McKenzie blog

Vintage Bollywood studio faces uncertain future

Mehboob Khan has carried equipment at the Filmistan Studio for the last 40 years, rubbing shoulders with some of the greatest names in Bollywood and playing a small role in the making of hit movies.

The ageing, slightly-built labourer is happy to show visitors around the complex in Mumbai and glows with pride as he pushes open the high, wooden gates to get to the studio's very own prison.

"Every actor, be it Dilip Kumar or even Shah Rukh Khan, has been imprisoned in this jail while shooting their films," he told AFP. "If there's a jail scene in any Bollywood film, there's no better place to shoot in Mumbai."

In a modern-day world of big budgets and jet-setting film stars, the Filmistan Studio in the Mumbai suburb of Goregaon is as much a part of Bollywood's past as Pinewood Studios is to British cinema or Warner Bros to Hollywood.

The studio began life in 1943 as a production house and went on to make nearly 60 hit films in the golden age of Bollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, including "Nagin" (Snake), "Anarkali", "Shaheed" (Martyr) and "Shabnam".

The 14-set studio was sold to a mill owner in the 1950s and has been rented out ever since to filmmakers.

But doubts were recently raised about its future amid reports that the 4.5-acre (1.8-hectare) site could be sold for up to six billion rupees ($131 million) and turned into a residential or commercial complex.

The Times of India newspaper said the studio's landowners -- a real estate firm -- had decided to sell because it was no longer financially viable.

"This is just a rumour that the studio is not doing well," insisted Anil Kumar Jalan, one of seven brothers who owns the film set location that is a world away from the modern cinema of special effects and exotic foreign locales.

"We have overbooking many times. In fact, we are thinking of expanding because there is too much demand.

"My father, Tolaram Jalan, has been associated with this studio from 1944 and we have emotional ties with it. He produced 72 films and we will see to it that shooting will never stop here. We don't want to sell this studio."

With Indian property law stating that landlord and tenant have to agree to any sale, the studio is looking to the future and is keen to show what they can still offer.

In an area of Mumbai now known for gleaming call centre offices, the studio provides a slice of traditional India, including a small garden for shooting romantic songs, a temple for heroes to worship at and even an authentic village.

Its web site -- filmistanstudio.com -- boasts of its place in Bollywood history as well as its ability to service the growing Indian television and film industries at competitive rates.

Recent productions shot in the studio include the 2009 comedy drama "Delhi-6" starring Abhishek Bachchan and the comedy "Horn 'OK' Pleassss", the website says.

Like Mehboob Khan, Filmistan manager Jasraj S. Purohit is particularly proud of the prison.

"We have renovated the jail recently. We have got extra rooms that can fit into cells. There is also a torture room that gives you a real feeling of the jail," he said.

"If you notice the bars, you'll see that they're made of rubber and can be stretched. The audience thinks they're made of steel and clap in theatres when the hero bends them.

"We have then also furnished our old police station and given it a completely modern look. (The actor) Dev Anand just shot his film 'Chargesheet' over there recently."

Older filmmakers have an attachment to Filmistan Studio and are keen for it not to go the same way as two other vintage studios -- Kamalistan and Natraj Studio -- which closed down in recent years.

"I've been coming to this studio for the last 25 years. It has the best facilities that one could think of," said unit production manager Inderjit Chadha, who recently worked on the animated film "Toonpur Ka Superrhero" (Toontown Superhero).

"I've got a long association with the studio and emotional ties. One of my first films, 'Vardi' (Uniform) was shot here in the 1980s."

Mehboob Khan also has fond memories for the past, taking out a photograph of himself with Dilip Kumar from his pocket.

"I'm a big fan of Dilip. This picture is very precious to me. Those days it was a different world. Actors were friendly and their pictures used to run for months.

"But today the films don't even run for more than a week at the box office and there is no passion in actors while they act."

Guinness World Record Set for Largest Online Guitar Lesson

outline:0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

At the beginning of March,-- the online division of the Berklee College of Music -- and Grammy-winning guitar player Steve Vai set out to reach the Guinness World Record for most massive online guitar lesson. The whole deal went down at Livestream Studios in New York City and was streamed using that service.

