LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Music superstars Beyonce and Jay-Z is offering fans a chance to win free tickets for life to their concerts in exchange for adopting a vegan diet for a month. The “Lemonade” singer announced the contest to her 123 million Instagram followers late on Wednesday in support of the Greenprint Project, which encourages people to reduce their environmental footprint by eating plant-based meals.
Beyonce pledged to eat plant-based breakfasts and go meatless on Mondays, while Jay-Z is promising to eat two plant-based meals a day. The project is the brainchild of Beyonce’s personal trainer, Marco Borges, who published his “The Greenprint” book in December explaining his plant-based diet and exercise plan. The singer and her spouse wrote the introduction to the book.
A study in the journal Science last June concluded that avoiding meat and dairy products would be the biggest way to reduce the environmental impact on the planet because of reduced irrigation of farmland, animal emissions, food processing and transport. Under the contest rules, one fan will get a pair of tickets to one official concert tour by Beyonce and/or Jay-Z for the next 30 years.
Kangana Ranaut’s Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi has received spectacular response at the box-office. The biographical period drama, on Sunday, added Rs 15.70 crore more to its kitty. Its total collection, after the opening-weekend run, stands at Rs 42.55 crore.
According to film critic and trade analyst Taran Adarsh, the film is registering its best performance in Delhi-NCR, UP, Punjab and Rajasthan. Keeping in view the current trend, Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi will continue its sparkling performance during the weekdays. Of course, there will be the usual decline in collections but that will not stop the film from packing a respectable first-week total.
At the box-office, Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi is battling against the Nawazuddin Siqqiqui-starrer Thackeray. It is also facing cut-throat competition from the Vicky Kaushal-starrer Uri: The Surgical Strike that hit the screens on January 11.
Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, as the name suggests, is based on the life of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi and her struggle to gain India independence from the ruthless British rule. It also stars Atul Kulkarni, Jisshu Sengupta, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub and Ankita Lokhande in important roles, among others. Upon its release on January 25, the film received mostly positive reviews. The word of mouth, too, has been equally good. It is jointly directed by Krish and Kangana.
Varun Dhawan might be tying the knot with his long-time girlfriend Natasha Dalal in the next few months. Yes! Although buzz has been strong about their November/December wedding but now if this Mirror source is to be believed then Natasha has already begun prepping up for the big day by shopping for silverware, decor, flowers and outfits, hinting if the wedding is taking place sooner than expected. What do you think?
Considering Natasha is a designer herself, we won’t be surprised if she personally conceptulalises her bridal wear or say for that matter, even helps Varun with his look. In fact, the same report also mentions how Natasha has taken upon herself to work on every little arrangement for the wedding right from finalising the outfits to venue to the menu to the guest lists.
Ever since the trailer of Gully Boy dropped on the web, fans have been buzzing about Ranveer Singh and his astounding portrayal of a rapper. While the makers have already revealed two songs of the film, including Apna Time Ayega and Mere Gully Mein, which are already a hit among fans, now, the latest song from the film has also just dropped and we have to tell you that it is heartbreaking.
In the latest song titled Doori, Ranveer Singh character, raps his way to ask intriguing questions about everything wrong with the country and discusses serious societal issues. Despite being heartbreaking, the song is immensely powerful and has Ranveer’s character asking relevant questions. The rhythm is mellow but the questions are relevant.
(Agencies)
Black Panther took the top award at Sunday’s 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards, giving Ryan Coogler’s superhero sensation its most significant awards-season honour yet and potentially setting up Wakanda for a major role at next month’s Academy Awards.
The two leading Oscar nominees — Roma and The Favourite — were bypassed by the actors guild for the best ensemble field that also included BlacKkKlansman, Crazy Rich Asians, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born. But though Black Panther wasn’t nominated for any individual SAG Awards, it took home the final award at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
Before a stage-full of actors, Chadwick Boseman tried to put into context the moment for the trailblazing Black Panther, which also won for its stunt performer ensemble. “To be young, gifted and black,” he said, quoting the Nina Simone song.
We know what it’s like to be told there isn’t a screen for you to be featured on, a stage for you to be featured on. … We know what’s like to be beneath and not above. And that is what we went to work with every day,” said Boseman. “We knew that we could create a world that exemplified a world we wanted to see. We knew that we had something to give.”
The win puts Black Panther squarely in contention for best picture at the Academy Awards. Actors make up the largest percentage of the academy, so their preferences can have an especially large impact on the Oscar race. In the last decade the SAG ensemble winner has gone on to win best picture at the Academy Awards half of the time.
