Entertainment

Taapsee Pannu says she was replaced in a number of films because she has no godfather or connections in the film industry.

There’s something about the battlefield that interests director J.P. Dutta. The 68-year-old’s new film Paltan tells the story of the clash between Indian military forces and the Chinese army at Nathu La and Cho La in 1967. The film is the concluding instalment in Dutta’s war trilogy — Border (1997) and LOC Kargil (2003). t2 met the director at his office in Mumbai recently to talk about the September 7 release.

The world’s first film poster, dating back to 1896 and printed to promote 10 short films by the Lumière brothers in Paris, is being auctioned by Sotheby’s in London and is estimated to fetch between £40,000 and £60,000.

Sultan, the 2016 Salman Khan-Anushka Sharma film, a homegrown story of an underdog, will get a wide release across China on August 31. 

Rajkumar Hirani is often considered the best director in Bollywood. For good reason too. So, when he speaks about the impact a film had on him, it does get interesting. 

Shraddha Kapoor is multitasking at the moment and while it takes a toll on her, the actress says it also helps her as a performer.

Laura Dern is in negotiations to join Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Big Little Lies star will share screen space with Meryl Streep and Emma Stone in the big screen adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic. The film also reunites Gerwig with her debut directorial Lady Bird stars — Saoirse Ronan and Timothee Chalamet. Florence Pugh and James Norton are also part of the cast. The story follows sisters Amy, Jo, Beth and Meg and their mother in Civil War-era Massachusetts as they navigate first love and their first holiday without their father, a travelling minister. Among many takes on celluloid, Alcott’s book was last adapted into a feature in 1994, which starred Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst and Christian Bale. 

Fawad Khan and Alia Bhatt, seen together in Kapoor & Sons but not paired opposite each other, did have some simmering chemistry, especially in that fun restaurant scene. A (cheat) kiss followed but that was brief and awkward. So we would love to see the two together again in the remake of the iconic romance The Notebook. 

Our favourite giant, literally, enters with a bang. The rain is just what this scene needed to build tension and up the ante as the boy wizard counts down the minutes to his 11th birthday and, though he doesn’t know it yet, his life would change forever. 

About 20 years ago, an obscure student politician in Patna spent a week in jail after a particularly intense agitation. It was this jail stint that sent the then 20-something Pankaj Tripathi down a path that won him a special mention at the 65th National Film Awards earlier this year.