All SET to pad up

Cricket is returning to SET Max, after a long gap and in a big way. The channel would have two cricket events back to back — both starring India — starting end-August and spanning almost the whole of September. First up is the Videocon Cup Super Challenge in Amsterdam, Holland. The tournament featuring India, Pakistan and Australia would have four matches between August 21 and 28.

Interactivity would be one of the key broadcast drivers for Videocon Cup. Voice of India would put four ‘debatable’ questions to viewers who can then SMS their choice (example: Should Sourav have fielded instead of batting on winning the toss?). The responses would be further broken down zone-wise. Classic Catches would also follow the same power-to-the-people model. As far as the technical add-ons go, Hawk Eye returns with deliveries and dismissals simulated through computer graphics.

The talking heads for Holland Cup: Sanjay Manjrekar, Barry Richards, Rameez Raja, Michael Slater and Arun Lal. Anchoring the show would be Max staple Charu Sharma. Mandira Bedi — sad to say, boys and girls — would be missing in action. She’ll be back for the big one — the Champions Trophy in England between September 10 and 26, featuring 11 countries. Though plans are under wraps for the moment, Extraaa Innings would once again occupy a prime chunk of the coverage.

“There would be two hours of the show before the match, 45 minutes in between and one hour after the match,” says Tushar Shah, VP marketing & commercial for SET Max.

Videocon (or Holland) Cup promotions are in full swing with an outdoor campaign that spans 14 cities, 2.5 lakh sq ft outdoor space and contests through mobile vans in 52 cities. Spread over 20 days, 100 television spots across the network are also being aired from August 6.

Just Julia

Julia Roberts: Busy bee

You can never really have enough of Julia Roberts, can you? Whenever there’s Pretty Woman or Notting Hill being shown on the small screen, the drawing room invariably fills up. And now, there’s another addition to the just Julia fare.

Director P.J. Hogan’s heart-warming romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding has got into the loop on the small screen. It’s on HBO next, on Tuesday, at 6.45 pm. The film finds Julia determined to go all the way to get her man (Dermot Mulroney) from the captivating clutches of Cameron Diaz, no less. Giving her some useful tips in this mission is her very charming and very gay friend Rupert Everett.

Julia, meanwhile, isn’t just content appearing in front of the camera. She has just picked up the mantle of bringing the extremely popular American Girl dolls to life. She is the executive producer of Samantha: An American Girl Holiday, Warner Brothers’ first made-for-TV movie, to premiere in the US on November 23. Set in 1904, the film stars AnnaSophia Robb, 10, as the title character and the veteran Mia Farrow as her grandmother.

But breathe easy, you won’t lose sight of Julia just yet — she also has two big screen releases coming up. There is the Mike Nichols film Closer alongside Jude Law and Natalie Portman, a story of two couples’ lives getting entangled together.

And then of course there’s the big Steven Soderbergh film Ocean’s Twelve, where George Clooney with re-ignited flame Tess, played by Julia, and his band of thieves and conmen team up for three more huge heists. Slated to release in December, the George-Julia pair is really as hot as it gets.

Welcome back

Shrek 2: Green friend

His skin tan may be green. He may not look all that attractive. But dear ol’ Shrek surely deserves a grand welcome to the city. And that too when he is visiting all of us for the second time in three years.

Yes, Shrek 2 is the big buzzword in town with the Independence Day-eve premiere at INOX Forum turning out to be a roaring success.

To make the premiere all the more special, the Elgin Road multiplex was decked up in green balloons and Shrek cutouts and the hordes of kids present just loved it. The sequel to the hugely popular 2001 animated film that won the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature will formally release on Friday (August 20) at the multiplex and other theatres.

Another big attraction for the little ones at the Saturday premiere was the special Tailing the Donkey game corner where they could compete with one another to win exclusive Shrek 2 posters. The second preview screening at INOX City Centre also met with a good response as kids got Shrek 2 tattoos done and gorged on popcorn from special Shrek 2 cones.

All those of you who weren’t present on these two days will have to wait for just a couple of days more. And Shrek 2 is tipped to open real big — what with the international opening weekend of the film fetching $108 million this May, second only to Spider-Man which had collected $114.8 million.

Village on-line

These days, spooky films come with spooky websites. And you can’t get spookier than M. Night Shyamalan — doesn’t matter if he is facing a couple of lawsuits for supposedly lifting script ideas from other sources. Once you are inside the web world of The Village, it’s really difficult to come out of it.

The concept of interactivity takes on different dimensions, especially with the active desktop that you can download from the website. Once installed, it allows you to access more than 12 wallpapers of The Village at the click of a mouse.

Then there’s this special desktop wallpaper where the background setting changes with the time of the day. So you have a really dark skyline when you are on your computer at night and bright sunshine when you switch your machine on in the morning. Adding A to the V, there are eerie sounds to heighten the visual experience.

With sixth sense on your side, can Net gain be far behind?