Earlier this month we had reported that Shreyas Talpade and Amrita Rao had been paired together for a film directed by debutant director Ajit Sinha and produced by Narendra Singh. However, now we hear that the makers have since replaced Amrita with Manjari Phadnis.

The film, Wah Taj, which deals with a common man’s struggle with the government, is slated to go on floor around February. With its shooting scheduled extensively in Agra around the Taj Mahal, the makers have already taken the necessary permissions.

Producer Narendra Singh, who is producing the film under his banner Filmy Box in association with Pawan Sharma’s Pun Films Pvt Ltd, confirms the replacement of the actress.

Owing to the technical challenges, the concept of weaving a story along aliens and UFOs has always been tricky for Indian filmmakers, but I would like to applaud Shirish Kunder just for the fact that he dared to make a film around extra-terrestrials, even though the success of the venture looks very bleak.

‘Joker’ upped the curiosity level of Indian audience, especially after Bollywood’s exciting and a rather successful brush with ‘Jaadu’ – the most adorable alien we all met in Rakesh Roshan’s ‘Koi Mil Gaya’. But, Kunder’s much ambitious project- ‘Joker’ clearly lacks the ‘wow’ factor which it abundantly promised in the film’s trailer. Entertainment wise, the film really has nothing to offer.

The single star that the film gets is for the fact that Joker is probably the first mainstream comic fantasy made in Mumbai. That apart, it has nothing that remotely resembles a redeeming routine. Pity, even Chitrangada Singh’s Kaafirana dil can make no dent.

What Joker delivers in the garbled guise of the genre plumbs such depths of vapidity that it stands no chance of ever coming up for air.

The run time of the film is an hour and forty-five minutes. Thank God for small mercies. But even at that length, Joker is difficult to deal with.

The story is very run-of the-mill. Akshay (Augustya), a NASA scientist returns to India to improve the condition of his village named ‘Paglapur’, apparently which has lost its identity from the face of the earth. Now since the administrators have no clue as to under whose jurisdiction Paglapur exist, Augustya’s village is devoid of any basic amenities like bijli and paani leading to the inhabitants going eccentric who incidentally happen to be former fugitives of a mental asylum. To improve the situation, Augustya with the help of the villagers hatches an absurd plan to attract media and the administration’s attention, but somehow the scheme doesn’t work out eventually leading to utter chaos.

Akshay Kumar is as good as he can be – and that isn’t all that good. Sonakshi sleepwalks through the film, grinning and frowning as he drowns in the morass,

Give Joker a miss if you value your sanity and money. It gives commercial Hindi cinema a bad name.

Kareena Kapoor and Salman Khan indirectly called Sonakshi Sinha fat sometime back. There’s an addition to the list. Bigg Boss winnner and her Joker co-star Vindu Dara Singh thinks “Sonakshi is a little fat“.

Shooting for a film calls for quite a long schedule, which ends up making the entire cast and crew bond well.

And one such house on fire tale was seen on the sets of Shirish Kunder’s upcoming Joker. The film alongside, Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Shreyas Talpade and Minissha Lamba; also stars Vindu Dara Singh. In the film he plays the character of Shundi, Akshay’s friend. It has been learnt that the veteran had a whale of time working with both Akki and Sonakshi.

“Akshay used to often say that Sonakshi’s mother should make the food. Sonakshi’s mom made Sarson ka sag, fish in sarson ka tel and paye ka soup many times. We used to often joke that Sonakshi should not be fed with such good food,” Vindu was quoted by the tabloid.

Vindu is not the only one who has remarked about Sonakshi’s weight. Here’re others who took a dig at the lady’s broad frame.

Shreyas Talpade and Nana Patekar bond on the sets of Priyadarshan’s comic caper KAMAAL DHAMAAL MALAMAAL. So much so that Nana’s pranks on the sets of this Percept Pictures’ venture are taken for real by those on the sets.

When someone quizzed Nana on his dosti with Shreyas, Nana explained to him that, “I have seen Shreyas when he was in the cradle. I know his dad well and I have cradled him as a baby in my own arms.” Shreyas also admits that Nana is ‘Nana Kaka’ to him.

But, it seems that he needs to look for Nana’s tips on his unique sense of humour, for the next prank Nana played on another unsuspecting person was calling Shreyas his son-in-law. “His wife Deepti is my daughter. And I am looking forward to her coming soon on the sets,” said Nana.

While Shreyas preferred to grin and go with Nana’s joke, the person seriously went on to enquire with Shreyas, how long were he and Deepti married. “Seven years,” replied Shreyas. And now, the onlooker raved about how Nana did not look like he was the father of Shreyas’ wife and how he maintained himself. More

Director Sajid Khan, whose third directorial venture Housefull 2 is ready to hit the screens, says he is confident the film will be a blockbuster as he makes films by placing himself in the audience’s seat.

“Only a good film will work. If my film is not good then it will not work beyond Monday. But I can say it with a lot of confidence that this film (‘Housefull 2′) is a blockbuster. I am not saying this because this is my film but because I have made this film according to the audience. Every film I make, I make it as an audience,” the 40-year-old said here at a promotional event for “Housefull 2″.

Sajid Khan says it’s the family audiences that make a film a hit. “The day my film does not work, then no matter how many tie ups I do, it will not work at all. It will work when you people go and watch it with your family,” he said. More