Mekaal Hasan is the hottest producer around right now

He just wrapped up production on Jal's new album, Boondh and these days, it is Ali Azmat's Klashnifolk that is consuming most of Mekaal's time.

To his credit, Mekaal has made sure that Boondh sounds crisp and it is just that.

Undoubtedly Mekaal Hasan is the most in-demand music producer in Pakistan these days. Rohail Hyatt and Shahi Hasan are the only other music producers who can really match Mekaal's production wizardry. But strangely enough, most artists opt to go to Mekaal.

Among other records that Mekaal is producing includes Zeb and Haniya's debut album. According to the girls' website, "Recording began in the first week of February 2007 at Mekaal Hasan's Digital Fidelity Studio in Lahore. The tracking completed, the album moved into the editing and mixing phase in August 2007, and the band is currently waiting for Mekaal to complete the album so they can get it to listeners as soon as possible."

The only thing is what takes priority? With so many albums to produce, it usually means that some albums will be given more priority. And Mekaal's own songs with his band, Mekaal Hasan Band, are also being produced at the same studio. So it seems that release dates of Klashnifolk as well as the highly anticipated debut of Zeb and Haniya will depend on Mekaal Hasan and how soon he can finish the records.



Abhishek and Aishwarya break the ice with Shah Rukh KhanRiteish Deshmukh's birthday bash saw most of his Bollywood friends turn up. The seniors were not invited so it was basically a gathering of the young and restless. "The oldest in the group, I think, was Shah Rukh Khan. Riteish's dad was also missing," one source said.

However, the highlight of the party was the fact that Shah Rukh and wife Gauri were seen bonding with Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. So much so, that the two couples almost spent the whole evening chatting with each other. Just why this comes as a surprise is that SRK and Ash have not really been on great terms and moreover, the entire Bachchan family seemed miffed with King Khan. However, this was a night when all the animosity seemed to have melted away. It had to happen sooner or later; after all, Aishwarya did end up with Abhishek and not Salman whose behaviour on the sets of Chalte Chalte created the violence with Ash in the first place.

Later the same night, Abhishek and Ash burned the dance floor when Jhoom Barabar Jhoom songs were played and then SRK joined wife Gauri on the dance floor when Om Shanti Om songs were being played. It seems that Indian stars dance to their own tunes. Gauri, however, did not restrict herself to one or two songs - she danced through the night along with designer Sabina Khan, Kunal Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Neelam Kothari, Bobby Deol and his wife, Tanya. DJ Suketu was spinning at the party. The only couple who stayed away from the dance floor and seemed entirely caught up with each other were Arjun Rampal and Meher Jessia.

But ultimately it is the Shah Rukh-Aishwarya-Abhishek triangle that is sorted at long last and of that we are glad!

Matt Damon and Eddie Veddar to teach 'people's history

Actor Matt Damon, whose been riding high on the success of his film, Bourne Ultimatum along with Eddie Veddar, front man of Pearl Jam, will both contribute their talents to a documentary miniseries based on historian-author Howard Zinn's 1980 book, A People's History of the United States.

Titled The People Speak, the project will feature music and readings based on America's struggles with war, class, race and the rights of women.

Eddie Veddar has always been outspoken and his association with films dates back to 1995's Dead Man Walking. And since then he has been involved with soundtracks including Sean Penn's recent film, Into The Wild.

Matt isn't far behind. Along with buddies George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Don Cheadle, Matt has been raising funds for Darfur.

Other than Matt and Eddie, Viggo Mortensen, Josh Brolin, Danny Glover and Kerry Washington will provide performances for the project, which will interweave archival footage, photographs and interviews. Eddie Vedder and R&B singer John Legend will handle the music.

And this really is the way to make documentaries have a mass appeal. When such high profile names team up together, it leads to curiosity and is bound to get noticed. So here's to Matt and Eddie, these guys just know how to use their star power to the hilt! We really wish our musicians and actors would learn to do the same!

The Golden Compass

Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) lives in a parallel world in which human souls take the form of lifelong animal companions called daemons. Dark forces are at work in the girl's world, and many children have been kidnapped by beings known as Gobblers. Lyra vows to save her best friend, Roger, after he disappears too. She sets out with her daemon, a tribe of seafarers, a witch, an ice bear and a Texas airman on an epic quest to rescue Roger and save her world.
Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) lives in a parallel world in which human souls take the form of lifelong animal companions called daemons. Dark forces are at work in the girl's world, and many children have been kidnapped by beings known as Gobblers. Lyra vows to save her best friend, Roger, after he disappears too. She sets out with her daemon, a tribe of seafarers, a witch, an ice bear and a Texas airman on an epic quest to rescue Roger and save her world.
Tags: There are no tags.

