John Abraham’s eight-packs to beat Aamir’s six-packs from Ghajini. So, now we know why John’s been roaming around looking like a bodyguard! John is playing a cop in the film Kha Kha Kha…haha the name is hilarious…literally translated in Hindi…eat eat eat! While looking up filmi news, we also read that John’s dad is really ill. We really hope that John’s dad gets better soon, poor Johnny boy must be going through such a hard time.

Katrina aur Deepika ki dosti…taaliyaan! Well, they’ll be seen in Housefull 2 but it’s not confirmed yet. What is confirmed, however, is that John Abraham will be in the film…we did like Akshay and John in Garam Masala so let’s hope this one’s good too.

Remember, we had interviewed Shirish Kunder while back, well his next film Joker will star Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha. This movie will be the first ever 3-D movie made in filmistan…yay for Shirish!!!

In this interview Shirish talked about his various projects, the ones in the works, on hold due to financial issues and of course the one in the past. His experience in the film industry so far, basically some really good Filmi fun! And of course, you’ll notice the format of the interview…ab waqt ke saath toh chalna padta hi hai but it took a while to figure out how to embed the files, for some reason all the codes out there weren’t working, but it finally worked and now you get to be a little more filmi!

We’ve been hearing a lot about your upcoming films – Tees Maar Khan, Joker, Alien Sahib, and Udan Patola – can you give us a little tidbit about each one.

Here’s what he said

Discusses why he changed the name to Alien Sabhib form Udan Patola and further talks about Alien Sahib.

Here’s what he said

Talks about another film in the works under ‘Three’s Company’ with Salman Khan, an action film. They will start shooting for this film once completing Alien Sahib. He also discusses Joker.

Here’s what he said

Please tell us about your experience with Jaan-E-Mann.

Here’s what he said

What’s your favorite thing about Jaan-E-Mann, favorite memory about making that movie?

Here’s what he said

What made you change your paths so drastically, from electronics engineer to writer/director? Also, what advice would he give to anyone interested in working in ‘Bollywood?’ (We know, we know…it’s Filmistan.)

Here’s what he said

What kind of challenges do you face in your job?

Here’s what he said

What’s the best thing about your job?

Here’s what he said

How do you start the process of writing a script? Do you first have the characters in mind or the story?

Here’s what he said

Here’s what he said

And lastly, our “rapid fire” round…the favorites!

Pastime: Watching movies!
Food: I’m not a foodie, I’ll eat basically anything….protein shakes!
Movie: Man on the Moon by Milos Forman.
Filmmaker: James Cameron
Book: Mahabharat
Song: Chayyia Chayyia from Dil Se
City: New York

And lastly. . . Shirish close your eyes and tell us your favorite thing to do in Mumbai. If it were a Sunday morning, where would you take us?

Hmmm….haven’t thought of that yet. I’d have to look at your pictures first.

Jasmine: You would have to look at our pictures?
Shirish: Yeah, yeah…(laughs)
Jasmine: We’re your Facebook and Twitter friends. (laughs) We’ll say ‘hi’ on there and than you’ll know what we look like.
Shirish: I’ll take you wherever you guys want to go yaar. (laughs)

There was a lot of laughing going on at this point…that’s why we transcribed this part of the interview, it’s kind of hard to hear over all that laughing.

Sona: What do you do on Sunday mornings?
Shirish: I’m mostly working…(laughs)
Shirish: I guess you’ll take us to your workplace than…

More laughing

Shirish: Yeah yeah, I’ll take you to my workplace…that’s what I do, I just wake up and go to work (laughing)!

Release Date: January 8, 2010
Director: Mudassar Aziz
Cast: Johny Lever, Fardeen Khan, Sushmita Sen, Tara Sharma
We’ve really missed Sushmita so this one is a must-watch for us. However, the promos of the film dont’ look too promising but it might just surprise all of us.

Release Date: January 29, 2010
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Mohnish Behl, Neetu Chandra, Ritesh Deshmukh, Rajat Kapoor, Alok Nath, Gul Panag, Paresh Rawal, Simone Singh, Rajpal Yadav
It’s directed by RGV, so it can either suck or be awesome…we’re hoping it’s going to be awesome! Mr. B’s in it…Ritesh, who’s always good in every movie and it has huge list of brilliant supporting actors such as Paresh Rawal, Rajat Kapoor, Neetu Chandra, Gul Panag, Rajpal Yadav and many more.

