We all know how that Priyanka Chopra has a thick black mane we all would die for. And I’m sure maintaining those tresses could be a real task. Constant heat from straightening and blow-drying, along with other chemicals can damage that the quality of her hair. But hey! it’s a part of the job, amirite?
Say hello to Pantene’s new launch! With it’s improved Pro-V formula and goodness of oils, it claims to be MORE than just a shampoo. PC has even openly declared getting thicker, stronger hair in just 14 Days with it! But the real question is— why is she not going to JUST wash her again?
We love Piggy Chops and can’t wait to find out why! So stay tuned…
The opening sequence of XXX: Return of Xander Cage makes it clear that DJ Caruso’s movie will stop short of nothing less than world domination.
Brazilian football star Neymar sits across the table from secret agent Gibbons (Samuel L Jackson) and hears a recruitment pitch that will be familiar to fans of the franchise. In short order, people of many other nations raise their hands and flags to lend the hectically paced action movie the air of a United Nations convention. Donnie Yen (Hong Kong) smashes through glass, Tony Jaa (Thailand) outruns bullets, and our very own Deepika Padukone provides stern-faced back-up.
A thingummyjig that is blowing up communication satellites that survey the earth is stolen, and it’s time for Xander Cage (Vin Diesel), the American working class outlier and occasional patriot, to emerge out of hiding in the Dominican Republic and assemble a team of mavericks from Scotland, Canada, China and Australia. Cage’s global outlook ensures that wherever in the world you may be, you will feel the joy of watching a movie star from your country saving the planet from annihilation.
Extending the multi-racial mix that made the original 2002 film popular, Return of Xander Cage acknowledges that at the very least, Hollywood has to change its insular thinking if it wants to make the kind of films that rake in enough money to feed a small country. The superbly choreographed stunts and jaw-dropping action give every major cast member something to showcase for his or her nation of origin.
Yen, the Hong Kong martial arts star, gets his share of fistfights; Jaa has his Muay Thai moments; Canadian-Chinese actor Kris Wu takes care of two markets in one package; openly lesbian Australian actor Ruby Rose is a shout out to queer audiences as well as women with her ace marksmanship; getaway driver Rory McCann (Sandor Clegane from the Games of Thrones show) reels in television and Scottish fans with the same hook.
Padukone also does India proud by displaying deftness with weapons and catching the eye of Xander while aiming a gun at his hip-bone. After Diesel and Yen, Padukone has the meatiest of roles in the ensemble cast. She isn’t as agile or cool as Rose’s sniper Adele or as funny as technical support operative Becky (Canadian import Nina Dobrev), but she has enough screen time and close-ups to hold her own in a movie that is about the stunts above everything else.
The serviceable and lazily written plot is a rehash of the 2002 film. The fearless extreme sports fanatic Xander Cage is still putting his neck on the line without provocation, using skis on rocky surfaces, riding bikes underwater, and leaping off planes without a parachute. Helpful information cards pop up, as though in a cartoon strip, to introduce each of the key characters to viewers who might be new to the franchise, but Diesel’s antics and insouciance will be familiar to fans of the Fast and Furious films, the most recent of which was a massive hit in India.
The parade of stunts, one more eye-popping than the next, emphasises the ability of the human body to undergo all manner of punishment. A visual joke about Hollywood superhero films, which rely on gadgetry and visual effects to achieve the same effect, is present in the mean-looking pneumatic gloves that an American Army soldier wears to try and punch some sense into Xander. For Xander, his naked fists and wits are all he needs.
Adrenaline junkies with Red Bull in their veins have plenty to chew on in Return of Xander Cage, which never lets logic get in the way of spectacle. As the thingummyjig is located in the industrially depressed town Detroit and the action shifts into the American Red Belt, there is enough time to stop and wonder about just what XXX: Return of Xander Cage is trying to say.
Is this movie aimed at thrill-seekers also taking digs at Donald Trump, secret government surveillance, and anti-immigrant sentiment? Is Toni Collete’s manipulative National Security Agency chief the dour face of all that is wrong with American domestic policy? Are the remarks about true patriots versus government stooges and the statement that “the Central Intelligence Agency will destroy the world” more than just white noise inserted in between the endless stunts?
