Jet Li has agreed to play the role of a dastardly villain in the third installment of the The Mummy series.
The third installment in The Mummy series will have Brendan Fraser returning in his old role. The Mummy 3 will initially take place in ancient times in China and follow the background of the film's villain (Jet Li). The film will move forward to post-World War II setting. The movie, to be directed by Rob Cohen, is slated for release on July 18, 2008. The first in the series named The Mummy was released in 1999; the second instalment named The Mummy Returns was released in 2001. The two movies totally grossed $830 million worldwide The Mummy 3 will not have Rachel Weisz due to her dates problem.
Adding to the long list of heroines from North making a mark in Kollywood is Vedika. A look-alike of Bhumika, Vedika played the female lead Laurence Ragava's Muni.
Vedika's performance in Muni won her appreciations and admirers. One among them was Silambarasan. The young hero impressed with her dancing skills immediately assigned her to play his heroine in Kaalai.
Also Vedika is playing the lady love to Santhanu (actor-director K Bhagyaraj's son) in Sakkaraikatti.
Vedika says, “This new year has been very lucky to me. I have been getting movies from good banners. Thank almighty that a couple of big movies are in the cards”.
Vedika is also playing the heroine in a Telugu movie.
The release of Sivaji - The Boss, the much - hyped movie starring Rajinikanth will be delayed by two weeks. The movie (produced by AVM Productions) was slated for release initially on 31 May. It has now been postponed to 15 June, sources in the AVM said. The movie directed by Shankar with musical score by A R Rahman is one of the big-budgeted movies in Tamil filmdom. Expectations and hype surrounding the movie has been increasing day after day. Fans of Rajinikanth have to wait for a couple of weeks to see their favorite star on the screen. The exact reasons for the delay are not known.
After Chithiram Pesuthadi, director Mysskin took his own time to come up with his next.
Mysskin has narrated an action-packed story to Vishal, who is currently busy shooting for Malaikottai.
Apparently impressed with the story, Vishal has agreed to be part of the venture. What more, the movie would be produced by his brother Vikram Krishna himself.
After Malaikottai, Vishal will work as tough cop in Sathyam, a movie to be directed by Rajasekhar.
After Sathyam, Mysskin's movie would take off.
It is touted that the movie would be made in a grand scale and would be shot in various foreign locales.
By next-year, Vishal is planning to work in a direct Telugu film.
Vijay has recorded a song for A R Rahman. The two have come together for Azhagiya Tamil Magan.
Though he has several numbers to his credit, it is the first time Vijay has recorded a song set to tunes by A R Rahman.
The movie featuring Vijay in dual roles is directed by Bharathan. Shriya is paired opposite him. Rahman has also lent his voice in the album.
Buzz is that Vijay has rendered a racy entertainer which is sure to rock the music-buffs.
Azhagiya Tamil Magan, a commercial entertainer, is fast shaping up for a release this Independence Day.
A major portion of the movie is already completed.
The hotel-chain namesake will call the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, California, her temporary home, starting June 5. There will be no house-arrest options, no monitoring-bracelet breaks—she will do 45 days straight, per the judge.
Following the sentence, according to reports, the blindsided Hilton could be heard telling supporters, "I don't know what happened. I did what they said."
Addressing the court, Hilton apologized, and said she never would have gotten behind the wheel if she had known she wasn't supposed to, per E! News, which was inside the Los Angeles courtroom.
"I'm very sorry, and from now on I'm going to pay complete attention to everything. I'm sorry, and I did not do it on purpose at all."
Hilton also told Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer she was trying to take more responsibility for her life. This, after Hilton essentially laid the blame for her troubles on longtime publicist Elliot Mintz, whom she said told her the license was only suspended for 30 days, through last December, while it had actually been suspended into March.
Mintz himself took the stand during the hearing—his testimony largely consisting of variations of "I don't know" and "I don't remember." Afterward, he declined to comment.
Clad in somber black and gray, her long blond locks prim and proper under the steadying influence of a hairband, Hilton showed up about 15 minutes late to her 1:30 p.m. court hearing in Los Angeles.
The red carpet fixture made the no-carpet scene via a black Cadillac Escalade, which, notably, considering her legal situation, she did not drive. She was accompanied by a posse befitting a judgment day: her parents, Rick and Kathy Hilton.
