Pics: What's been happening in tinseltown

All the pretty women around town and outdoors.

Hollywood Babe: Freida Pinto is going places. Here she is posing as a 50s Hollywood star for Vanity Fair. The red bikini and shoes and the yellow knickers are very cute. The globe probably represents the world at her feet. Way to go, girl!


Eternal Diva: We absolutely love Hema Malini's golden polka dots saree. It is so classy and rich. And she is as beautiful as ever.


Black Beauty: Jiah finally gets her LBD right at a part by Shane and Falguni Peacock. The red lipstick is perfect too.


Gorgeous Judge: Juhi is going to judge Jhalak Dikhla Jaa 3. The lady and her clothes get better with each passing day. The maroon, turquoise, gold and brocade combination is luxurious and beautiful, just like Juhi


Same-Same: Eesha Koppikhar has carried the same ugly bag to two events in two days. She first carried to a hair exhibition followed by a movie screening the next day. Could someone tell her to get rid of it ASAP?

Pics: What's been happening in tinseltown

Does Billu spell bad luck? Sharman is giving away 1 crore and feast your eyes on Deepika, Madhuri and Sonam.

Billu Bad Idea? Astro-numerologist Bhavikk Sangghvi predicts that the movie will not do well.

"Originally the title of 'Billu Barber' added up to No.29 (2 ) which is also not a positive number but it is one of SRK's best numbers & would have done some damage control. But by now just calling the film 'Billu' is going to 'cut' down the film's prospects ( pun unintended ) further!. 'Billu' now adds up to No.15 (6). Generally, No.6 is harmless but the octave 15 of No.6 does not have a lasting effect & is often bad for people who are born on dates 4 & 8. The producer of the film Gauri Khan, is a No.8 (8th Oct.). Also No.6 represents Venus – the planet of love, peace, harmony etc. To call 'Billu' - a love story would be inappropriate," says Bhavikk

Mad about You: Madhuri looks dazzling in an elegant saree at a hair and make up event in Bandra


Pretty Face: Eesha Koppikhar at another hair event with children from the National Association for the Blind


Leggy Beauty: Sonam Kapoor looks sophisticated in her high waited pants, soft curls and purple clutch at the Russian Film Festival


Poker Face: That is Sharman's new show on Real Channel where he will give away 1 crore rupees


The Fast and the Gorgeous: Deepika arrives in a racing car at an MTV Force India event

First Look - Hello

Celebrities hip hop with the 'King of Hip Hop' - 50 Cent

Smirnoff Experience returns to capture Mumbai's music lovers with an incomparable and memorable performance by Curtis James Jackson III aka 50 Cent at the 50 CENT LIVE IN CONCERT at MMRDA Grounds, Mumbai.

Known as the 'King of Hip Hop' and a showman par excellence, 50 Cent along with the G Unit held the crowd spellbound with his performance.

Hip Hoping at the Concert were celebrities like the glamorous Priyanka Chopra, Aditi Govitrikar, Amrita Arora, Mailaka Arora Khan, Isha Koppikar, Shekar Kapur, Suchitra Pillai, Arjun Rampal with wife Meher Jesse, DJ Aqeel, Niharika Khan, Randeep Hooda, Shekar Suman, Javed Jaffery, Mukul Dev, Minisha Lamba, Nina Manuel, Shaad Ali and many more.

'Curtis' continues 50 Cent's phenomenal rise. This superstar rapper's bag of honours includes 11 Grammy nominations from Best New Artist to Best Rap Album for each of his first two efforts, an amazing streak of three consecutive no. 1 hits on the R&B / Hip Hop, and Pop charts ("In Da Club," "21 Questions," and "Candy Shop,") and three top three singles ("P.I.M.P.," "Just A Lil' Bit," and "Disco Inferno").

Asif Adil, Managing Director, Diageo India, says, "Smirnoff Experience has always been a trendsetter and this time around; Smirnoff Experience brings to India 50 Cent � the 'Reigning King of Hip Hop'. When it comes to hip hop, it doesn't get any bigger than 50 Cent and as always Smirnoff wants its consumers to experience the very best!"