As pitches for conquering world markets and disgruntled domestic audiences go, Return of Xander Cage does one better than Gibbons’s glib and always successful sales talk.
This article, originally published at Scroll.in, has been reproduced with permission.
Natalie Portman is the latest Hollywood actor to call out the film industry for gender discrimination. Post film awards season, the Oscar-winning actor slammed the gender pay gap as 'crazy' – calling it even worse in Hollywood than in other jobs.
In an interview with Marie Claire, Portman revealed that she was paid three times less than her male co-star Ashton Kutcher for her role in the 2011 romantic comedy No Strings Attached.
"Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar," Portman told the publication. "In Hollywood we are making 30 cents to the dollar."
The 35-year-old star, who won a best actress Oscar in 2011 for her role in Black Swan and plays Jackie Kennedy in a forthcoming biopic about the former U.S. First Lady - said the pay disparity was 'crazy'.
The World Economic Forum, a non-profit foundation, predicts the global gender pay disparity may take up to 170 years to close. The average global gap stood at 59 per cent in 2016, it said in a report released last October.
Hollywood's gender pay gap was highlighted in 2015, when hacked documents from film studio Sony Pictures revealed major pay disparities between top actors.
They showed that U.S. actress Jennifer Lawrence was paid less than her male co-stars Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper in the 2013 black comedy American Hustle.
Hacked emails showed that Bale and Cooper earned nine per cent of the film's total profits, whilst Lawrence was only paid seven per cent.
Lawrence later said she was "mad at herself" after learning about the pay gap because she had "failed as a negotiator".
Other movie stars – such as Sandra Bullock and Jessica Chastain – have also hit out at pay discrimination.
The 2017 awards season began on Sunday with the Golden Globes dinner in Beverly Hills, kicking off two months of red carpets and black tie events, culminating in the Academy Awards ceremony on Feb. 26.
French police arrested 16 people in raids Monday over the armed robbery of US reality TV star Kim Kardashian in Paris last year based on DNA found at the crime scene, police sources said.
Police
swooped in the Paris region and the south of France following forensic
work at the luxury Paris residence where Kardashian was tied up and
robbed of jewellery worth around nine million euros ($9.5 million) in
October, one of the sources told AFP.
"One of the DNA
samples matched an individual known to police for robbery and criminal
offences, who is considered a major thug," the source said.
Using
the evidence found at the scene, investigators were able to put in
place a surveillance operation and build up a picture of the criminal
network behind the robbery, he said, adding that it stretched to
Belgium.
Money and documents were also seized in Monday's raids.
A
gang of armed and masked men wearing police uniforms had burst into the
residence in the chic Madeleine area of the capital where 36-year-old
Kardashian and her entourage were staying during Paris Fashion Week.
The
gang tied up Kardashian, locked her in the bathroom and fled with
jewellery including a ring worth around four million euros and a case of
jewellery with a value of five million euros.
The
Kardashian family's French bodyguard Pascal Duvier was not at the scene
at the time because he was providing security for Kim's sister Kourtney
at a Paris nightclub.
'Shoot me in the back'
Kardashian, who is married to rap mogul Kanye West, finally
broke her silence about the incident this weekend, saying she feared she
was going to be killed by the robbers.
"They're going to
shoot me in the back," she sobbed to her sisters while recounting the
ordeal in a promotional clip for the new season of her TV show Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
"There's no way out. It makes me so upset to think about it," she added.
It
is believed the men escaped on bicycles but one of the gang dropped a
diamond pendant worth around 30,000 euros in the street outside.
It was found by a passer-by and handed in to police several hours after the robbery.
Kardashian
lodged a formal complaint in France after she was filmed fiddling with
her mobile phone at the residence immediately after the robbery.
Her
lawyers said in October the video was made "without her consent or the
police's and while the police were investigating the crime scene".
It emerged afterwards that Kardashian had raised the alarm after untying herself and calling her bodyguard.