Release Date: February 12, 2010
Director: Karan Johar
Cast: Kajol, Shahrukh Khan, Jimmy Shergill
Our blog started with a post about this movie and we’ve written about this film so many times…oh and don’t forget we almost got on the production team for MNIK’s San Francisco schedule! Even though we’re jinxed in every way possible when it comes to this movie, we’ll still watch it in the theater, now that the journey is about to come full circle. Uhh plus…Kajol and Shahrukh together again!

Release Date: February 2010
Director: Pooja Bhatt
Cast: Mona Laizza, Himesh Reshammiya, Amrita Singh
Really not a film we’d put in our “waiting” category because of a certain Mr. Reshammiya, but this one’s directed by Pooja Bhatt! We loved Pooja Bhatt’s “Paap” and have seen it too many times…it’s such a visual delight ;)

Release Date: May 28, 2010
Director: Prakash Jha
Cast: Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgan, Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Manoj Bajpai, Arjun Rampal, Naseruddin Shah
Just look at the cast and you’ll see why we’re dying to watch this movie…that’s hardcore people! Nana’s back! The story also sound so interesting plus can’t wait to hear more Hindi dialogues from Katrina…

Other movies that we are looking forward to in the upcoming year are ‘Delhi Belly’ because it’s an Aamir Khan production, he always makes an excellent ‘product.’ ‘Hook Ya Crook’ because John is in it, but it’s already been delayed and that has us worried…just look up ‘Aashayein’ and you’ll see why. ‘Karthik Calling Karthik’ because of Farhan. ‘Ayesha’ because Sonam and Abhay – that’s just cute! More reasons needed? Amazing clothes worn by Sonam and c’mon it’s Abhay Deol, he’s never done a bad film…okay lets not jinx that. ‘I Hate Love Stories’ because again we love Sonam and she’s opposite Imran Khan…plus the title is intriguing. ‘Anjana Anjani’ because really excited to see Ranbir and Priyanka together! ‘Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai’ is on this list only and only because of Lara, otherwise it looks like another piece of garbage. Okay our fellow Filmistanis…that’s enough for today! Tata!

Someone asked Delhi police to file a criminal case against John Abraham for posing “allegedly” nude in a photograph published in a daily. What the hell is allegedly?! Either he was nude or he wasn’t! And we wouldn’t mind figuring it out for them.

Shiney Ahuja’s bail was denied.

Katrina Kaif plays a nerd in her upcoming film “Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani.” We’re really looking forward to this one…we want to see how they pull this one off, isn’t Katrina too pretty to play a nerd?

Sonam Kapoor is attending workshops to prepare for her role in “Ayesha.” Sonam and her co-star Abhay Deol are attending workshops for voice modulation to get inontation and diction right.

Suzie Harman will be styling John Abraham in his upcoming film “1-800-Love.” Harman, who dressed up Gerard Butler in Guy Ritchie’s 2008 blockbuster RocknRolla. Hiring this stylist is supposed to triple to movie budget! Now, we’re thinking why spend so much money on costumes for a movie that is about toll-free numbers, isn’t most of the movie supposed to be about people talking on the phone?

Don’t read the last three-four paragraphs if you haven’t watched the movie, unless you want to know what happens in the end!

New York starts with Omar (Neil Nitin Mukesh) getting arrested for having weapons in his cab. Than there’s a flashback…nahin!! (Hindi movies really need to stop using this technique already.)

In 1999, Omar is a new student at New York University from Delhi. There he meets two very angrezified Indians – Sam (John Abraham) and Maya (Katrian Kaif). But it’s not a story about a love-triange, although that happens, it’s about the after effects of September 11, 2001. When their lives changed and Omar lost his love…

It seemed as if Aditya Chopra and Kabir Khan had a fight which resulted in a compromise, New York. Before we delve further into that, we’d like to mention…WTH?! Adi wrote this movie…what? Huh? You can sense Adi in some parts of the movie, but if you were to tell us that Aditya Chopra alone wrote the story of this movie, it’s not hard to be shocked. The guy who wrote ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi,’ wrote ‘New York.’ Maybe that’s why the film seems like a compromise and one can’t help but remember ‘Khuda Ke Liye’ when watching this movie.

