Bollywood Film Breaks New Ground On Sex In India

A new Bollywood film has put the spotlight on changing sexual mores in small-town India, unsettling conservative filmgoers with spy cam footage and pushing the limits of the country’s censorship board.

“Love Sex aur Dhokha” (Love Sex and Betrayal) is the latest in a series of avant-garde offerings stripping the Indian film industry of decades of inhibition and dramatically changing the traditional formula of song-and-dance romances and violent revenge sagas.

The film, which opened in Indian cinemas last week with an adults-only rating, has courted controversy with blurred visuals of a naked woman and voyeuristic sequences in its trailers.

Director Dibakar Banerjee says “Love Sex aur Dhokha” is more about a change in attitudes than it is about sex.

He says the film explores the lack of privacy in the modern world — one where even mobile phones can capture, and broadcast, intimate moments.

“What my camera is doing is that it’s recording a story that is changing in front of the camera,” says Banerjee. “Earlier, sex used to be behind closed doors but now that is changing.”

A decade ago, when a coy couple were about to kiss on screen, the camera would glide to two flowers brushing against each other or birds pecking at each other’s beaks. Indian audiences just assumed the couple had done the deed.

Sacha Cohen Reportedly Drops Eurovision Film

Sacha Baron Cohen has reportedly axed his new film about the Eurovision Song Contest.

The Bruno star had been collaborating with screen-writer Dan Mazer about the Working Title spoof about a wannabe pop star entering the singing contest.

But The Sun reports a source saying: “Sacha and Dan have been feverishly working on the film for a long time now, they’d completed a lot of preparatory work and had a team assisting them, but they’ve axed the idea – they felt that it wasn’t working.”

Sacha – who shot to worldwide fame for screen characters such as Ali G, Borat and Bruno – was originally expected to present at the Oscars, but dropped out following concerns from the event’s organisers about a proposed sketch.

Inglourious Basterds Screened For Holocaust Survivors

Two days after this year’s Oscar nominations were announced, Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” – a film about a band of Jews who kill Nazis – screened for an audience of Holocaust survivors.

It was at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and the director himself sat quietly in the third row.  This was probably his thousandth screening, and on this night he seemed more interested in the crowd than in his film.

Tarantino watched as 300 Jews sat transfixed, eyes wide and jaws gaping, as Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) whipped out his Bowie knife and began carving a swastika into a Nazi’s forehead.

There was a collective gasp and a few “ohs,” but no one turned away.  This was too good, watching Nazis get scalped, brutalized and beaten; this is what should have happened, the audience seemed to be thinking; this is what the Nazis deserved.

It wasn’t hard to sense the visceral reactions that scene provoked, especially among those who had been victimized by real Nazis: relief, revenge, disgust, pleasure.  And the awkward bursts of nervous laughter. “Basterds” drew out long-buried emotions that suddenly became raw and immediate.

’2012′ Sets Box Office Record

A publicist says the Hollywood disaster movie “2012″ has become China’s best-selling movie in history.

A spokesman for state-owned film importer China Film Group told The Associated Press that “2012″ has made 460 million Chinese yuan ($67.3 million) as of Dec. 23, eclipsing the previous mark of 450 million yuan set by another Hollywood blockbuster, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

Weng Li also said in third place is the Chinese propaganda movie, “The Founding of a Republic,” also released earlier this year.

Ashton Kutcher And Demi Moore At Odds Over Naked Pictures

Actress Demi Moore is upset with husband Ashton Kutcher’s naked pictures with another woman, which were released to promote a film.

Kutcher, 31, plays a shameless man who hits on rich, older women in new film ‘Spread’ and Moore, 47, is unimpressed with the steamy pictures of him and another actress that have been released to promote the movie, reported a British website.

‘Demi doesn’t mind cinema fans ogling her hubby but she doesn’t want these pictures in the press forever reminding her he got so hot with someone else. But after all his usual goofy roles, Ashton wanted to show there’s a lot more to him,’ said a source.

Kutcher stars alongside 40-year-old actress Anne Heche in the new movie.

Nude Scene Planned For Final Harry Potter Film

Daniel Radcliffe’s role in Equus looks to have unleashed his inner nudist because he’ll now be unsheathing his magic wand as Harry Potter too.

From Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows director David Yate’s lips to the ears of Potter fans everywhere:  “Daniel Radcliffe appears naked in one scene where Harry and Ron are fighting a magical creature, who fled to confuse and create a vision. In the view we see Harry and a woman embracing and kissing. It’s an intriguing scene and very sensual.”

