 03 Dec 2010 02:09 AM PST After getting married on a TV show, Rahul Mahajan may soon put on his dancing shoes for Sony TV's dance reality show "Jhalak Dikkhla Jaa 4". Rahul, who is becoming popular on the small screen through his presence on reality shows, has been approached to take part in the show, but he is yet to confirm his participation, informs a source. Earlier, Rahul, son of late Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pramod Mahajan, had featured in "Bigg Boss" and conducted his own 'swayamvar' through Imagine TV's "Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega", apart from being a judge on comedy show "Chhote Miyan". "Jhalak Dikkhla Jaa 4", set to begin Dec 12, features Madhuri Dixit, Malaika Arora Khan and Remo D'Souza as judges. The line-up of contestants on the upcoming season is rumoured to be dominated by a lot of TV actors. Item girl Yana Gupta, actors Shekhar Suman and Renuka Shahane too are said to be participating this time.

Vidya Balan to star in 'Kahani', a woman-oriented thriller Posted: 03 Dec 2010 02:00 AM PST Director Sujoy Ghosh, who has roped in Vidya Balan for his forthcoming film "Kahani", believes the actress can indentify good scripts. "What I like about Vidya is that she is dead fussy, but in a good way. She has an uncanny sense about scripts," Ghosh said in a statement. Ghosh is justified in his belief - with roles like a struggling mother of a progeria patient in "Paa" to a brutally seductive rural woman in "Ishqiya", she has always treaded different path. Not only that, her next release "No One Killed Jessica", based on the real life incident of model Jessica Lal's murder, will see her playing Sabrina Lal, who fought tooth and nail to get justice for her sister. Set in Kolkata, Ghosh's "Kahani" is a woman-oriented thriller. "Much like Hrithik Roshan, Vidya is quite a risk taker. She loves getting out of her comfort zone and pushing herself with every single film. She loves experimenting and she is the kind of actress who can pulls off every role. She is on a high as her films are critically acclaimed and commercially successful as well," said an industry source.

Bollywood Diva Madhuri Dixit joins Twitter Posted: 03 Dec 2010 01:55 AM PST Dancing diva Madhuri Dixit is the latest Bollywood star to join micro-blogging site Twitter. She recieved a warm welcome from her fans and has earned over 11,500 followers. "For all of my fans, finally I have joined Twitter. Love, Madhuri," she posted in her first tweet. The actress, currently in India to judge dance reality show "Jhalak Dikkhla Jaa 4", joined the micro-blogging site Nov 27. Much before joining the site, Madhuri had said: "If I am on Twitter and Facebook, I will keep in touch with all my co-stars and old friends from Bollywood." Many Bollywood celebrities have also extended a warm welcome to the 43-year-old. Superstar Hrithik Roshan posted: "People!!! Let's welcome the one and only MadhuriDixit! Twitter just turned beautiful. Welcome maam! Love and respect!" Others too are thrilled with the new joinee. "I'm an ardent admirer of this lady! Her smile says to hell with darkness, I bring light! Madhuri Dixit! Big SHOUTOUT," posted Diya Mirza, while Sophie Chaudhary said: "Thrilled to bits! Time to welcome one of the best and most beautiful actresses of our time!" Jewellery designer Farah Khan Ali said: "Please welcome my friend and actor par excellence Madhuri Dixit on Twitter. Welcome my dear Madhuri to a mad world of tweeting, expressing, loving and laughter." Jewellery designer Maheep Kapoor posted: "Wow Madhuri Dixit is on Twitter! That's HUGE...as you can guess I'm a massive die hard fan!"

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