Hollywood

Worlds one of the famous The ‘Smack That’ singer Akon is on a three-day visit to Mumbai to compose and record a song for SRK’s ‘Ra 1’ and Shahrukh is leaving no stones unturned to give the singer a very warm welcome. Akon got a traditional Indian welcome from Shah Rukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor during a press meet in Mumbai on Tuesday. It is notable that Akon has also worked with A R Rahman on the album Freedom is Beautiful.

Asked whether he plans to work with other artists too, Akon replied, “I have worked extensively in America and after America, India will be my next big focus because I have got so much support here. Soon you will see me working with other groups too. I am planning a world tour and hopefully we will have a number of shows in India.”

For Ra One, I will be composing and singing a song. I will also appear in it. I want to give Shah Rukh different versions of the same song to choose from,” he added. Again, SRK hosted a bash at JW Marriot for Akon. It was Gauri Khan who approved the guest list and insiders have it that the Morani brothers, who organised the party, were specifically told to leave out Farah’s and her husband Shirish Kunder’s names. However, as soon as Khan became aware of this blunder, he told Moranis to invite Farah, but it was too late by then.

The party had glittering celeb list including Sherlyn Chopra, Riya Sen, Poonam Dhillon, Claudia Ciesla, Aarti Chhabria, Gauhar Khan, Anushka Manchanda, Sonal Chauhan, Rannvijay Singh, Madhu, Gaurav Chopra and Vidhu Dara Singh among others.

Pop stars super star BRITNEY SPEARS Representative record label has shot down reports the superstar is planning to release a new album in May (2010). Online gossips speculated that the Toxic hitmaker was back in the studio recording her seventh album of original material, which she was planning on debuting in May this year (2010).

The star had reportedly roped in top producers including Darkchild, David Guetta, Cisco Adler and Sean Garrett for the material, and planned to send out a new single to radio stations as early as this month (Mar2010).

But a spokesperson for Jive records, Spears’ label, has denied the rumours, saying, “There has been zero discussion about it.” Spears released her sixth studio album, Circus, in 2008, and celebrated a decade in the spotlight with 2009’s The Singles Collection.

Child protective services are investigating the presence of a stun gun at the house where the children of Michael Jackson live reports say.Quoting an attorney for the children’s grandmother, Katherine Jackson, the report said that the investigation was launched after one of the children’s cousins bought a Taser gun on the internet and played with it in the house. However, the attorney, Adam Streisand, insisted that there was no danger posed to anyone from the incident.

“Two weeks ago, Jermaine Jackson’s 13-year old son, Jaafar, who lives with his mother Alejandra at the home of Katherine Jackson, received a package with a stun gun he ordered online,” the statement said. “Jaafar opened the package alone in his bathroom and tested it on a piece of paper”.  According to the statement, Katherine Jackson and a security official heard the sound and immediately confiscated the weapon. Streisand said none of Michael Jackson’s children were ever in any danger from the weapon.

“All of the kids are happy, healthy and wonderful and that is Mrs Jackson’s only objective and concern,” Streisand said. Jackson’s three children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, have been living at the family compound since their father died on June 25, 2009, from a drug overdose.

Lucky indian girl Freida Pinto’s role as Latika in Danny Boyle’s multi-Oscar-winning film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ has done wonders for Freida Pinto’s career who is now getting fame, recognition and plum roles in many Hollywood projects. She has already completed shooting Woody Allen’s ‘You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger’ opposite Josh Brolin and Naomi Watts, and Israeli film ‘Miral’ under Julian Schnabel’ direction where she plays the lead role.

Now, she has bagged in yet another project where she will play the role of a Greek priestess in War of the Gods. The film, about the Greek mythology, will be directed by Tarsem Singh and begins production in April. The film will be produced by Gianni Nunnari of Hollywood Gang Prods, Mark Canton of Atmosphere Entertainment and Relativity topper Ryan Kavanaugh.

The movie deals with the story of a young warrior Theseus who leads his men into battle with the immortal Greek gods to defeat evil and the powerful elder gods of the Titans in order to save mankind. Freida here plays Phaedra, an oracle priestess joins Theseus to prevent the cataclysmic war from erupting.

An expert is of the opinion that contem- porary holly- wood film- makers have mastered the art of grabbing viewers’ attention with the correct lengths of each shot based on a mathematical pattern. James Cutting, a psychologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York analyzed 150 movies to reach the conclusion.

In the 1990s, the attention span of moviegoers was first measured into a series of waves using a mathematical trick called a Fourier transform. It was observed that particular length of attention spans in the viewers often recurred at regular intervals.

Now, this property is known as a 1/f fluctuation, or ‘pink noise,’ reports New Scientist. Cutting has measured the duration of every shot in 150 high-grossing Hollywood movies in various genres released between 1935 and 2005. He found that later films were more likely to obey the 1/f law than earlier ones.

