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| Martin Henderson and Aishwarya Rai |
Before he takes good care of Aishwarya Rai in Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice, Martin Henderson has slightly more important things on hand. As Biker Cary Ford, he has to tackle ruthless drug dealer Henry. Well, that’s in his new film Torque, which releases on Friday at INOX (City Centre and Forum).
Ford returns to his hometown to reunite with his girlfriend Shane (Monet Mazur) but is framed by long-time rival Henry (Matt Schulze) for the murder of Sleepy D, brother of Trey Wallace (Cube), the leader of the most feared biker gang in the country. So what follows is dhoom dhadaka in true Hollywood style, laced with lots of special effects.
The Joseph Kahn film will be Henderson’s first big Hollywood movie after Windtalkers and The Ring. The Australian star always wanted to go to Hollywood and be part of big projects. So Torque is really special for him.
And Bride and Prejudice is special ’coz of all the scripts he was offered, Henderson found the Gurinder Chadha adaptation of the classic “180 degrees away from anything”. So before you see him slowing down with aloo paratha and Ash for company, might as well catch him breezing through, with bike and bloodshed.
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| Neha: Sex and SRK |
Her pout — and what pours forth — may have made more headlines than her performances, but Neha Dhupia isn’t complaining. After all, a certain Mr Shah Rukh Khan who has gone on record saying, “Neha is an intelligent girl”. This, of course, close on the fair heels of bold babe Neha announcing: “Only sex and Shah Rukh sell in Bollywood.”
With Shah Rukh reacting to one half of her quotable quote and Julie following the diktat of the other, Neha has enough reason to smile. Julie is one of the rare hits of 2004 and Neha knows just why: “The success of the film shows that Indian audiences are now more open to bold films and that is really great.”
Much more of Neha is billed to fill the big screen, starting Friday with Rakht. But unlike pre-Julie, when the beauty queen with features to flaunt went out of her way to talk about her role and her “bold contract”, she is all tight-lipped about this Friday’s release.
When asked whether she plays Dino Morea’s battered wife in the film, Neha was caught off-guard: “Who told you that? I really can’t say much about the role. I am not supposed to, you see.” At least she has something zipped up! So, if you want to know more about Julie’s jalwe, you’ve just got to check out Rakht this weekend.
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| Koel: November date |
Koel Mullick might be merrily dancing her way into the night, but it’s all for a Prosenjit day dream. In reel reality, someone out there is hell-bent on snuffing out this pretty, docile girl of a stinking rich father. And each time she slips into the danger trap, director Shankar Roy makes sure Tollywood’s Badshah is right on call to hit the goons where it hurts.
“I slowly develop a weakness for this stranger. But the best part is when my character tries to commit suicide, frustrated with life, and the hero steps in,” says the leading lady in black pants, spaghetti top and white jacket.
The sad side: the lovelorn couple gets to cosy up only in the last few minutes of the film. Also featuring Labony Sarkar, Rajesh Sharma and Locket Chatterjee, Badshah was shot in Hyderabad, NT1 and Space Circle.
“It’s a suspense thriller and the needle of suspicion swings from friends to family,” reveals director Roy. To catch Koel’s moves and Prosenjit’s punches, wait till November when the film hits the halls.
The stress, so long, was on news and current affairs. But it’s time for change to twinkle at Tara Bangla. The Bengali beam plans to either multiply, with dedicated channels for news and entertainment, or continue with the single channel, but shift emphasis from news to entertainment.
“We are weighing both options,” says Buddhadeb Guha, CEO of Tara Bangla. “By the end of the year, we should decide and begin work.” In case the number of channels is increased, there would be a channel each for news, general entertainment, music and movies. “The cost would be marginally higher, but revenues expected are much more than now,” Guha adds.
Tara also has plans to tackle the problem of few good feature films coming out of Tollywood regularly. “We have seen great success with telefilms. With the average duration of two hours and quality comparable with big-screen movies, they can serve as ideal replacements,” feels Guha.
The channel recently concluded a telefilm festival and regularly airs short films made by well-known directors. “If we continue with the number of telefilms that we are screening, we shall soon have a big base which will help if we have a channel dedicated to films,” explains the CEO.
In case of a revamp, interactive shows and encouragement of young talent would drive the programming.
The finals of a talent hunt organised by the channel will bring together Jatin-Lalit and a host of Bollywood playback singers including Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan and Udit Narayan to the city in early October.
“Financially, too, we are faring much better now,” claims Guha. Following the launch in 2000, financial problems continued to plague Tara till 2002. “But since 2003, things have been looking up,” says the CEO. This year, the channel broke even.
Besides revenue from ad sales and subscription, producing content for others and syndication to channels in the US and UK are making Tara burn brighter than before.
