Mumbai:
Film: Blue (U/A)
Director: Anthony D’souza
Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar, Zayed Khan, Lara Dutta and others

Anthony D’souza, director of Blue, said in an interview that it was important to keep the running time of the film under two hours (1.57hrs to be precise) so that the audience didn’t get bored. D’souza couldn’t have got it more wrong. Blue could have easily been shorter, or even not have been made at all.

Okay, agreed that India hasn’t seen an action film of this scale before. The canvas is huge, the cinematography pretty good and the making slick. Money has been spent like water and that’s the closest the film comes to its theme.

But even as Blue tries to emulate every Hollywood film in the action genre, it hardly matches up to any of them. It instead ends up, embarrassingly, like a poor B-grade film from the west. Bad Boys anyone? Nope, this one’s just bad.

If you’ve seen the promos, you roughly know the plot. It’s another matter that even after the film ends, you don’t really know what the plot was after all. Way back in 1949, the British decided to return some of India’s jewels back to the country and dispatched them on a ship called Lady in Blue. The vessel sunk, untraced, in mysterious circumstances and its contents remained lost.

source: dnaindia

Bollywood Trade News Network

Akshay and wife Twinkle were amongst the first to arrive at the Mata ki Chowki.

And proof that this bonhomie was real was seen when in return Akshay invited his co-stars Sanjay Dutt and Zayed Khan for the finale of his show ‘Khatron Ke Khiladi – 2′. All the three male leads of Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision Ltd.’s underwater action thriller BLUE have recently shot with the final contestants for the nail biting finale of this season!

Looks like the gossip mills will have to resign themselves to their friendship and look for other fodder!

BLUE, an underwater action thriller directed by Anthony D’Souza, is not only Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision Ltd’s but also Bollywood’s most ambitious and promising projects till date.

BLUE captures the fast paced action, above and below the ocean as never seen before in Indian Cinema! With a dream cast of Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Zayed Khan, Rahul Dev and Katrina Kaif, this underwater action thriller promises to set your pulses racing this Diwali!

New Delhi, Sep 23 (IANS) Lara Dutta, who has been creating waves with her svelte figure and bold avatar in the promos of ‘Blue’, hopes the film turns out to be a hit and makes her Diwali really special.

‘Blue’, also starring Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt and Zayed Khan is centered on an underwater treasure guarded by sharks and is slated to release Oct 16, just a day before Diwali.

‘My next film after ‘Do Knot Disturb’, ‘Blue’ is releasing just a day before Diwali, so I’m hoping that it does well and my Diwali becomes a bumper Diwali,’ Lara, who was wearing a pink satin dress, told reporters here.

The former beauty queen-turned-actress was in the capital to attend the 25th edition of MMTC’s Festival of Gold.

Asked how she planned to celebrate the festival of lights, Lara said Diwali would be a family affair for her this year, unlike last time.

‘Diwali is a festival meant to be celebrated with family, but last year I was shooting in Singapore for ‘Do Knot Disturb’. So this year I’ll be spending time with my close ones,’ Lara said.

Mumbai, Sep 18 (IANS) Filmmaker Vashu Bhagnani wanted to re-launch his son and needed an A-lister to act alongside Jackky, but every leading man declined politely. But Sanjay Dutt came forward to work with the youngster in ‘Faltu’, which questions the country’s education system.

Jackky made a disastrous debut this year with ‘Kal Kissne Dekha’ but his second film, which is being directed by choreographer Remo, is not an escapist entertainer.

‘It’s a film about the lacunae in present day education. When I heard Remo’s story, I was bowled over. It’s about the failure of today’s educational system to guide our youngsters into suitable careers,’ Bhagnani told IANS.

‘It’s about how there’s too much stress in and on academics and too little on actually tapping every child’s potential. Remo has earlier made an award-winning Bengali film (’Lal Paharer Katha’ with Mithun Chakbraborty).’

Going by the improbable title, the film sounds like a departure from convention.

‘It is. But nothing conventional works any more. I want to bring new talent into the industry. And the title is an acronym. I can’t reveal the full form. It will give away the plot,’ said the filmmaker.

Mumbai, Sep 17 (IANS) Actor Zayed Khan says he is learning ‘the hard way’. He was supposed to sing and dance to a solo number in the film ‘Blue’, but was shocked to be informed that he would not be the only one to feature in it.

The same song has been turned into a group number and is being shot with Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Katrina Kaif and, of course, Zyed in the film by Tony D’Souza.

‘I’m learning my lessons the hard way. In this industry it’s always the big fish eating up the little fish (an apt description considering our film ‘Blue’ is an underwater sea adventure). Fine. Hopefully, one day I’ll get there,’ said Zayed, who is shooting in Delhi for ‘Sharafat Gayi Tel Lene’.

‘But when I do I can assure I won’t behave the same way. But no more being taken for granted. I can’t afford it,’ he added.

As for not participating in the number, he said: ‘I was thinking of not participating in the shooting. If I am not considered important enough, no point in hanging around. But then I decided to be professional about this. I’m flying from Delhi to Mumbai for the song.’

Zayed, however, absolves the ‘Blue’ director of all blame.

D’Souza says, ‘Yes, we’re shooting a song with the entire cast next week. I’d really like Zayed to be part of it. Because he’s a very important and pivotal part of ‘Blue’. This film will take him to another level.’

Bollywood Trade News Network

And when you talk of a film based on underwater sequences, how can you miss out on the most adorable sea animals – the dolphins?