However, Cutting insists that directors are not deliberately using mathematics to make movies. He thinks films that happen to be edited in this way, which are often more gripping, has inspired other filmmakers to follow suit.

It also explains the reason most recent films tend to follow 1/f.

After mesmerizing audiences with the greatest Avatar(3D), James Cameron is set to wow fans as he puts pen to paper for an ‘Avatar’ prequel novel, producer Jon Landau has revealed it. Jon Landau told MTV news  that the novel would be a prequel.

“Not a novelization - and there is a distinction. A novelization basically retells the story of the movie. Jim wants to write a novel that is a big epic that fills in a lot of things,” reports says. He added: “It would be something that would lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn””t have time to deal with - like the schoolhouse and Sigourney teaching at the schoolhouse; Jake on earth and his backstory and how he came here; Tommy, Jake”’’s brother; and Colonel Quaritch, how he ended up there and all that.”

The book would be the Oscar-winning director”’’s debut on the printed page.  And according to Landau the novel will be out soon. He said: “I””m hoping by the end of this year 2010.”

RIHANNA has reportedly landed a raunchy role for her latest movie performance - playing a dominatrix in a remake of kung-fu cult classic THE LAST DRAGON. The Umbrella hitmaker is set to appear in a new version of Berry Gordy’s 1985 martial arts classic, opposite leading man Samuel L. Jackson.

And Rihanna has been been urged by movie bosses to research the kinky role, according to Britain’s newspaper. A source tells the publication, “She has landed an incredibly challenging role alongside Samuel L Jackson.

“But it’s not a part for the faint-hearted. She will play a super sexy, super kinky dominatrix in martial arts flick The Last Dragon. “She has been told to research the part.” Rihanna made her big screen debut with a cameo in 2006 film Bring It On: All or Nothing.

Joslyn James, a porn star who claims to have been one of Tiger Woods’ many mistresses, has said that she had twice been pregnant by the golfer. James alleged that first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, the other in an abortion, and both occurred at the same time as Woods’ wife Elin was expecting his children Sam, now 2, and Charlie, 1, report says.

It was in an interview with Inside Edition, an American television programme, that James made the revelation. ”I feel bad for Elin. She didn’t deserve this and she didn’t deserve being humiliated,” James said in the interview. Woods, 34, was unaware of either of his mistress’s pregnancies, she said.

“Actually, the day I was going to tell him, I had a miscarriage,” she said of her first pregnancy. “After I lost the baby I didn’t want to talk about it.”  Sex was “never protected” and contraception was “never talked about”, she told the programme. ”The first was when Elin was pregnant with Sam,” James said, adding that when she found out she was pregnant again in 2008 she arranged an abortion without telling Woods.

“Elin was pregnant with Charlie at that time. I just didn’t want to ruin anything,” she said. According to James, she was Woods’ “full-time” mistress between 2007 and 2009. ”I was in love with Tiger and because of what he said to me and the length of time that we spent together I believe that he loved me too,” she said at a press conference held in Los Angeles earlier this month. James, 32, has starred in adult films such as Big Breasted Nurses. The disgraced sports star recently completed several weeks at a sex rehab clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in a bid to save his marriage.

Beautiful Hollywood actress Jessica Alba has vowed never to strip on screen. She says she can handle being sexy with clothes on but not without them.The 28-year-old admits she’s happy to take on raunchy roles and don revealing outfits in movies, but fans shouldn’t ever expect her to bare all for the cameras, reports says.

“No, I’ll never do a nude scene. I can act sexy and wear sexy clothes but I can’t go naked. I think I was always very uncomfortable about the way my body developed, and I remember my grandmother would freak out and throw a towel over me if she saw me wearing just a bra and panties,” she said.

“I come from a very Catholic family so it wasn’t seen as a good thing to flaunt yourself like that. I can handle being sexy with clothes on but not with them off,” she added.

Action king of Hollywood James Bond fans are being suggested the title of the 23rd blockbuster 007 film, scheduled to hit cinemas next year.Bosses at MGM have admitted that they are running out of names based on the best-selling novels of Ian Fleming.

However, fans are lobbying studio executives to choose between the names of two Fleming short stories with box office appeal. And they’ve also come up with their own promo posters to show how good they’d look.

One army of 007 fanatics is promoting Risico, originally written as part of the For Your Eyes Only novelettes. It sees Bond being sent by M to investigate a drug-smuggling operation based in Italy that is flooding Britain with narcotics.

A rival group wants the next film to be called The Property Of A Lady, another Fleming short story that sees Bond on the trail of a gorgeous Russian double agent who has infiltrated our Secret Service. A senior MGM executive said that director Sam Mendes has been ‘blown away’ by creativity of the fans.

“The posters look incredibly professional. The title of Bond 23 is still in the melting pot and it’s true that there aren’t that many of Fleming’s major works to choose from. We and Sam are listening very closely to what the fans are saying and there is every possibility that we might latch on to one of their ideas,” report says.