Alia Bhatt and Arjun Kapoor on Comedy Nights With Kapil Photos pg#4 - Page 3

Sonakshi Sinha, who flaunted her newly-acquired svelte figure at the Lakme Fashion Week summer-resort 2014 here, says her consistent workout regime has contributed to her fitter frame.

Sonakshi looked resplendent in a midnight blue ensemble when she glided down the ramp for designer Manish Malhotra at the opening show of the fashion gala on Tuesday.

"It (slimming) has not happened in a jiffy. I started working out in November (2013) and now in March, the results are showing. I have been consistent through out. I was also shooting my films but I was also regular with my work-out," the actress told reporters on the sidelines of the show.

Sonakshi will next be seen playing a boxer's role in "Holiday", which also stars Akshay Kumar. The film releases June 6.

Shreya Ghoshal has turned over a new leaf with the launch of her first non-film ghazal album "Humnasheen". The melodious songstress turned 30 Wednesday.

Shreya is glad that she chose ghazals to make a transit to non-film work.

"I have been a fan of ghazals, but I had never thought I would take it up as my first step into the non-film world. But now that I have done it, I am happy that this was the step I took first, doing something which is equivalent to good poetry and soulfulness," Shreya said here at the launch of the album Tuesday.

Shreya says ghazals give her a chance to do something she can't do in films.

"Urdu poetry has it's own charm and impact. I can't do raag-based singing in films and I don't even expect that to happen in films," she said.

Shreya is a Bengali, but she has worked hard on her Hindi and Urdu diction. She has thanked all those who have helped her.

"Diction needs to be very clear. I am a Bengali, but I was brought up in Rajasthan and that's why my Hindi is good.

"My tilt towards Urdu happened only after I entered the film industry. There are so many talented lyricists and composers from whom I learnt something everyday. I have learnt music from Kalyanji (composer) and he also told me how important diction is.

"Now when I hear old songs of Lata-ji (Mangeshkar) and (Mohd.) Rafi saab, I can see how particular they were to ensure that the words were clear and beautifully pronounced," she added.

Shreya started her career with regional music albums and devotional songs. She was just 16 when she recorded her first song "Bairi piya" for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Devdas".

http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/film-reviews/41884-movie-review-bewakoofiyaan.htm

Movie Review : Bewakoofiyaan

Film: Bewakoofiyaan; Cast: Rishi Kapoor, Ayushmann Khurrana, Sonam Kapoor; Director: Nupur Asthana; Rating:*** 1/2

Film: Bewakoofiyaan; Cast: Rishi Kapoor, Ayushmann Khurrana, Sonam Kapoor; Director: Nupur Asthana; Rating:*** 1/2

Sometimes, love just ain't enough. So there we have two people in love. The pampered but not spoilt bureaucrat's daughter Mayera and her lover beau Mohit whose upward mobility is frozen by an employment meltdown in his airline organization (spicy allusion to the Kingfisher crisis, yes?)

It's Delhi's noveau riche Gurgaon world bathed in cosmetic conceit. Sonam Kapoor and Ayushmann Khurrana blend into this gleaming kingdom's excesses effortlessly. The two of them are so good as a couple, imagining them apart for even a portion of the bitterness that bites into the narrative during the second-half becomes unbearable.

Debutant director Nupur Asthana's film is a bright scrambled world of wealth, luxury and the yuppy club's unstated desperation to move up the corporate ladder. It is also, by its very definition, a ridiculously self-important delusional world.

Miraculously this film with its gleaming polished surfaces neither gasps nor laughs at the ignobility of upward mobility.

There is an interestingly crafted fight scene between the film's lead pair where Mayera reminds Mohit that she has not bought a new pair of shoes during the last two months because of his job loss. That she doesn't realize how ridiculous she sounds to Mohit is a measure of the underlining irony that the narrative scrapes out of these characters while portraying the exacerbated materialism of the go-getting generation.

Habib Faisal's writing is smart and amiable, crowded with quaint colloquialisms culled from the capital youngster's language. The writing also surprises itself by becoming inwardly-drawn and introspective at the most unexpected moments. That the screenplay has got Ayushmann to play the cool guy whose perfectly laid-out plans fall apart, is a stroke of luck for this likeable film.

Ayushmann looks like the guy next-door who wouldn't mind pulling a few strings to float higher than the level allotted to him by fate. He brings a suave arrogance to his role and creates a cohesive graph for his character. He is an actor to watch.

Of course it helps Ayushmann that he has Rishi Kapoor to play his girlfriend's hawk-like father. Rishi's character of the IAS officer on the verge of retirement (with a companion from his work place who typically, offers his "humble" advice on every matter) is brilliantly written.

Rishi's Sehgal is a pompous name-thrower with an inflated sense of self-worth, over-possessive about his only daughter's life and preferences. V.K. Sehgal is a striking image of a man on the verge of erupting into a self-deprecatory laughter, if he only he knew how funny his quirks look from the outside.

Rishi brings to the characters a cornocupia of "cool". Seldom in his any other recent film except "Do Dooni Chaar" has this brilliant actor expressed such pleasure in putting forward his character's point of view.It's no coincidence that film too was written by Faisal.

So many of Rishi Kapoor's scenes with Ayushmann stand tall because of the way the two characters meet as adversaries who fortunately love the same girl in different ways. Sonam as the girl torn between an autocratic dad and unreasonable lover is so in-character you wonder whether the role and its fetish for designer labels were written specially for her.

"Bewakoofiyaan" has nothing new to say. And that is its greatest virtue. It is "Meet The Parents" where the father and the prospective son-in-law's roles are better played than the original. Yes, Rishi and Ayushmann are better than Robert de Niro and Ben Stiller were in the Hollywood film about the father of the bride.

The narrative sparkles with a mischievous elegance. The winking homage to the go-getting glam-set of Delhi works mainly because the three protagonists are so immersed in the goings-on they make us forget that we've seen most of these conflicts over and over again in the past. In terms of the fluency with which the cliche about the love birds and the girl's disapproving dad is tackled, "Bewakoofiyaan" is a marked improvement on Yashraj Productions' last two pretentious hammy films "Shuddh Desi Romance" and "Gunday".

Ayushmann's performance is oh not so hammy. A pure delight to behold after Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor's over-energized bravado in "Gunday".