Well, the : With 4,455 students tuning in during the first 15 minutes, and 7,000 students in all, Berkleemusic and Vai are now honored in the same sphere as Charlie Sheen and his .

But, seriously, this undertaking was rather impressive -- Berkleemusic also donated $7,000 (a dollar for every attendee) to the Steve Vai Online Scholarship Fund at Berkleemusic. Check out the video above in case you missed the lesson.

What online tools do you use to practice or learn music?

Photo courtesy of Flickr,

Mexico gunmen kill U.S. customs agent, wound another

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Gunmen shot dead a U.S. customs and immigration agent and wounded another on Tuesday in Mexico, where violence between powerful drug cartels and security forces has surged.

The two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were driving north on Mexico's main highway on official business when they were attacked in broad daylight.

It was not immediately clear why they were targeted.

The U.S. government condemned the attack, which came just over two weeks after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Mexico's drug cartels not to take their violent tactics across the border.

"Any act of violence against our ICE personnel ... is an attack against all those who serve our nation and put their lives at risk for our safety," Napolitano said in a statement after the agents were shot.

They were shot in the mid-afternoon south of the city of San Luis Potosi, which is roughly half way between Mexico City and Monterrey, the country's business capital where drug-related violence has soared over the past year.

The two agents may have been ambushed after stopping at what appeared to be a military checkpoint, said a Mexican official who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak about the case.

Mexican drug cartels have been known to set up official-looking checkpoints, and the official said security forces had no checkpoints in the area.

Television footage showed a blue sports utility vehicle with several large bullet holes lying in the median of the highway, which was guarded by heavily armed Mexican federal police.

The U.S. agents were rushed to a hospital where one died of his injuries. The second agent, who was shot in the arm and the leg, remains hospitalized, ICE said.

More than 15,000 people were killed in drug violence in Mexico last year but, despite growing domestic criticism of President Felipe Calderon's army-led strategy, the government has vowed to press on with its campaign to crush the cartels.

The violence has alarmed Washington, which worries that the fighting could spill over the border. It has also prompted some companies to reconsider plans to invest in Mexico.

The United States has provided funds and training to help Mexico in its fight against the cartels and intelligence from U.S. law enforcement sources is credited with helping Mexico kill and capture several cartel leaders in recent years.

FIRST ICE DEATHS

Attacks on Mexican police by drug gangs are common but U.S. government employees are rarely targeted despite Washington's strong support of Calderon.

San Luis Potosi is home to a federal police academy and has not experienced many drug war killings, but gangs have been moving in to use it as a base for trafficking operations to the north.

Monterrey, Guadalajara and other Mexican cities once far from the front lines of the drug war have seen a recent spike in killings.

ICE said the two men were the first of its agents shot in the line of duty in Mexico.

If there is any evidence that drug gangs targeted the two agents, it would mark an escalation in the conflict.

"What we would hope is that there would be an incredibly strong response from the U.S. government ... Otherwise we could have a situation where it's open season on U.S. federal agents at the border," said Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.

Enrique Camarena, an undercover U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered while on assignment in Mexico in 1985.

More recently, two U.S. citizens and a Mexican linked to staff at the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez were killed in March last year, prompting the State Department to tighten security at its diplomatic missions in northern Mexico.

(Additional reporting by Krista Hughes, Adriana Barrera and Armando Tovar in Mexico City; Robin Emmott in Monterrey; Tim Gaynor in Phoenix and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Editing by Kieran Murray and Christopher Wilson)

Comcast 4Q profit, revenue rise, beat Street view

LOS ANGELES – Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable TV company, on Wednesday posted a fourth-quarter profit that beat analysts' expectations as more customers signed up for multiple services and the loss of video subscribers slowed.

It also added more broadband Internet and telephone customers than analysts were looking for — surprisingly strong results that caused the share price to climb 72 cents, or 3 percent to $24.88 in morning trading.

"There's not a single meaningful operating number that it didn't beat," Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett said in a research report.

The Philadelphia-based company with operations in 39 states said it lost 135,000 video subscribers in the quarter, fewer than the 206,000 subscriber loss analysts expected and less than the 199,000 it lost a year earlier. It finished the year with 22.8 million subscribers.