In the lead acting categories, Glenn Close and Rami Malek solidified themselves as front-runners with wins that followed their triumphs at the Golden Globes. The 71-year-old Close, a frequent nominee but never an Oscar winner, won best actress for her performance in The Wife. “One of the most powerful things we have as human beings are two eyes looking into two eyes,” said Close. “Film is the only art form that allows us the close-up.”
Malek dedicated his best-actor award for his performance in Bohemian Rhapsody to Mercury, as he did at the Globes. With the win over Christian Bale (Vice) and Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born), Malek seemingly sealed the best-actor Oscar many are predicting for him. “I get some power from him that’s about stepping up and living your best life, being exactly who you want to be and accomplishing everything you so desire,” said Malek.
More surprising was Emily Blunt’s best supporting actress win for her performance in the horror thriller A Quiet Place. Blunt’s win was a shocker, particularly for the actress, herself. Blunt, also nominated by the guild for her lead performance in Mary Poppins Returns, was visibly surprised. She wasn’t among Tuesday’s Oscars nominees for either film.
“Guys. That truly has blown my slicked hair back,” said Blunt, who praised her husband and A Quiet Place director John Krasinski as a “stunning filmmaker.” ”Thank you for giving me the part. You would have been in major trouble if you hadn’t.” Best supporting actor in a film went more as expected. Mahershala Ali, who won two years ago for Moonlight, won for his performance in Peter Farrelly’s interracial road trip Green Book. Ali thanked his co-star, Viggo Mortensen, and Farrelly.
The Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs Maisel won the first three awards handed out Sunday at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. It won best ensemble in a comedy series, as well as individual honours Rachel Brosnahan and Tony Shalhoub, whose win was a surprise in a category that included Bill Hader (Barry) and Michael Douglas
Before a stage full of actors, Chadwick Boseman tried to put into context the moment for the trailblazing Black Panther, which also won for its stunt performer ensemble. (Source: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
“We cannot thank you enough,” said Shalhoub, speaking for the cast. “Stay with us.”
Tom Hanks presented the lifetime achievement award to Alan Alda, who in July revealed that he had been living with Parkinson’s disease for more than three years. The 83-year-old actor took the stage to a standing ovation while the theme to M.A.S.H. played. He said the award came at a reflective moment for him.
“And I see more than ever now how proud I am to be a part of our brotherhood and sisterhood of actors,” said Alda. “It may never have been more urgent to see the world through another person’s eyes. When a culture is divided so sharply, actors can help — a least a little — just by doing what we do. And the nice part is it’s fun to do it. So my wish for all of us is: Let’s stay playful.”
For the second time, the cast of This Is Us won best ensemble in a drama series. Other TV winners included Sandra Oh (Killing Eve), Darren Criss for Assassination of Gianni Versace, Jason Bateman (Ozark) and Patricia Arquette (Escape at Dannemora). Arquette thanked Special Counsel investigator Robert Mueller “and everyone working to make sure we have sovereignty for the United States of America.”
The SAG Awards have one thing the Oscars don’t: a host. Emcee Megan Mullally kicked off the awards by tweaking their role among the many honours leading up to next month’s Oscars. She called the SAGs “the greatest honour an actor can receive this weekend.”
Among the attendees Sunday was Geoffrey Owens, the Cosby Show actor who caused a stir when he was photographed working at a New Jersey Trader Joe’s. He was among the performers who began the show with the SAG Awards’ typical “I am an actor” testimony. Reunited as presenters were Fatal Attraction stars Michael Douglas and Glenn Close.
(Agencies)
Being sexy doesn’t mean a lady should wear less clothing. Mind it, exposing tons of skin also doesn’t translate to sexy.
There was a time when being sexy was all about exposing some body parts, or make-over. However, with the changed time and context, being sexy has something more to do with je ne sais quoi, meaning I do not know much since real sexiness is in the eye of the beholder!
Sexiness, for some, can be all about tiny waist looks or body shape. For others, sexiness can be more to do with aura. Therefore, being sexy in your own way can be the best appealing factor, which means accepting oneself just the way she is.
Finding clothes that go with your body type is the best way to look and feel sexy. For this, working on your personality and investing time in yourself is vital. Grooming is essential.
One of the extremely powerful tools is to smile. Cleaning up properly, taking good care of skin, hair, and smelling great is important besides taking good care of your mind.
