Although nothing is official yet, it seems Amisha Patel and her Delhi-based-businessman boyfriend Kanav Puri are going places, literally. They first made their public appearance during the Fashion Week in Delhi and were later seen together on many occasions. We just heard that Amisha and Kanav went on a foreign jaunt - they were holidaying together in London a couple of weeks ago.

It may be recalled that Amisha broke off her four-year relationship with director boyfriend Vikram Bhatt in January this year. Hopefully she will find happiness and stability in this relationship.

Whatever Aishwarya Rai does, she does with lan. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan made the producers of Sarkar Raj poorer by Rs 10 lakh. Ash had, apparently, chosen designer glares that made a big hole in the producers’ pocket. The price tag left the production houses, K Sera Sera and Z Picture Company, reeling.

Ash wouldn’t settle for anything regular. Our source adds, “Ash finally selected a pair of Gucci glares from Harrods when she was in London. The glares do make a style statement as far as her look in the film is concerned, but imagine spending Rs 10 lakh just for that, and then sending the bill to the production house!”

Ram Gopal Varma has been radically ridiculed for remaking Sholay last year and the filmmaker has taken it all in his stride. Letting bygones be bygones he is all set to strike back with rejuvenated energy with his upcoming attempts. And this time he promises that his attempts are sincere and not influenced by commercial considerations or eccentric instincts like his past few films.
 
Rewinding back to his last attempt, Amitabh Bachchan’s look as Gabbar Singh in Aag was revealed with much fanfare at a special event in Mumbai in 2006. But the story goes that Ramu wasn’t quite happy with the much-hyped look of Gabbar Singh. The look was designed and presented to 7 people involved with the project including Ram Gopal Varma. Ramu somehow did not approve of the new Gabbar’s look and rejected it outright. But the other 6 members in the room seemed to like the look so much that Ramu had to give in to the pressure of the majority and go ahead with that particular look of Gabbar Singh. That’s where commercial consideration seeped into the film. And the eccentric instinct clearly was Ramu’s idea of remaking a film like Sholay .
 
With the instant failure of Aag in 2007, realization struck Ram Gopal Varma. At a time when RGV was producing and directing films left-right-centre, the outright rejection of Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag set the thinking process in the filmmaker and made him reconsider his approach towards films. At his pinnacle of success, Aag came in as his nadir of failure. And somewhere Aag burned Ram Gopal Varma’s taken-for-granted attitude towards filmmaking and simultaneously lit up his inner passion for quality cinema, something that he was synonymous with a decade back.
 
Desperately wanting to gain his lost credentials back, Ramu needed the right vehicle to propel him back into action. Sarkar Raj was already on the cards and seemed to be the perfect project. Sarkar was the last film that Ramu was unanimously lauded for. A sequel to Sarkar with an added Aishwarya Rai was all that Ramu needed to strike back. Varma wasn’t overconfident this time around and his poise paid off making Sarkar Raj a film being looked forward even by the ones who rejected Ram Gopal Varma.
 
But Ramu isn’t willing to stop there. If the buzz is to be believed, post Sarkar Raj he has another ace up his sleeve with another film directed by him titled Contract . With Contract , Ramu goes back to his favourite territory – underworld. But unlike his recent formulaic films on underworld like James, Shiva or Go, the director claims that Contract would be more sensible and in the vein of Satya.
 
Though Ramu won his first hit in Bollywood with Rangeela, Satya put him on the top spot for the hard-hitting treatment and pure performances from a cast that didn’t boast of a single star. Sources close to Ramu claim that Contract will remind audiences of the real characters and settings of Satya. Contract , largely shot in Bangkok, is about contract killings in the underworld and also talks about undercover cops in the mafia. The film has an entirely new starcast with no single appealing actor in terms of Bollywood stars. But Ramu promises to bowl over the audiences with the sheer intensity of the performances of his actors in this film.
 
What’s more, unit hands on Contract claim that the film will give another Bhiku Mhatre to Bollywood. We are looking forward Ramu…     

She has lost her puppy fat and now Ayesha Takia is keen to flaunt her new curves. So we were witness to a dress change in the same evening!!! 

Ayesha Takia was present at the music launch of her forthcoming film De Taali recently. You may ask, what is so different about that? Well let us tell you that she was seen in two different outfits at the same event.   

She came in for the one on one session wearing a black and brown top with blue jeans. There were a number of media people present at the occasion and the event was running quite late as per the schedule. Seeing this, Ayesha’s mother who is always accompanying her, started to get a little worried and was heard telling the organisers to speed things up as Ayesha wanted to change her dress as well before the launch party.  

Just after the interviews got over, Ayesha was not seen for a while. After sometime she was seen at the launch in a totally different brown dress that left us all surprised. Well that is what we call dress management

Though the superstar has aged, his self-assurance and poise are still intact.

And even actors of his era and time have either retired or are lost in the oblivion of a continuous media eclipse, the legend has reinvented and is busy at his age.

So over the weekend, he was busy shooting, attending meetings, writing his blogs, music releases and in between went to Goa to release a friend’s book, before catching a late night film to Nice to attend Cannes film festival finished. Now this is as busy as one can get!

Everyone who has been watching the promos of Sarkar Raj… have been admiring the look that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is supporting in the film.

