Who Cares about the Oscars?

Who Cares about the Oscars? • Action Time Again • Bully in the Gym

AR Rahman, who became a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) when he won two Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, is among the handful of Indians who can vote for the Academy Awards each year. Rahman, like all other Academy members, receives screener DVDs of all significant American movies during the awards season, and the composer is expected to cast his vote after watching the films.

But the composer sheepishly revealed to close friends recently that he wasn’t able to watch all the films he was expected to, and didn’t vote as a result. Resul Pookutty, meanwhile, Oscar-winning sound designer for Slumdog and also an Academy member, reportedly showed more commitment. He watched as many of the screeners as he could before the voting weekend, and claims he cast his vote online.

Pookutty, incidentally, worked on the sound design of last year’s sleeper hit The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which was shot in Rajasthan. He’s currently in the process of turning director with a film starring Amitabh Bachchan. Based on a news report that Pookutty watched on television, the film’s story is a moving one about a Pakistani man and the struggle he goes through to receive his dead son’s ashes. Bachchan, who has said that he’s excited about the film, is yet to allot shooting dates.

Filmmaker Vipul Shah, whose collaboration with Akshay Kumar yielded a spate of hits like Aankhen, Waqt, Namaste London and Singh is King, has just produced Commando, a low-budget action film starring Force-baddie Vidyut Jamwal in the lead; the film is apparently inspired by the Sylvester Stallone cult hit First Blood. The filmmaker’s relationship with Khiladi Kumar reportedly soured during the making of their 2010 dud Action Replayy, following which the actor hasn’t worked with Vipul.

But it now turns out that Akshay will star in and co-produce a new film with Vipul that Ghajini director AR Murgadoss will direct. Industry sources reveal that Akshay only greenlit the project to recover the “huge balance payment” due to him from his former friend and collaborator as part of his promised Action Replayy deal.

Meanwhile, Vipul, once counted as an influential filmmaker, has been making smaller films with newcomers. After launching Vidyut’s career in Force, Vipul signed up the former model in a three-movie deal, of which Commando is the first project. In an industry hungry for new stars, big hopes are pinned on Vidyut, who some have described as the next Ajay Devgn, “only better looking”.

Even as she patiently awaits the release of her much-delayed comeback project, a fading female star is making every effort to keep herself in shape, lest she not be ready and raring to go when (and if) new offers come knocking.

One hears the actress, who lives in Bandra, religiously shows up every other evening for her workout at a famed pilates studio in Khar, where she spends close to two hours knocking herself into shape. This exclusive studio is reportedly designed in a way that only one person can utilise each facility at a time, and other patrons have complained that the actress regularly throws her weight around, cutting queues and demanding preferential treatment.

According to one source, she stared down a hapless lady till the poor thing gave up her workout on the treadmill and left the room for the actress. Cocking a snook at the terrified lady, the star then allegedly yelled for a gym help and demanded that he spray disinfectant “everywhere”.

Other patrons have said the actress brings her lightweight laptop and watches American sitcoms with earphones jammed in her ears while she’s on the treadmill, often going way beyond her allotted time slot. When one patron politely interrupted the star during her routine to check if she might have left her car keys in the room during her workout just before, she claims the actress barked at her impatiently and shooed her away without so much as bothering to look for the keys herself, or allowing the desperate woman to look for them.

Repeated complaints to the management have proved futile, because the owner of the studio, a star-struck chap, doesn’t have the courage to ask the actress to improve her manners.

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Rajeev Masand

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