Don’t be surprised; for some, red lips are sexy. Agreed, since red means confident, bold, determined, and strong; a lady looks bold, confident and sexy when she wears red lipstick. Another simple tip to look sexy is wearing high heels, which helps you to stand tall and walk elegantly.
What about showing off your shoulders? In fact, showing off a little skin (the collarbone) makes a lady feel sexy. Sometimes, exposing your glossy lips could be a sexy gesture.
However, a gentler reminder: the majority of men prefer a more natural look. When it comes to hair, men prefer that women wear their hair down because they think they look more approachable with their free-flowing hair.
(Agencies)
PARIS : Prolific French composer Michel Legrand, who won three Oscars and five Grammys during a career spanning more than half a century, died Saturday aged 86, his spokesman said. Legrand lived in a musical whirlwind, with the same appetite for popular music to jazz, from conducting to film.
“Since I was a child, my ambition has been to live completely surrounded by music, my dream was to not miss anything, which is why I have never focused on a single musical discipline,” he said.
He first won an Academy Award in 1969 for the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” from the film “The Thomas Crown Affair”.
He followed that with Oscars for his music for “Summer of ’42” in 1972 and for “Yentl” in 1984. Legrand, who had been scheduled to stage concerts in Paris in April, died early Saturday with his wife, the actress Macha Meril, his spokesman told AFP.
During his long career, he worked with some of the music world’s biggest stars such as Miles Davies, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli and Edith Piaf.
He also won five Grammys from 17 nominations, including one for the theme from “Summer of ’42”. “For me, he is immortal, through his music and his personality”, French composer and conductor Vladimir Cosma told AFP on hearing of Legrand’s passing.
“He was such an optimistic personality, with a kind of naivety in optimism, he saw everything in rosy colours!”
– ‘A magical world’ –
Born in Paris on February 24, 1932, Legrand belonged to a family of musicians.
His father, who left the family home when Legrand was just three, was a composer and conductor.
“The world of childhood, mine, was a lonely world, I did not like going to school, I did not like the world of children and adults, I hated to hear ‘eat your soup, go bed’,” he remembered.
At just 10 years old, he entered the Paris Conservatory of music. “For me, who hated life, when I first came to the Conservatory I crossed the threshold into a magical world where the only question was music”, he said.
He began composing film music in the 1960s with the emergence of French New Wave directors such as Agnes Varda, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Demy.
He composed the scores for Demy’s “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg” (“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”) in 1964 and “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort” (“The Young Ladies of Rochefort”) in 1967, for both of which Legrand received Academy Award nominations.
He moved to the United States in the 1960s. “It was a real risk to leave France, landing in Hollywood without real commitment,” he wrote in his 2013 autobiography, describing this step as “part of Russian roulette”. The father of three children, he married his third wife, Macha Meril, in 2014.
(Agencies)
NEW DELHI: Kangana Ranaut in and as Manikarnika, the queen of Jhansi, delivers exactly what was promised: a high-decibel, high-on-rhetoric hagiography of a queen who fought for her people and her land, till her last breath. There is not a single complex thought in this nearly three-hour movie, which runs out of steam in the third act because it needs to repeat its battle scenes ad nauseam to fill up the time till the end. It’s all kept deliberately simple (in some places, even simplistic), linear, first this happened, then this happened, and then. We the viewers have to do no work to get with the movie’s plan: we just have to sit back, go with the flow, flabby and clunky in bits, and admire Ranaut blazing on the screen.
Which she does, with such fierceness and gumption that you cannot take your eyes off her, especially when she is in full stride. She embodies the spirit of a very special young woman married into a ‘rajwada’, to an effeminate princely type (Sengupta), catapulted into the throne, not because she wants it, but because she is the only real man among the men who surround her.
Naturally, no other actor gets as much screen time as her: after a while it looks as if she is in practically every scene, as Manikarnika : The Queen Of Jhansi takes us from the ghats of Manikarnika in Banaras, to Bithoor where Manu’s prowess with words and swords catches the eye of the man (Kharbanda) responsible for her marriage and make-over as Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi.
The filmmakers (with Ranaut getting a co-director credit) have the usual caveat of the film taking creative liberties with the facts. So we don’t really have to worry our heads about whether all the stuff unfolding on screen happened or not. We are given a glimpse of palace intrigues where a black-hearted cousin (Ayyub) hankers for the throne, as Ranaut’s Laxmi, dripping more brocade and baubles to sink a thousand thrones, plays the part of wife and mother. It’s all very trying, this prelude to the real act, filled with Ranaut made up to the hilt (did they really have false eyelashes in 1830?) romancing, dancing, singing with ‘sakhis’ in age-old Bollywood style.
