Kareena, family and friends go to midnight mass at St Andrews

Bebo and family attended Xmas mass at a different church, as Mt Mary was too crowded

Kareena Kapoor and her group couldn't attend the midnight mass at Mt Mary's church this year because of the heavy crowds. Instead they ended up going to another church in Bandra St Andrew's.

Bebo was accompanied by sister Karisma along with mother Babita and Saif Ali Khan. Kareena's best friend Amrita Arora and her fiance Shakeel Ladak, Dino Morea and Lara Dutta. Arbaaz and Malaika Khan (with their son Arhaan) and the Arora girls' parents were also there.

Kareena explains, "We had to go to St Andrew's as we couldn't get seats at Mt Mary. It was extremely crowded. Normally our driver goes and reserves some seats earlier, but this year he couldn't even do that. My mom has bad knees and she can't stand for long, so we went to St Andrew's. It was very quiet and peaceful there."

Amrita adds, "My family and I have always gone to St Andrew's church for midnight mass for Christmas."
After the mass, Kareena and the rest went back to her place for a huge Christmas feast which consisted of roast turkey with stuffing and gravy, jacket potatoes, plum pudding, meat and chicken dishes and marzipan sweets, kalkals and guava cheese as dessert.

Dino and Amrita with their partners went back to their homes for dinner. Later the three couples Malaika Arbaaz, Amrita Shakeel and Dino Lara headed to Aurus for Baba Diwan's party.

Kareena adds, "I have been binging on anything and everything. Diets are off for me now. When I go for my Alpine holidays I am not taking any diet chart with me. I am back to looking curvy and sexy and can eat anything till January 15 after which I resume shooting for Raju Hirani's 3 Idiots."

In Pictures: Ravi Chopra and Amrita visit Saif

Saif Ali Khan is currently at Lilavati Hospital in Bandra being treated for his stomach infection. Take a look at his visitors.

Friends Forever: Kareena's best friend Amrita Arora arrives early in the morning.


Model Visitors: Aditi Gowitrikar and Dipannita Sharma were spotted at the hospital.


Seeing My Friend: Director Ravi Chopra and his wife pay a visit to Saif.


Waiting: A distraught looking Kareena waits for her car to arrive in the afternoon.


Going Home: Kareena on her way home. Kareena had been by Saif's side through the night.


I Am Back: Kareena returned to Lilavati Hospital in the evening. It is amazing how she looks so flawlessly beautiful even in these distressing times.

B.O. update:- 'Ghajini' has unprecedented start, collects Rs. 10cr. to Rs. 12 cr.

The keenly-anticipated GHAJINI fetched the biggest start ever, shattering the record held by SINGH IS KINNG and GOLMAAL RETURNS, the two big openers of 2008. The paid previews were packed to capacity on Wednesday night and the film ran to almost 100% response throughout the country on Thursday.

Studio 18, the distributors of the film, were in for a pleasant surprise. Having released two of the biggest openers this year -- SINGH IS KINNG and GOLMAAL RETURNS -- and also one of the biggest openers of 2007 [WELCOME], they couldn't believe their eyes when they saw the figures pouring in from all over. Exhibitors across the country were going into raptures, stressing on the cent per cent occupancy on Wednesday night [paid previews] and also Thursday [Christmas].

This writer was in constant touch with several exhibitors, who couldn't hide their excitement. The common feedback is, the crowd was uncontrollable, that the crowd inside and outside their theatres was the same, that the film was packed in advance for the entire weekend.

Talking of numbers, the film collected approx. Rs. 2 cr. + in paid previews [a record], while the Thursday numbers were approx. Rs. 9 cr. According to early indications, the film collected between Rs. 10 cr. to Rs. 12 cr. nett, as per Studio 18. It's a new record, it's creating history!

Ghajini to be screened with English subtitles at BIG Cinemas

BIG Cinemas will be screening Ghajini with subtitles at select screens in Mumbai. The facility will make the film more accessible to hearing-impaired and non-Hindi speaking guests of the cinema. The film will be screened with English subtitles in its second week at digital screens in BIG Cinemas Wadala and Metro BIG Cinemas in Mumbai.