With its global reach Smirnoff and the Smirnoff Experience recognizes original music and entertainment as the universal element for the most memorable and fun night outs. It promotes rising stars and provides its patrons with the best artists on the dance music circuit which makes Smirnoff events a hot favourite the world over.

Bollywood Trade News Network

Ishaa Koppikar is set to play the role of a courtesan

After Ash playing Umrao Jaan, Ishaa Koppikar is set to play the role of a courtesan in Kalpana Lajmi’s next. The film is yet untitled but is based on a popular novel Sanyasi Aur Sundari set in the Ashoka era. According to Lajmi, the essence of the film is not dance but the position of women in the society in those times. She adds that the courtesans in those days where not treated prostitutes. Instead they were intellectually bright and artistic, getting more respect than a Maharani.

The film will be shot in one schedule in April next year. Lajmi is currently hunting for the right locations in Bikaner. She says that she has a tight budget and cannot afford to have lavish sets. Lajmi is however highly impressed by Ishaa. She says that Ishaa is very intelligent and the kind of actor who surrenders completely to the director which happens rarely these days. Ishaa on the other hand is not at all affected looking at Umrao Jaan’s fate at the Box Office. She says that she is happy trying different roles that will prove her versatility.

Kalpana Lajmi’s Chingaari starring Sushmita Sen released early this year. The film however was in news mainly due to the issues between the director and the actors rather than its content.

Shahrukh is a great guy and a selfless actor, Ishaa

Praises galore for SRK! No it's not Kareena Kapoor...This time around its Ishaa Koppikar who seems smitten by 'The Baadshah of Bollywood'- Shahrukh Khan.

Koppikar is completely in awe of King Khan after working with him in DON. The damsel is still reeling from the DON hangover. "I'm elated. DON has truly been an entertaining and fulfilling experience. Shahrukh is a great guy and a selfless actor. He's not just concerned with his performance but he's bothered about everyone on sets. He has a great sense of humour and is very young at heart. Even Farhan Akhtar is full of life," says an ecstatic Ishaa.

So here's another Shahrukh Khan fan in his already huge repertoire of admirers!

Ishaa has an interesting line up of upcoming films including SALAAM-E-ISHQ, SHABRI and DARLING.

DON - The Chase Begins Again

FILM: Don
DIRECTOR: Farhan Akhtar
ACTORS: Shah Rukh Khan, Boman Irani, Priyanka Chopra

Growing up in a video generation that I did, with a VCR and battered VHS tapes for a lone source of entertainment, there were two movies that I got to watch in pieces and bits over quite a few years. One was Gandhi. The other, curiously enough, Chandra Barot's Don: both great films in their own right.

But that doesn't entirely explain my compulsive behaviour. It's just that when every video rented from the local library was a beat-up, pirated copy, the two 'original' cassettes we had at home served as head-cleaners. Every time it became impossible to tell anything on the TV screen, we'd play one of the two videos for a few minutes, clean up the junk inside the player, pamper and prepare the machine for the scrap we were to insert again.

The Don video, I clearly remember, was always cued to the same scene, the most powerful one: The real Don is already dead; Vijay, a look-alike moll, who poses as Don in the Mafiosi group, has lost his mentor, the Interpol cop who'd planted him without anyone's knowledge. The fake Don finds himself behind bars trying to explain his true identity to policemen on the other side of the lock-up. The police don't believe him. His mates, gang members standing beside, do: It's a giveaway; they could never imagine a vulnerable, nervous Don, no matter what. You can sense the chilling predicament of a protagonist, who, by a cruel accident of circumstances, can neither stay in, nor get out.