Inside the courtroom, Kathy Hilton, once a reality star like her daughter, couldn't help but show her displeasure. She derisively laughed when a prosecutor called for jail time for her eldest child, according to E! News, and she appeared to mouth "This is a joke" when the sentence was handed down.
After the hearing, Paris Hilton departed without speaking to reporters. Hilton attorney Howard Weitzman vowed an appeal. And Kathy Hilton popped off.
"What do you think?" Kathy Hilton asked an inquiring reporter. "This is pathetic and disgusting, a waste of taxpayer money with all this nonsense. This is a joke."
Weitzman didn't disagree. "To sentence Paris Hilton to 45 days in jail to me was uncalled for, inappropriate, and bordered on the ludicrous," the attorney said. "It was clear that she's been selectively targeted in my opinion to be prosecuted because of who she is."
But a spokesperson for the city attorney quickly shot down that allegation, saying the sentence "sends a clear message that in the city of Los Angeles, no one is above the law."
If Hilton was in no apparent hurry to get to court, she had good reason: L.A. city prosecutors were waiting for her. In court papers filed earlier this week, they cited repeated missteps on Hilton's part, dating back to a driving-under-the-influence arrest last September, and called for jail time. (Hilton shrugged off that original DUI arrest, telling E! News' Ryan Seacrest the whole thing amounted to "nothing." "I was just really hungry, and I wanted to have an In-N-Out burger," she said at the time.)
Review in a Hurry: Everyone's favorite friendly neighborhood wall-crawler returns for a titanic battle—against the forces of coincidence and plausibility! M.J. sings, Spidey dances, everybody cries and there's a suitable amount of punching.
The Bigger Picture: Doing whatever a spider can keeps tobey maguire busy in director sam raimi's third outing with the titular Marvel Comics character. Spidey has become a New York celebrity, beloved for his freelance vigilante efforts. Meanwhile, secret identity Peter Parker is on the verge of closing the deal with longtime love object Mary Jane Watson keeping one ear on a police scanner while pursuing a college degree, still taking shots of himself to sell to the Daily Bugle, and boy am I tired just typing that.
Little wonder that when forced to contend with three supervillains and his own inner demons, Parker's overwhelmed.
As will be audiences.
Even at two-plus hours, Spider-Man 3 is stuffed with explosive fistfights (really, explosive!), romantic entanglements, betrayals and reversals, temporary amnesia, and borderline musical numbers. Spider-Man even gets his own heel turn when he's inhabited by an underexplained alien parasite (which just so happens to crash to earth in a city park during an impromptu Parker-Watson makeout session) that turns Parker's Pollyanna-ish personality inside-out.
So much stuff is happening in Spider-Man 3 that contrivances and plot points are literally falling from the sky, which is a stretch even for a film about a man who fights crime with biological Stickum. Previously, Spidey's rivals have been men of science whose reach exceeded their grasp, overcome by baser instincts and the power of their creations. In other words, they made sense.
Here, they're just mooks who happened to stumble into the wrong place at the right time and decided to use their newfound powers for evil.
This is Raimi's none-too-subtle theme, of course: Whatever's thrust upon you, you're still responsible for your actions. And so it's Raimi who's responsible for two films here—one gleefully ludicrous action film and one willfully sentimental melodrama, both concocted by throwing anything he can at a wall. Naturally, it's the Spider that sticks.
The 180—a Second Opinion: If you can walk into Spider-Man 3 and not only suspend your disbelief but surrender it entirely, it's bound to be a thrilling experience, as the set pieces are gorgeous (memo to Bryan Singer: this is what was missing from Superman Returns) and the characters, however cartoonish their origin, nevertheless have an involving depth to them. And however much money this thing ended up costing (estimates range from $200 million to $350-plus million), it's definitely all up there on the screen.
Even as Trisha and Shreya, her two main competitors are signing new films, Asin, who was the flavour of the season, has decided not to take up any new projects till she finishes Dasavatharam.
Sources say that this maybe due to a major surprise in her looks and makeup.
Though industry hands are not confirming it, sources in the know aver that Asin, who is believed to be playing a double role to Kamal’s ten, has a very good character in Dasavatharam.
Asin, who loves challenges and likes to take up new characters, is thrilled at the work that she has got in Dasavatharam.