Kardashian
has harnessed the power of social media to rise to fame, with nearly 50
million followers on Twitter and 90 million on Instagram.
A
month after the Kardashian robbery, two Qatari women were held up on a
motorway outside Paris and robbed of valuables worth more than five
million euros.
The women, in their sixties, had just left
Le Bourget airport northeast of the capital when their chauffeur-driven
Bentley was held up by two masked men who sprayed them with tear gas.
Pakistan will see its first film of 2017 with the release of Rafay Rashidi's Thora Jee Le on January 20.
The film is the story of college friends experiencing the ups and downs of real life. The friends, played by a cast of first-time film actors including model Rizwan Ali Jaffri and TV actor Bilal Abbas, grow closer and fall apart — but the end message is one that "the youth of Pakistan needs to hear as we move towards a positive, progressive Pakistan," says Rafay.
Here's 5 things you should know about Thora Jee Le:
1) The film is inspired by the concept of six degrees of separation.
In a chat with Images, Rafay shared, "I had shot a promo two years ago titled Six, which dealt with the idea of '7 years of friendship lasting a lifetime' and the concept of six degrees of separation. I merged the two together, and created seven characters and their journey of life."
In the film, we'll see the friends reconnect when one of them is met with "a 'certain' incident".
2) It's a film for young people, but that doesn't mean the characters are all the same.
Rafay Rashidi (right) thought carefully about the characters he wrote in Thora Jee Le
About the characters he wrote, Rafay said, "The friends all come from different backgrounds with their very own insecurities, complexities and issues. Conflicts will be witnessed between the rich and poor, the middle class and upper class, the party crowd and the fashion crowd, a loving yet possessive husband."
"I've tried to break certain stereotypes with these characters," he added.
3) TV personality Mahtab Akbar Rashidi steps into cinema with this film.
Mahtab Akbar Rashidi (centre) with Rafay and his cast at the Thora Jee Le press conference
Director Rafay Rashidi makes his feature film debut with Thora Jee Le — and he has his mother, famed TV personality Mahtab Akbar Rashidi to thank for that.
After a degree in IT, Rafay decided to chase his childhood dream of making movies, he shared in an interview on Dawn News. When he sent this first script to his mother for feedback, she liked it but was curious about where he'd get the funding for the film.
'Ammi Baba hain na' ('There's always mom and dad') was the expectation. And so, Mahtab stepped into the film industry as Executive Producer of Thora Jee Le.
4) Rafay deliberately chose to not cast a prominent star.
Director Rafay Rashidi wanted some fresh talent to come to the fore in Thora Jee Le
"Lots of people recommended that I go for senior actors," shared Rafay, "But I didn't want one famous face, and the rest all fresh. The entire focus of the film would have fallen on one particular actor. Thora Jee Le is a film that focuses on youngsters, so I decided to go for fresh faces."
5) The film is a true test of Rafay's directorial abilities.
Rafay also didn't want to the ride on the coattails of his actors' star-power.
Talking about his choice of a fresh cast, Rafay further said, "A directorial debut meant proving my worth as a storyteller and filmmaker. For that, I wanted my audience to witness and give feedback about whether I was able to succeed as a director whose job is not only to shoot scenes but also to bring out good performances from actors with a good plot."
For the first time in the history of Pakistan, the country's transgender community will be included in the national population census.
The Lahore High Court on Monday instructed the federal government, National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and the interior ministry to include the transgender community in the census while hearing a petition filed by a transgender individual Waqar Ali in November 2016.
Ali in his petition called for the enforcement of the community’s fundamental rights, including enrolment in the upcoming census and issuance of national identity cards specifying their gender.
A deputy attorney general from the federal government was present in court during the hearing and assured the court that the transgender community will indeed be part of the upcoming census.
Earlier, Ali had filed a writ petition through Advocate Sheraz Zaka pleading that the transgender community has been marginalised, citing an event witnessed in Sialkot where a transgender was tortured.
Pakistan's sixth population census will begin on March 15, 2017.
Ad Home