London (PTI): Indian beauty Frieda Pinto is reportedly set to feature as the next Bond girl opposite British hunk Daniel Craig in a 007 film.
The actress, who has received global acclaim for her role as Latika in Danny Boyle’s multiple Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire” was invited to a screen test for the spy film.
The Mumbai native is a strong favourite for the coveted role as reports suggest that executive producer Barbara Broccoli, who has earmarked “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle for the project, is keen to cast Pinto.
The 24-year-old actress …

The super success of Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire has been so overwheming that the lucky pair of Danny Boyle and A R Rahman are being flooded with offers.
Grapevine has it that Danny Boyle has been asked to direct James Bond’s 23rd film. And since Rahman composed such great music for Slumdog Millionaire, it might just be that the music maestro also gets roped in for the project.
According to unconfirmed reports, Barbara Broccoli, producer of the next James Bond film has approached Danny Boyle for the project.
“Danny’s intense involvement with the …

Rags-to-riches story “Slumdog Millionaire” continued its fairy-tale journey Sunday, winning seven prizes, including best picture, at the British Academy Film Awards and sealing its place as favorite for the Oscars later this month.
Kate Winslet and Mickey Rourke also gained Oscar momentum with acting wins — Winslet for her role as a former Nazi concentration camp guard in “The Reader,” Rourke for his career-reviving performance as a washed-up athlete in “The Wrestler.” Heath Ledger won a posthumous supporting actor award for The Dark Knight.”
“It’s such a pleasure to be back here, …

Director Danny Boyle’s tale of a boy from the Mumbai slums who reaches the jackpot question on gameshow Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? has swept all before it in the awards race.
It won four Golden Globes and is favourite to win best picture at the Academy Awards – an astonishing feat for a $15 million film with one-third of its dialogue in Hindi and a cast of relative unknowns.
Boyle summed up the audience’s reaction to the film when he spoke at the Globes of the “mad, pulsating affection” in …

London (IANS): Oscar-frontrunner “Slumdog Millionaire” is probably being targeted by an organised tinsel-town smear campaign with an eye on gate receipts, British and US newspapers say.
“Could an organised smear campaign be about to derail the extraordinary rags-to-riches story of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’?” The Independent said on Saturday after the film’s makers were hit by a barrage of negative publicity this week.
The British filmmakers have been accused of peddling “poverty porn” and of underpaying and exploiting child actors from the slums, forcing the director, producer and distributor to issue point-by-point denials.
A commentary …

Slumdog Millionaire: Simply Brilliant
Rating: 4 out of 5
Starring: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan
Director: Danny Boyle
Slumdog Millionaire opens with 18-year-old slum kid Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) being arrested on suspicion of cheating after being one question away from winning Rs. 20 million on India’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? After enduring some rather nasty torture, he tells the police officer (Irrfan Khan) the story of his life, where incredibly, each episode holds the key to one of the questions he’s answered.
Jamal’s story begins in the Mumbai …

AR Rahman probably has a cupboard full of awards the way some Bollywood names have cupboards full of skeletons. In both cases, it’s usually a case of ‘what’s the big deal about one more’.
But the Golden Globe puts him, literally, in the global league. At this point, looking back, which is the first award that really meant something to him? “I think the first big award that I treasured was the National Award for Roja. That was a great feeling. It was also very unexpected.”
This one surely wasn’t. How …

NEW DELHI: Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has slammed Danny Boyle’s Golden Globe award winning underdog drama “Slumdog Millionaire” for
showing India in poor light.
“If ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ projects India as Third World dirty underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations,” Amitabh said in a posting on his blog on Wednesday from Paris, France.
“Its just that the ‘Slumdog Millioanire’ idea authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by …

Music composer AR Rahman on Monday became the first Indian to win a Golden Globe award and is already looking forward to bagging an Oscar for his soundtrack for British filmmaker Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire.
“For the people of India to get an Oscar is a big thing. So for their sake, more than mine, I hope my song Jai ho and my music score in Slumdog Millionaire win the Oscar,” Rahman told IANS on phone before the Golden Globe Awards ceremony.
Hollywood music composers like Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore and Danny …

India’s renowned singer-music composer AR Rahman turned 43 on January 6, 2009.
Rahman, who has also been honored by the title ’Mozart of Madras’, was born as A. S. Dileep Kumar on January 6, 1966 in Chennai.
His birth name A. S. Dileep Kumar was turned to Allah Rakkha Rahman (AR Rahman) when his family in 1970 adopted Islamic religion.
Thise young land Rahman started his career in 1992, when he was approached by film director Mani Ratnam to compose the music for Ratnam’s Tamil flick Roja .
The movie also led Rahman to …