Since she plays the head honcho of a power plant that plans to set up in India, she sports a very cool hair bun, solitaires, intimate jewellery with some serious business suits.

Says an insider, “Since this was the first film that AbhiAsh were going to appear on celluloid after marriage, it was obvious she wanted to look her best.

And she wanted to work on all aspects of her look – whether it was make up, hair or dress. More importantly she had seen Sarkar and knew that the Ramu liked understated power.

So she wanted her look should be very subtle but very powerful. She wanted the designer to model her look on international head honchos and CEOs.” We must admit that all her efforts have worked… and she really looking very nice, truly corporate in real sense!

At first, she may come across as yet another actress who’s back in the limelight with her first post-marriage film. But when the name’s Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, there’s more than what meets the eye. For those of you haven’t yet realized thanks to the ‘pre and post Bachchan wedding mania’ that ensured regular doses of Ash’s marital glow across our TV screens and glossy prints, last year saw Ash delivering only one Bollywood flick ‘Guru’.

But after a year of honeymooning, embarking on pilgrimages, arriving hand-in-hand with beau at premiere nights and basking in the glory of her recent success ‘Jodhaa Akbar’, Aishwarya is set to take Bollywood by storm once more. India’s highest paid actress who’s back in Mumbai after celebrating her first wedding anniversary in Miami last month, Aishwarya’s all geared up for her next big project ‘Sarkar Raj’.

Sequel to RGV’s ‘Sarkar’, this one’s releasing on June,6 and will see the Bachchan trio back together once more after the brief ‘Kajra Re’ sequence which took the entire nation by storm. But for those of you who are thinking that Aishwarya’s fate in the film will be similar to RGV’s previous heroines who succumb to playing sex objects, read on…

‘Sarkar Raj’ will see Aishwarya doing what very few women have managed to do in Bollywood. After impressing her fans as a staunch Rajput princess, Ms. Bachchan is now set to wow them with her ‘corporate’ avatar. Apparently, her character in the film is inspired by real life personality Rebecca Mark Jusbache, Head of the Enron International Division. Needless to say, with a well-defined and powerful character sketch as this one, Aishwarya’s sure to emerge as an equal rocker as hubby Abhishek and dad-in-law Amitabh if not outwit them!

Washington: She landed the coveted Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover in February and now supermodel Marisa Miller has been named the ‘World’s Hottest Woman’ for this year by Maxim magazine .

The American beauty beats out 99 other hot women including Scarlett Johansson to top Maxim’s annual countdown of lovely ladies, reports Contactmsuic.

At number three was Jessica Biel while Eva Longoria-Parker landed at the fourth spot.

Rounding off the top five was Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Magazine editor James Kaminsky said that Miller was his choice because ‘she represents the return of the great American supermodel’.

The top 10 on the new Hot 100 list is:
1. Marisa Miller
2. Scarlett Johansson
3. Jessica Biel
4. Eva Longoria-Parker
5. Sarah Michelle Gellar
6. Elisha Cuthbert
7. Eva Mendes
8. Christina Aguilera

Los Angeles, May 16: John Phillip Law, the strikingly handsome 1960s movie actor who portrayed an angel in the futuristic “Barbarella” and a lovesick Russian seaman in “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” has died. He was 70.

Law died Tuesday at his Los Angeles home, said his daughter Dawn Law. The cause of death was not announced.

With his vivid eyes, blond hair and imposing physique, Law was much in demand by filmmakers in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

He gained wide notice in 1966 with Alan Arkin, Carl Reiner and Theo Bikel in “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” Norman Jewison’s Cold War comedy in which a Soviet submarine runs aground off a peaceful New England island town.

He played the sweet Russian youth who falls in love with a local American girl in the film, which was nominated for four Oscars including best picture, actor (Arkin) and director.

French director Roger Vadim put Law’s looks to good use in his 1968 science fiction film, “Barbarella,” which starred Vadim’s wife at the time, Jane Fonda, as a sexy space traveler in the faraway future. Law wore wings to portray Pygar, a blind angel.

“I’ve had more kicks out of playing far-out things,” Law told the Los Angeles Times in 1966. “It’s like putting on a funny face and going out in front of people and going, ‘yaaaaaa.’”

Messages left Thursday for Fonda’s New York publicist were not returned.

Law was World War I ace Baron Manfred von Richtofen in the 1971 “The Red Baron” and Charlton Heston’s son in “The Hawaiians,” a 1970 sequel to “Hawaii,” based on James Michener’s sprawling novel.

In Otto Preminger’s 1967 film, “Hurry Sundown,” he was a war veteran struggling to preserve his farm against a land speculator played by Michael Caine. Fonda played Caine’s wife.

He continued his career in a variety of U.S. and foreign films and television over the past 30 years, including appearances in “The Young and the Restless” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

Law was a California native, born in 1937 to actress Phyllis Sallee, and her husband, a police officer. He told the Los Angeles Times he did some extra work in films as a child. He said he put acting ambitions aside in his teens, but his interest was renewed in a college drama class.

He worked in the theater in New York for a while before breaking into the movies, spending some time in the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, whose directors included the great Elia Kazan.

Bureau Report

Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan arrive for the after party of the film Kung Fu Panda during the 61st International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Thursday, May 15, 2008.