The same sequence takes place in this version. Somehow, the simple, emotional connect gets lost in the slickness of moments, unlike Akhtar's previous, superior works (Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya). That may be a key to differentiate between the first and the latest Don. The former was a character-driven, intimate film, albeit a fairly slick thriller, mostly for its screenplay. The latter is a most updated Indian film of the action genre that always calculably concentrates on the new twists, and the turning points, both of which mostly seem cleverer than contrived; ably fitting pieces, the known characters, into a new domino (Boman Irani's studiedly calm DCP D'Silva who enrolls Shah Rukh's Vijay as the police informer; Priyanka Chopra's robust Roma, who is Vijay's girlfriend; Arjun Rampal's fairly pointless Jasjit, who needs to get even with DCP D'Silva…)

The story of Don itself is merely a plot device; a valid premise for the polish; hearty reason for adapting Hollywood's thriller aesthetics; an efficient explanation for the escapism. It helps the 'redux' find a grammar of its own, with an existing strong narrative to support it — an infinitely more intelligent and entertaining screen to watch, than a bunch of bikers always zooming off with unexplained loot that nobody knows where they cart off.

Only rarely do you just revel in, rely on, or resent certain aspects, for reminiscences of the Don you know. The first is when the tracks 'Khaike Paan' or 'Yeh Mera Dil' play out purely as passé remixes: a different scale, key or tempo to the numbers could've helped us see a new side to the immortal songs.

The second of course concerns the leading man. In a 16-year film career, I doubt, he has adorned as stylized a screen image, or looked better. The trouble with having Amitabh Bachchan as the predecessor to the particular role though is matching up to Bachchan's natural ease at walking in both as an earthy bumpkin, and a smooth sophisticate. Shah Rukh's goofy, rustic Vijay, by no means, disappoints, which is a surprise. In fact he deserved more screen-time.

The film itself is truly a spirited work of a '70s movie-enthusiast (the villain's redesigned den, or the shiny disco-ball appear, though only once in a while); a novel idea, when official remakes as tributes have usually been considered the privilege of an old 'classic' that Don isn't. Now I'm only wary of me-too movie-manufacturers who seem to have found a new excuse to deliver knock-offs under the garb of 'reinterpretation' of films they've seen and loved, and so we must see again. Let's just put it this way: As adequate and astounding an echo it may be, Akhtar's film can at best hope to share its space, a rack or two lower in history, to an original voice. Let this be an ample aberration, and not a norm. We usually pay to watch films we haven't seen.

Don's girlfriend ? Anita

That Ishaa Koppikar's character (Anita) in the new DON was not in the original version happens to be the popular conception, or should we say, misconception in people's minds. There was talk that Ishaa's character is a new introduction. But we hear that Ishaa's character in the modern DON was indeed present in the original DON as well but went unnoticed because it was a very insignificant one. Director Farhan Akhtar subsequently rewrote and increased it.

When asked, Farhan confirmed the question saying, 'There's a character in the original, which is the character of Don's girlfriend. She had a very minor part in the film; in fact she has barely two scenes and is standing on the side in one of the songs looking jealous. But Ishaa's character in the new version has been substantially developed and when you watch the film, you'll find out yourself!'

We can't wait, as DON releases in the UK on 19th October, a day earlier than the rest of the world.

It's Ishaa Koppikar's birthday today!

The 'Khallas' babe Ishaa Koppikar gets a year older today but she is enthusiastically looking forward to her life and wants to live in the present, reports a tabloid. Ishaa has a fetish for watches and her parents have gifted her a Tag Heuer watch. She prefers designer watches to jewellery, she informed the tabloid.

Her parents and friends have planned a surprise birthday party for her. On the professional front, she has 3 films lined up, where she'll be seen in 3 different roles.

She sports a glamourous look in DON, a de-glam look in SHABRI and a middle class housewife in DARLING. But as of now it's the release of DON that she's eagerly awaiting since her character (Anita) is the only addition to the film. It seems like the film will be a turning point in her career. Nonetheless even her de-glam role as a gangster in SHABRI will apparently shock the masses.

Bollywood Buzz wishes her loads of happiness and success today and in the years to come!