While everybody loves planning and hosting house parties, the thing that worries the best of us is the hassle that is mixing and serving the drinks. Well, not anymore. For `5,000, you can hire not only a stylish bartender, but also rent the entire bar for the night. And they are now available in a range of quirky themes as well.

For all that high-handedness of actress Mallika Sherawat, she is a thorough professional. Known to throw tantrums on sets, Mallika took the cast and crew of her upcoming film Kismat Luv Paisa Dilli by surprise in Delhi.

Stars and controversies walk hand-in-hand. And so do their publicists. They work 24x7. They are the real brains behind the hype generated around a star or a film. They disseminate information and work on makeovers when a celebrity’s image gets tainted in the public eye.

As an audience of Indian slapstick comedies, I have to accept that I am dumb and stupid. I am getting cranky over how I find them to be funny and how my friends hate me for that. Can you believe that I saw three comedy movies in the last three weeks but came out crying? And to top it all, each movie was seen first day first show!

Having seen Bharat Bhushan in Bheja Fry, as the audience you are forced to draw comparisons between what you saw in the original and what you see in its sequel Bheja Fry 2. And while drawing comparisons, you not only expect the same buffoonery, of course, but something more than that.

There are a lot of things about Bin Bulaye Barati that make you pity the filmmaker, who seems to have approved scenes that start and end nowhere; the producer for having put his money into a project that is definitely not going to make any profits; the actors who wish to make a comeback in Bollywood, but who at the end of the first week, will find themselves in an awkward spot.

There are no big names in Pyaar Ka Punchnama, neither does it stick to the formula that Hindi romantic comedies have developed over the years — mindless chirping on the screen, singing in the middle of the night, vulgar dance moves and, yes, stating the obvious and yet expecting the audience to laugh. Pyaar Ka Punchnama also doesn’t promise anything extraordinary, except, well, wholesome entertainment.

Conflict and suspense are supposed to be the two basic elements of a psychological thriller. The two work together in tandem to create a world where mind rules over matter. This world is brutal not because of intense physical action, but because of the psychological mind games that characters play with each other. 404 seems to have touched all these elements at some point or the other, but not quite firmly.

Bring all the dancers you know together and play some mundane hip-hop club music and you can be assured of plenty of locking and popping happening on the dance floor. But I guess that’s not enough to make a film. So, you rip-off the entire script of a popular film (the obvious choice would be a Hollywood flick), add a few random characters (who have no past and reasons behind why they are so random) and what you get is F.A.L.T.U.

AT the age of 70, Sakti Burman, one of the most popular names in Indian contemporary art, stands tall, inspired and ready to take another trip down memory lane.