Hi jinks

Action is what you expect when Akshay Kumar is on stage. And the Khiladi No. 1 did not disappoint on that score at a promotional for his upcoming film Tees Maar Khan (TMK) at the Zee Rishtey Awards 2010. The audience at the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai watched in fascination as a lithe Kumar — who’s known to do his own stunts — jumped off the stage and caught a rope to catapult himself 1,000 metres high in the air. Waving to the gaping audience, he circled overhead twice, and then mysteriously vanished into thin air. Whew! One only hopes that such turbo-charged hi jinks match TMK’s box office returns.

Real Avatar

You watched James Cameron’s Avatar. Now it’s time to see a real life Avatar story. Mine: Story of a Sacred Mountain — a film on the struggle of the Dongria Kondh tribe in Orissa to save their land — has won the award for Best Short in the category of International Human Rights at the Artivist Film Festival in Hollywood. Made by Survival International, an NGO, the film is the result of an intense campaign against mining giant Vedanta, which planned to start a bauxite mine in Orissa’s Nyamgiri Hills and could have posed a serious threat to the tribe’s habitat. The documentary, which is narrated by British actress and activist, Joanna Lumley, even drew the attention of director James Cameron and the tribe is now known as the “real Avatar tribe”!

Comic turn

Sometimes less is more. At least, Akshaye Khanna, the son of yesteryear hunk Vinod Khanna, certainly seems to think so. Khanna Junior has decided that since he has two big releases this year — No Problem and Tees Maar Khan — he will not sign on any more films until the fate of his current ones are decided. Of course, going by the early reviews of No Problem, it may not exactly have set the box office on fire. That said, both movies will be important for Khanna as the so-called “serious” actor has essayed comic roles in them. “If you look at some of the big hits in the last few years, they have mostly been comedy films. This is one reason I am also doing comedy,” he says. Smart move.

Talk time

Guess who’s the real Bollywood Badshah? Shah Rukh Khan, did you say? Nah. Today, that title can safely be claimed by none other than Karan Johar — the man whose offer none can refuse. The offer of coffee and some gup shup, that is. The producer-director-talk show host, now back with the third season of Koffee with Karan, has got all the big ticket stars to come to his show, wag their tongues, and generate enough controversy to keep the TRPs sizzling. So if he ensured that Bollywood hottie Ranbir Kapoor’s sex drive was discussed on national television, he has also raked up the delicious catfight between Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra. And we now hear that he’ll soon have the three Khans — Aamir, Shah Rukh and Salman — to come and add some further spice to his nice show. Keep it up, Karan!

Cool Cal

It seems some do still fall in love with Calcutta. Vishwajeet Pradhan, who played the role of a politician who lives to tell the tale in Ram Gopal Varma’s blood and gore drama RaktaCharitra, was in the city recently to shoot for director Shounak Dutta’s intriguingly named Bengali film, M. Com Chowmein. Pradhan, who plays a villian in the movie, says he loved the city of joy and found the Bengali language “sweet”. “I have worked in Telugu films. I found Bengali easier and sweeter than Telugu,” says Pradhan, who is originally from Meerut. He was also much taken with the city’s culture, the paan kiosks and FM radio jockeys. “I couldn’t understand what they said, but their voice left me mesmerised.” Now, that’s sweet.