Asin, like Kamal, has an interesting get up. Though nobody is ready to say what it is, the general feeling is that there is a huge surprise waiting for the fans.
Asin’s last big releases were Pokkiri and Aalwar. Pokkiri is a confirmed hit and her career is now at a new high.
After Dasavatharam, it will be at a newer high.
It's official now: Sivaji, the biggest blockbuster ever to be made in Tamil, will be released on May 31.
After all the speculation and rumor, AVM productions, the producers of this mega movie, today formally confirmed the release date.
Rajinikanth, the film's hero who is now in the North, is expected to arrive in Chennai before the release.
Shankar, the film's director, is almost through with the film's post-production work.
A R Rahman too has finished his part.
Sivaji, made at an estimated budget of over Rs.30 crore, has Shriya playing the heroine. Suman is the villain while Vivek plays the comedian.
The film was originally scheduled to be released on April 14.
Director A R Murugadoss will be shooting the Hindi remake of Ghajini in Chennai. For the purpose grand sets are erected by art-director Samir Chaddha in the city.
One of the big-budgeted movies, the Hindi remake went to floors in Mumbai on 7 May with actors Suriya and Chiranjeevi taking part.
Starring Aamir Khan and Asin the lead roles, the movie has music by A R Rahman and cinematography by Ravi K Chandran.
Plans are on to shoot major sequences in Malaysia and Singapore.
Quite typical to Mani Ratnam's movies, Murugadoss is canning the movie with live sounds.
Murugadoss says, “It is indeed nice to work with a star like Aamir Khan. He is kind and co-operative. The whole unit is determined to complete the movie fast. Shortly the crew would be moving to Chennai to shoot talkie portions”.
Vikram is thrilled with the completion of his much-awaited Bheema. It has been quite some time since his last film Maja was released.
Undeterred by the yawning gap, Vikram, says, “Bheema will more than make it up. It would be a treat for my fans, an out and out action-packed entertainer. I would rate it as the best films that I have worked so far. The storyline of director Lingusamy is pulsating.”
“It is an action film shot in a stylish manner. Underworld is just a part of the story. It is a mix of action, romance and sentiments. Lingusamy deserves unstinted praise for his hard work. It is a different film and I had to do rigorous workouts for over six hours everyday to do justice to the role”, he says.
Lingusamy, whose last venture Sandai Kozhi is a big success is confident of repeating the show in Bheema.
As the title suggests, the hero is brawny and brainy. He fights for a cause.
“We have shot song sequences in Switzerland, New Zealand and the famous Thirumalai Naicker Mahal in Madurai”, Says Lingusamy and adds, “The song we shot in Swiss would be a real highlight of the movie. The onscreen chemistry between Vikram and Trisha is worth a mention. With Sivaji releasing in May, plans are on to complete the post-production works of Bheema in the coming days to facilitate a release in June”.
Trisha, after Saamy, is back to play Vikram's heroine.
“The movie would be a treat for action-buffs and surely Vikram fans, who had waited for over a year would be thrilled”, adds Lingusamy.
The reason why golf balls have dimples is a story of natural selection. Originally, golf balls were smooth; but golfers noticed that older balls that were beat up with nicks, bumps and slices in the cover seemed to fly farther. Golfers, being golfers, naturally gravitate toward anything that gives them an advantage on the golf course, so old, beat-up balls became standard issue.
At some point, an aerodynamicist must have looked at this problem and realized that the nicks and cuts were acting as "turbulators" -- they induce turbulence in the layer of air next to the ball (the "boundary layer"). In some situations, a turbulent boundary layer reduces drag.
If you want to get deeper into the aerodynamics, there are two types of flow around an object: laminar and turbulent. Laminar flow has less drag, but it is also prone to a phenomenon called "separation." Once separation of a laminar boundary layer occurs, drag rises dramatically because of eddies that form in the gap. Turbulent flow has more drag initially but also better adhesion, and therefore is less prone to separation. Therefore, if the shape of an object is such that separation occurs easily, it is better to turbulate the boundary layer (at the slight cost of increased drag) in order to increase adhesion and reduce eddies (which means a significant reduction in drag). Dimples on golf balls turbulate the boundary layer.
The dimples on a golf ball are simply a formal, symmetrical way of creating the same turbulence in the boundary layer that nicks and cuts do.