The final film in the Harry Potter series is spilt into two parts. Flavorwire reports that Yates did not disclose whether Radcliffe’s buff scene will occur in Part One, scheduled for release on Nov. 19, 2010 or Part Two, to be released July 15, 2011. 

No doubt though, to keep the film’s PG-13 rating and thus its pre-pubescent ticket sales, Potter’s wand and golden snitches will not get big play on the screen.

Postal Worker Admits To Stealing 30,000 DVDs

A former postal service employee has pleaded guilty to stealing more than 30,000 DVDs that moved through a western Massachusetts post office.

Myles Weathers, formerly of Springfield, took DVDs that were mailed by Netflix to customers for a year beginning in January 2007.

Federal prosecutors say the movie rental company alerted Springfield post office officials that a suspiciously high number of DVDs were disappearing. As many as 100 movies a week were disappearing.

Weathers was arrested in February 2008 after investigators filmed him taking DVDs from packages and slipping them into his backpack.

He faces 10 months to 16 months in prison and restitution costs of about $38,000 at his Dec. 23 sentencing.

Weathers’ attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Israelis Go Wild For Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds

If Quentin Tarantino had truly been anxious about the Jewish response to his Nazi-bashing extravaganza Inglourious Basterds, then the reception at the Israeli premiere should at least have guaranteed him a good night’s sleep.

The audience waited inside the movie theater for more than an hour before Tarantino, producer Lawrence Bender and the sublime, Oscar-deserving, movie-stealing polyglot Christoph Waltz made their entrance. The excitement level can be judged by the fact that there was very little complaining, shouting or seat-shifting – all standards of the Israeli movie-going experience.

Tarantino’s exuberant introduction was perfectly pitched at Israelis, many of whom can still name the family members who perished in the Holocaust. The “chapters” of the movie showing Nazi-scalping, baseball bat-wielding Jews instilling fear into the hearts of the German army (and Hitler himself), as well as the bloodbath finale elicited cheers and hearty rounds of applause, and the man himself won a standing ovation as the end credits rolled.

This is not an historically correct representation of World War II. The Jews, with one expertly acted, filmed and directed exception at the start, are powerful and masters of their own destinies, and the climax of the movie is pure Jewish fantasy. But no one goes to see a Tarantino movie to learn about historical facts.

Like Madonna and her devotion to all things kosher, Tarantino’s latest movie should ensure him a warm welcome in the Jewish state, now and for many years to come.

Jackson Fans Go For ‘Thriller’ Record

They say they beat it.

Thousands of Mexicans claimed they broke the record for most people dancing to “Thriller” simultaneously in one place on what would have been Michael Jackson’s 51st birthday.

“We did it!” organizer Javier Hildago shouted to thousands of people wearing black fedoras, white gloves, aviator shades and ghoulish face paint, breathless after trying to recreate the groundbreaking 1983 video.

Did they? The Guinness Book of World Records will decide in a week.

The current record was set in May by a group of 242 College of William & Mary students who performed the routine in Williamsburg, Virginia, according to Guinness.

Hildago claimed 12,937 people danced August 29th in front of Mexico City‘s Monument of the Revolution, led by a Michael Jackson impersonator wearing a red-and-gold sequined jacket.

But Guinness must certify whether all those people really performed the entire, intricate routine. The impersonator, who goes by the name Hector Jackson, and most of those in front of a huge crowd of onlookers certainly looked pretty good.

“More people responded than we even imagined!” Hector Jackson said. “Mexico gave the best tribute in the world to Michael Jackson.”

Bruno Opens Amsterdam’s ‘Pink Light’ District

British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in his latest incarnation as a gay Austrian fashion reporter, jet skied through a canal into Amsterdam‘s red light district to open a brothel full of men in thongs ahead of the Dutch premiere of ‘Bruno’.

“For too long, guys coming here from around the world have been forced to have sex with women,” Cohen said, standing in front of a pink-lit brothel building in the Dutch capital as surprised tourists and stag party goers looked on.

“It gives me great pleasure to declare Amsterdam’s pink light district officially open for business,” he said, as about a dozen men emerged from behind curtains at the windows of a three-storey brothel.

Cohen, hoping to replicate the success of his 2006 hit movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” was wearing a cut-away suit which revealed his own red thong. In “Bruno,” Cohen is a gay fashion reporter seeking stardom in America.