Tushar Dhingra, Chief Operating Officer - BIG Cinemas said, "This will ensure that the cinema medium can be enjoyed more completely by a larger number of the public, especially the hearing impaired who could not earlier understand the dialogues. The release of Ghajini, being an eagerly awaited film, was an ideal way for us to start offering this facility and will set a trend for future releases."

Patrick von Sychowski, Chief Operating Officer - Adlabs Digital Cinema added, "Digital cinema technology makes it easy to introduce such innovations. We look forward to introducing more such innovations for the benefit of the audience."

Mr. N.U. Nayak, Deputy Director - Helen Keller Institute for Deaf & Deafblind, welcomed the development saying, "Screening films with subtitles will definitely help hearing impaired persons to understand and enjoy films without misinterpretation."

This facility is available at no extra cost.

"I'm going to be fine tomorrow; the holiday with Kareena is on"

Saif Ali Khan gave all his family and friends a scare when he was hospitalized on Christmas Eve. But today (December 26), he is well on his way to recovery.

Speaking from his hospital bed at Mumbai's Lilavati hospital, Saif said, "I've almost recovered now. I'm going home tomorrow (Dec 27). It was nothing, really. I returned from Philadelphia from the shooting of Rensil D'Silva's film on 23rd night. And since I was missing all the Mumbai ka khana, I gorged indiscriminately on local junk food- Sev puri, bhelpuri, paani puri...puri ki puri fauj went into my stomach."

So wasn't he frightened when his stomach started acting up on him? "Not at all. It was gastroenteritis. Yes, I've been in hospital twice in the recent past. Once it was just appendicitis. And the other time it was far more serious. After going through what I did the last time I'm hardly going to get scared by a little stomach infection."

Chuckles Saif, "Actually it's much less scary than it looks. I've got a drip coming out of my hand, so that makes it look kind of serious. But it's nothing. I'm fine. Just a little sleepy. In fact, Kareena and I are going on our holiday to the mountains as planned."

Akshay-Kareena starrer Kambakht Ishq slated to release in May 2009

Akshay Kumar ruled the B.O. last year (2007) with several back to back hits. This year, while his film Tashan, sank without a trace, Singh Is Kinng emerged as one of the biggest blockbusters of the year, thereby pronouncing him as the ‘Kinng’ of the Box-Office.

Now next year, Akki fans would get to see him in Sajid Nadiadwala's Kambakht Ishq, which many insiders believe would be the biggest film of 2009. The film has been slated to release on May 29, 2009. Kambakht Ishq has been in the news for a while now, especially because of the pairing of Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor. Among the highlights of the film is the presence of Hollywood heavyweights such as Sylvester Stallone, Brandon Routh and Denise Richards.

The film directed by debutante director Sabir Khan has been shot at some extravagant locations across Europe and the buzz among the industry experts and the aam janta towards the film has been quite phenomenal. Now with Kambakht Ishq been scheduled to release on May 29, expect things to get all the more hotter next summer.

Asin unveils the Ghajini paintings made by Salman Khan

Salman Khan being an avid painter is a fact that's now as old as the hills. The brawny actor is known to even gift his exquisite paintings to those whom he considers truly special. The latest person to benefit from Salman's generosity and love is none other than Aamir Khan.

Aamir and Salman have been good friends for a while now and the story goes that Sallu was so impressed by Aamir's performance in his latest flick Ghajini that he decided to gift him two special paintings, done by Salman himself of course. The paintings, in keeping with the somewhat dark theme of the film, are in black and white and a noticeable aspect of both the paintings is the fact that both of them depict Aamir's by-now-famous Ghajini hairstyle.

The paintings were unveiled at a special function at a Mumbai multiplex by Ghajini's lead actress Asin. For those who came in late, Asin not only stars opposite Aamir in Ghajini but also plays the romantic lead in the Salman Khan- Ajay Devgan starrer London Dreams.

Aamir's performance in Ghajini has surely caught Salman's fancy. Now one will have to wait and watch if it manages to impress the janta-janardhan when the film opens across cinema halls this Christmas.