The film does make a brief stab at showing us how Laxmi created an army of women (and giving the film its chance to sling in a rousing ‘action’ song as they flash blades and swirl and twirl). Other characters come and go. There’s the faithful Ghaus baba (Denzongpa), Tantya Tope (Kulkarni), and a whole series of bumbling Englishmen, who make the mistake of thinking that Rani will be a weak puppet, just like her neighbouring princes who have keeled over at the slightest hint of British aggression, and are living on their pensions.
The 1857 Mutiny pops up too, and we get a glimpse of the ‘greased cartridges’ and the ‘chhaavni of Meerut’ and the ‘rebel’ armies falling by the wayside. But we know it’s all window dressing, a backdrop for the Rani to rise, and show us what bravery and valour and patriotism is all about. Ranaut in full battle mode is a sight to behold: harnessed, charged up, tearing and slashing through the rows of ‘dushman’ soldiers, all snarly and bloody. The battle scenes are impressive: lots of ‘josh’ right there.
The film skews, naturally, towards the ruling establishment in its exhortation of what nationalism means (there’s a great Scindia-Gwalior dig in there). A calf is saved from slaughter. Dialogues abound about ‘Bharat Mata’ and its ‘betis’, and a priceless one goes like this: ‘jab beti uth khadi hoti hai toh jeet badi hoti hai’. Claptrap, yes. But also clap clap.
As promised, Manikarnika does tick all the nationalistic boxes. It is getting a perfectly-timed Republic Day release. And there are plenty of eye-roll moments as it chases the red-faced Brits, and raises the flag. It may have been Jhansi, but it is clearly a prelude to the ‘tiranga’. But what keeps us with the film is Rani Ranaut, who in her best moments, owns her part, the narrative, and the screen.
(Agencies)
Filmmaker Karan Johar has finally broken his silence on the controversial Koffee with Karan season 6 episode, featuring cricketers Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul. The episode drew flak from viewers for the “misogynistic and sexist” remarks made by the guests.
In an interview with ET Now, Johar said he feels responsible for the statements of Pandya and Rahul and has spent sleepless nights wondering how to “undo this damage”. “I feel very responsible because it was my show and my platform. I invited them as guests and so the ramifications and repercussions of the show are my responsibility. I have had so many sleepless nights, just wondering about how I can undo this damage. Who is going to listen to me? It has now gone into a zone that is beyond my control,” he said in the interview.
Following their remarks, both Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul were provisionally suspended by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The two are awaiting an inquiry.
Karan Johar, who is currently in Davos for the World Economic Forum, added, “I don’t defend myself when I say this, the questions I asked the two boys are the questions I ask everyone, including women… I have no control over the answers that come my way. And post the show, I have a control room of about 16-17 girls. The show is run entirely by women. I’m the only man there. No one came and told me that ‘Karan, this is was inappropriate’.”
Accepting that his show is “frivolous, completely borderline ridiculous, irreverent, candid and sometimes stops making sense”, the self-proclaimed feminist said he would, henceforth, be extra cautious shooting for an episode of his chat show. Following the controversy, the episode featuring the two cricketers was taken down by streaming platform Hotstar.
(Agencies)
The second schedule of SS Rajamouli directorial RRR, starring Jr NTR and Ram Charan, kicked off on Monday.
Cinematographer KK Senthil Kumar also revealed an interesting tidbit about the camera used to shoot RRR.
“One of the first films in India to be shot on Arri Alexa LF and Arri Signature Prime Lens. Starting our second schedule today,” Senthil Kumar wrote on Twitter.
Back on the sets!
The second schedule starts, today. #RRR @tarak9999 #RamCharan @ssrajamouli@dvvmovies @RRRMovie @DOPSenthilKumar pic.twitter.com/Xh19YMNZik— RRR Movie (@RRRMovie) January 21, 2019
One of the first film in India to be Shot on Arri #AlexaLF and Arri #SignaturePrimeLens.@ARRIChannel @RRRMovie.
Starting our 2nd Schedule Today.@DVVMovies@tarak9999 @ssrajamouli#RamCharan pic.twitter.com/0JVUWbhbuG— KK Senthil Kumar (@DOPSenthilKumar) January 21, 2019
According to sources, the team will film some crucial scenes in specially erected sets during the second schedule of RRR. Both Tarak and Charan will shoot for the sequences.