In Shree Ashtavinayak’s BLUE directed by debutant director Anthony D’Souza, you can see Sanjay Dutt and Lara Dutta frolicking with the dolphins!

The audiences will get to see Sanjay and Lara cavorting delightfully with the sea creatures in a romantic song ‘Aaj Dil Gustak Hai’ in the film.

Says director Anthony, “It was very difficult to shoot with the wild spotted dolphins and we had to travel overnight to Bimini to shoot with them. It was well worth all the efforts as the outcome was spectacular! We were extremely lucky to find a cluster of them and the delightful tricks which the dolphins learnt especially for the song make for a visual treat.”

The song has been picturised on the actors playing with wild dolphins in all their majestic glory in Bimini Islands. There were also scenes which required them to shoot at close range for which they had specially trained dolphins at the dolphin encounters! These mammals were specially taught tricks which are shown in the film. Not just the actors even the dolphins were trained for their roles!!!

Even after the required shots, Sanjay and Lara would stay back in the dolphin encounters and play with the dolphins!!! And being very intelligent creatures, the mammals picked up the tricks very fast and were loved and petted by the entire team!

Slated to hit the theatres on 16th Oct ‘09, this oceanic spectacle features Bollywood stars like Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Zayed Khan, Rahul Dev and Katrina Kaif.

Dr. A R Rahman has composed the tracks for the film with the winning combination of Resul Pookuty engineering the sound.

Amitabh Bachchan is said to have a very busy schedule and even at his age, he is probably busier than most of the younger stars. But these days, the actors seems to be on a short sabbatical of sorts in Singapore.

The actor is actually in Singapore to be at the side of his best friend Amar Singh, who is recuperating from a kidney transplant. But the actor is said to be really enjoying his break from work. It has probably been a long while since Big B took a proper vacation. Back home, there are filmmakers who are waiting eagerly for him to be back. One of them is Pritish Nandy’s son Kushan, who will be directing him in a film titled ‘Actor’, which also stars Kangana Ranaut. The film will be shot in parts of Europe. Composer Aadesh Srivastav will also be waiting for Big B to arrive and lend his voice to an album which is in the form of homage to the victims of 26/11. Meanwhile, Bachchan’s fans have a lot to look forward to as there are two of his films which will be up for release soon this year. The first of these is Sujoy Ghosh’s ‘Aladin’, a fantasy flick which also stars Sanjay Dutt and Ritesh Deshmukh. The second is the much awaited movie R Balki’s ‘Pa’, which has Big B playing son to his son Abhishek Bachchan and Vidya Balan. Big B is expected to return to Mumbai soon enough and resume his busy schedule.

Well known television journalist Barkha Dutt is famous to have inspired a role too many in Bollywood. Being a youth icon and idol of sorts Barkha has become a household name. It was not long ago that Preity Zinta had played a character etched on Barkha Dutt in ‘Lakshya’, so much so that she even had her last name in the movie intact as Dutt and adopted Barkha’s short haircut to be closest to her character’s real life inspiration, Barkha. Now it is Kangana Ranaut who is all set to play Barkha Dutt in a film directed by Mani Shankar. Kangana is already excited about the film, which stars Sanjay Dutt and Irrfan Khan also, so much so that Kangana who is famous for being experimental with her roles and leave no stone unturned to keep the authenticity intact, will chop off her trademark beautiful curls to look like Barkha Dutt in the film. Well, that someone is all set to play Barkha Dutt is not such breaking news, but Kangana deciding to chop off her famous curls sure is.

Mumbai, Sep 1 (IANS) Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt has a tattoo fetish. He has at least five on his body and has gone for another one – this time two samurai soldiers inked one below the other on his right arm.

One soldier is inked in black and white, while the other is colourful and there are Japanese flowers falling over them.

According to a source, these soldiers symbolise that all through his life the actor has fought like a samurai and was never bogged down by the hardships.

As expected, the tattoo is done by Vishwas Dorwekar of Hakim Aalim’s salon.

Kangana Ranaut has decided that she has had enough of serious, intense roles. Beginning http://www.thenewssegment.com/bollywood.phpwith ‘Gangster’, going on to ‘Life In A Metro’, and even her recent ‘Fashion’, the actress has created a niche for herself as an intense performer. But she has now decided to loosen up with a vengeance. Her forthcoming film, ‘No Problem’ for Anil Kapoor Productions gave her the opportunity to do just that, as it has her playing her first candy floss character in films. It is quite ironical that while most heroines begin their careers with candy floss character and often get typecast in them, Kangana started with very performance oriented roles. Only after she established herself as an actress of repute did she switch to lighter roles in comedies and ‘No Problem’ is one of them. The film also stars Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Sushmita Sen, Suniel Shetty and Neetu Chandra and is being directed by Anees Bazmee. The actress is just back from a long schedule of the film which was held in South Africa, one of the few countries which is ready to give Sanju a visa, the other being Thailand. The actor has been put on bail since August 2007. Anyway, to get back to Kangana, she apparently had a great time playing her character in the movie. Hers is a character who thinks that she is the most beautiful person in the entire world and is always clad in pink. The actress had decided to really enjoy her shoot and she proceeded to do just that. Sush plays Kangana’s sister in the movie. Besides ‘No Problem’, Kangana is also quite excited about the release of her film ‘Kites’, where she is cast opposite Hrithik Roshan.