There were fewer cancellations by people who signed up mainly for promotional prices in 2009, and more people stuck around thanks to more high-definition channels and expanded programming brought on by the move to digital delivery.

It added 292,000 Internet customers, above the 212,000 expected, and 257,000 phone customers, also better than the 210,000 expected. It ended the year with 17 million Internet subscribers and 8.6 million voice customers.

The company reported net income of $1.02 billion, or 36 cents per share, for the three months ended in December, up from $955 million, or 33 cents, a year ago.

Excluding one-time items, earnings came to 35 cents per share, beating the 32 cents expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue rose 7 percent to $9.72 billion from $9.07 billion. That also beat the $9.58 billion expected by analysts.

The company recently became the new majority owner of NBC Universal. Its deal to buy a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal closed in January, so the unit's results were not reflected in the latest results for Comcast.

Steve Burke, the new CEO of NBC Universal, said the unit's cable channels, including Bravo and USA, were healthy, and that bolstering the performance of NBC during prime time — an area he called a "real weakness" — would take three to four years.

He declined to say whether NBC would continue to bid on expensive sports programming like the Olympics, where it lost hundreds of millions of dollars, and highlighted that 80 percent of the unit's profits come from its cable channels, not NBC.

"We're here to make money, and we're going to be disciplined," Burke told analysts on a conference call. "We're going to concentrate on businesses that have good returns."

Comcast took a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal last month by paying majority owner General Electric Co. $6.2 billion in cash and contributing its pay TV channels such as E! Entertainment Television and The Golf Channel, worth $7.25 billion, to the venture. GE is expected to diminish its 49 percent stake to nothing as it is paid out from the venture over seven years.

In its core business, Comcast said more people signed up for a combination of TV signals, high-speed Internet access and digital voice lines, helping increase the average revenue per video subscriber by 11 percent to $133.43 per month in the fourth quarter, up from $120.66 per month a year earlier.

Comcast said that 33 percent of its customers now sign up for all three services, up from 28 percent a year ago.

The company also said that it would raise its annual dividend by 19 percent to 45 cents per share, and speed up the rate at which it buys back shares. It will now repurchase $2.1 billion worth of shares in 2011, faster than an earlier promise to buy back that many shares by 2012.

For the full year, net income was steady at $3.64 billion, or $1.29 per share, versus $3.64 billion, or $1.26 per share, a year ago when there were slightly more shares outstanding. Annual revenue rose 6 percent to $37.94 billion from $35.76 billion.

Michael Moore sues over 'Fahrenheit 9/11' profits

LOS ANGELES – Michael Moore has crunched the numbers and concluded he is owed millions of dollars more for his film "Fahrenheit 9/11."

The documentary filmmaker sued financiers Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein in Los Angeles on Monday, claiming the brothers have used creative accounting to keep Moore from receiving more than $2.7 million for the 2004 documentary.

"Fahrenheit 9/11," which centered on the Bush White House's actions after the Sept. 11 attacks, grossed more than $100 million — a blockbuster by documentary film standards. Moore claims his agreement with the Weinsteins to distribute the picture called for him to receive half the film's profits, but audits performed since 2008 have turned up several irregularities.

The lawsuit states Moore's payments have been reduced by advertising, consulting, taxes and for travel described as "grossly excessive and unreasonable."

The Weinsteins' attorney, Bert Fields, said Moore's lawsuit should be thrown out.

"Michael Moore has been paid $20 million and he claims he should get $2 million more," Fields said Tuesday. "His claims are hogwash. They are totally without merit. He's been paid every dime he's entitled to."

Disputes over how studios handle accounting for major movies is nothing new, with lawsuits filed over the profits of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." Both cases were eventually resolved out of court.

The brothers have been responsible for bringing several hits to audiences, including "Pulp Fiction" and "Chicago" during their tenure at Miramax, which they founded in 1979. They later sold the company to The Walt Disney Co. but stayed there as managers, although they left over disputes about "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Moore is a documentary filmmaker known for tackling serious subjects with a touch of humor. He won an Academy Award for "Bowling for Columbine," which looked at gun control in the United States, and his latest project was titled, "Capitalism: A Love Story."