And just like ‘Khuda Ke Liye’ we felt that the movie wasn’t about 9/11. Many people are saying, it’s too late to join the 9/11 bandwagon. Yes the movie does use it as a backdrop, but it could’ve been any major terrorist act. The movie is based seven-eight years after 9/11 and it’s about what happened to people and how they dealt with things if they were a causality of that incident. We felt that this film was about personal experiences and how people cope with something that shakes up their lives. Now the performances.

Katrina Kaif can act! WOW! She should really win you over, especially after the debacle of a performance in Race. John was amazing when he’s in the detention center, it was really moving. Yes we’re biased, but he will impress you in those scenes. But he was okay in the first half and his accent was a bit irritating because Katrina had it down (naturally). He should’ve worked on it more, it didn’t sound American at all, considering his character had been living there since he was four.

Neil was good…if you look carefully at his expressions sometimes, it’s not hard calling him brilliant. But, he did get annoying in certain scenes, and he said ‘sir’ so many times. Do we even need to say anything about Irrfan Khan…he did get the best dialogues, quip quip quip. The crowd really loved them and laughed at all the right places. The dialogues were really good, snarky at times (which we liked), Sundeep Srivastava did an amazing job.

Technically, it’s a great product, very polished…the cinematography, Aseem Mishra, is good – really liked that the camera was looking up in the scene when the SWAT team gets out of their truck right before telling Neil to get out of his cab. The scenes of John in the detention center are also really well shot. Also liked the use warm shades vs. cool shades to differentiate between emotions. Editing is competent.

Now, on to the rest. When we say it seemed like Adi and Kabir had a fight, we are talking about the difference in the first half and second half. It was very Yash Raj in Neil’s flashback, which pretty much takes the first half. And it’s Kabir Khan in the second half…expect it’s too simple or too complex…we can’t decide. But you could take it either way, it could be good or bad. The happy college days, exaggerated yes, showed how good life was compared to what the characters are facing now. Or you could be irritated because you were expecting Kabir Khan and you got Aditya Chopra. We didn’t mind too much because going in we knew in the end it’s a YRF film and we knew it was going to be commercial product, so the people who were expecting some intense terrorist thriller…not to be too harsh, but that’s just stupid!

We can spend pages analyzing it and while it may seem as if we really loved the movie, there was something missing. The end pissed us off! First of all, stop the preaching, we get what you’re trying to show…especially when Roshan made that comment about the boy (he is super adorable) playing in a team in spite of being Muslim and his father being a terrorist. Yeah yeah it makes sense, but stop saying it, just show the film and we’ll figure it out ourselves.

Also, it is so stupid that Maya got killed…she wasn’t the terrorist, why they hell did they shoot her? They’re supposed to be professionals, don’t they know how to aim?! And the characters have so much gray, but the US government is made out to be too much of a caricature, too black and white.

Anyhow, the movie was less than satisfactory. It’s definitely well-acted, directed…looks good. But the story wasn’t good enough, but at least Adi experimented. He deserves kudos for that, but dude make DDLJ and Bachna Ae Haseeno…we’ll take a romantic comedy from you any day!

Okay so these pictures are actually not new. They are from a photo shoot he did for GQ at least a few months ago, but the reason they’re posted is…they’re pictures of John, looking yummmazing no less! Really…that’s the reason. And since New York is coming out tomorrow (YEHH!!), we thought we should give you a little incentive as to why you should go watch the movie. (If you’re into girls than google Katrina)

This is the first big release after that strike, it feels like a drought has ended! ” “Paying Guests,” “Let’s Dance,” “Raftaar,” “Kal Kissne Dekha,” “Zor Lagaa Ke… Haiya!” “Team – The Force” and “99″ have already released, but these movies are for our DVD players jaani!