Movie review: 'Golden Compass' a thoughtful fantasy world

Unlike screen adaptations of the "Harry Potter" books, or the Disneyfication of "The Chronicles of Narnia" - movies that anyone can enjoy without giving them a second thought - "The Golden Compass" introduces a world of myth and mystery that requires patience and a certain mental aptitude to figure out.
It's a place fraught with parallel worlds and Animal Planet fashion accessories. Where else are you going to find Sam Elliott - in full cowboy hat and twang - speaking to an up-armored white bear who sounds like (and is) Ian McKellen?
If you are Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards), the 12-year-old orphan who is the story's heroine - not to mention the movie's heart and soul - how you find all these remarkable things, and navigate the movie's tricky terrain is with an Alethiometer. That's the official name for the golden compass that guides Lyra through Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, first published in England in 1995, two years before J.K. Rowling's "Potter" series began.
An Alethiometer is the global-positioning equivalent of a watch that tells you it's two freckles past a hair Eastern elbow time. Not terribly useful. Unless, of course, you are able to discern from a compass heading that appears to include a picture of a bear and a picture of a lightning bolt that you should set out immediately for the Arctic Circle.
This is the sort of thing that Lyra does with comparative ease, closing her eyes and becoming engulfed in a cloud of golden dust. Deciphering the compass's clues remains infernally difficult for the rest of us, which is why Lyra is soon being spoken of as some sort of "chosen one." Among other story elements, that term has set off a backlash against the film by church groups who believe Pullman's books to be anti-religion.
Lyra is the whip-smart-but-rebellious ward of Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), who is apparently some sort of Indiana Jones of a dimension visible only to him. He wants Jordan College to fund his exploration of these parallel worlds, and before decamping for parts unknown to await the movie's inevitable sequel, Asriel introduces us to the Kingdom of the Ice Bears. He even shows some faculty geezers a picture of dust coming from the sky. Obviously, the grant application process works a little differently in England.
The school's master is the one who gives the world's last Alethiometer to Lyra, and he does so with apparent confidence that she will figure out how to use it. "It tells the truth," he says, handing the contraption over to her easy as you please, as if it were made of Fruit Roll-ups instead of solid gold. "This lets you glimpse things as they are."
He's pretty sure she'll need some kind of lie detector, and for good reason. He has just agreed to allow Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), the gold-plated moll of the Magisterium - a mysterious, power-hungry order that seems to have a grudge against all children - to take Lyra with her to Norway. Shimmering across a long dining hall in gold lamé and platinum blond hair, Kidman looks as if she just stepped out of a remake of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," a wicked virago vision of Marilyn Monroe with plumped lips.
The adaptation of Pullman's book is by Chris Weitz ("About a Boy"), who is parsimonious about revealing the secrets of the Magisterium. When Lyra asks Mrs. Coulter what the Magisterium is, as the two of them soar across London in a red and gold zeppelin, Mrs. C replies that the evil order tells people what to do, but "in a kindly way."
It doesn't take a golden compass to know that's a whopper, but the movie quickly removes all doubt about the group's villainy by installing inter-galactic bad guy Christopher Lee as its First High Councilor. The only conceivable casting clue less subtle than that would be if they'd hired Darth Vader for the part.
In its own way, "The Golden Compass" is a sequel of sorts, coming from the same studio that produced "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Some of the action set pieces at the Arctic Circle may remind you of the "Rings" movies, and while Weitz lacks Peter Jackson's obvious operatic flair for fantasy, the big action scenes work on their own terms.
Kidman probably isn't the ideal choice for Mrs. Coulter; she seems to have trouble conveying some of the character's ambiguity. Craig is a marquee name with very little to do, and as a result, many of the best performances are vocal: McKellen brings the great bear Iorek roaring to life, and Freddie Highmore is sweet as Lyra's daemon, one of the animal companions every human has.
The movie's strongest selling point is Lyra herself, not just a welcome change from all the boy seekers of knowledge and truth in the "Harry Potter" and "Rings" pictures. She gets plenty of help from Elliott's cowboy aviator Lee Scoresby, the friendly witch Serafina (Eva Green) and an unforgettable bear.
Lyra has more pre-pubescent girl power than any screen heroine since "Whale Rider," and there is enough fire in Dakota Blue Richards' first film performance to make you eager for the next installment in the series