If we had the money, we would go to the theater to go watch pretty much every Hindi movie that releases. But that’s just not possible at this time, so there are only a few reasons that take us to the theater, five dollar Tuesdays are one of them and John Abraham (there are more but let’s stay on topic). And for a John movie, we’re willing to sacrifice a couple more bucks and watch it on the first Friday!

There’s Kabir Khan. While ‘Kabul Express’ wasn’t a huge hit, we enjoyed it (it seems quite a few flops end up on our most favorite movies of all time list :JBJ, Home Delivery, Rules…Pyar Ka Superhit Formula among others). We’re curious to see him pull off a more masala entertainer. Than there’s Neil ‘Johnny Gaddar’ Mukesh and Katrina…let’s just hope she can impress us, it’s been a while since Namastey London.

But really, apart from John, most of all we’re looking forward and hoping and praying that Yash Raj Films regains its old glory. It’s been a while since there was a hit/movie we really loved from YRF. Let’s see what ‘New York’ holds…and this time we are for sure writing a review (so lazy about those)! Bhagwan ki kasam!

Mohit Suri, a Bhatt camp director whose last film was “Raaz – The Mystery Continues,” plans to make a film about the recent attacks on Indian students in Australia.

What’s bad for Hollywood is turning out to be good news for Filmistan. Special effects for movies is the newest field which saw growth in outsourcing to India from Hollywood due to the current economic situation in the U.S.

Hamara Johnny boy is in the news for going all method actor on us again! First it was “Aashayein” and now “New York.” Excerpt from the interview, “Says a close friend, “John researched rigorously on Islam and its various aspects. His character in New York is detained wrongly for terrorism. John based his character on three such real life Muslims taken into custody in the US for wrongs they hadn’t committed. John and his director Kabir Khan amalgamated the case of three such unfortunate people to create John’s character. He actually lived breathed slept and wept like someone who had been wrongly ostracized.”

Someone will hopefully not cry on their birthday this year…Oh the drama!
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Picture courtesy: Asian Forums

Here’s what’s coming to a theater near you and some more films that we’re looking forward to!

June 26, 2009: New York starring John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Irrfan Khan, Neil Nitin Mukesh

July 10, 2009: Kambakkth Ishq starring Kareena Kapoor and Akshay Kumar

July 31, 2009: Love Aaj Kal starring Rishi Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Neetu Singh

August 14, 2009: Kaminey starring Priyanka Chopra and Shahid Kapoor

Don’t be fooled by the date on the poster, Aladdin will be competing with Kaminey on August 14, 2009: Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Juhi Chawla, Hritesh Deshmukh, Sanjay Dutt

That’s as far as we’ll go for now, but there is much more filmi masala coming your way that’s sure to blow our and your bheja into a million little happy pieces!

“How terrible! That’s the second time he’s been hurt on this shoot. He must be in pain and this will majorly hold up his upcoming films and the promotions for ‘New York’. First the flu, and now this! John’s going through a bad patch!! If you have read his column today, you will know how excited he sounded about the workshop for Abbas’ film, and about “New York”. Wonder what happens to these plans now? Get well soon John, you have lots to do.” – SShukla

Now onto other more lighter news -

Zoya Akhtar plans her second film and rumor has it that she’ll be casting Ranbir Kapoor and Imran Khan in the leading roles…now that’s what you call casting!

Saif and Vivek were almost handcuffed in New York while shooting for their film “Qurbann.”

Karan Johar’s birthday party was a good day to forget all enmity, Shahrukh apologized to Aishwarya and apparently the two are now best friends.

Arjun to play the husband to Kareena and Kajol in Karan Johar’s ‘Stepmom’!
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John’s site

Does that mean we’ll see Johnny Boy on the screen soon, our long wait for “New York” might come to an end now…what could be better!

There were rumors for the millionth time that Katrina and Salman had split up but to make that even more interesting, the media is linking Katrina with John…well no surprises there since their film “New York” is almost set for release! Oh and the rumors were obviously denied by Katrina.

Only YSL or Christian Louboutin footwear for Kareena. Well, all we can say is that someone’s very fortunate and when will we buy our first pair of boutins?!

Ash and Vivek talked for 10 minutes at Karan Johar’s birthday bash.