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The next time you plan to visit Gurgaon, you have one more place to party. The swanky and innovatively styled restaurant Asia 7 was launched recently at Ambience Mall and thrown open for foodies.

Celebrity chef Nikhil Chib, who has travelled extensively around the globe and has selected dishes from seven Asian countries for the menu. The party was organised to celebrate the launch by Soni and Rohit Aggarwal and Divya and Amit Burman.

From designers to TV anchors, builders to socialites, food enthusiasts from all over the city trooped in to pamper their tastebuds. Designer Nainika Karan, all set for the winter in her black dress, tasted the fare from all the seven countries.

Also spotted were designers Vijay Arora, Ravi Bajaj, Gauri Karan and Rina Dhaka. Rohit Aggarwal, director, Lite Bite Foods, was asked what is the one thing that makes Asia 7 different from other pan-Asian restaurants.

He quipped, “It’s the food.” And yes, we will vouch for it, too.

Designer Suneet Verma relished the fare, saying that he was there to enjoy the dinner and nothing else.

U.S. singer Pink held on to the top spot for a third week with her single “So What” holding off the challenge of comedian Peter Kay’s spoof X-Factor release, the Official UK Charts Company said this week.

A release from her upcoming album “Funhouse”, the single is the second British number one for the Pennsylvanian, whose real name is Alecia Moore.

A new entry at two “The Winners Song” by Irish transsexual character Geraldine McQueen — aka Kay — is taken from his spoof television show “Britain’s Got The Pop Factor … And Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Strictly on Ice”.

Kay might have been left in the shade by Pink, but the comedian went one better than former X-Factor winner Leon Jackson and “Don’t Call This Love”, another new entry at three.

U.S. cult rockers Kings of Leon with “Sex on Fire” slipped two places to four, while the top 10’s third new entry — “Up” by the Saturdays — came in at five.

DJ Sash — featuring Stunt — and “Raindrops (Encore Une Fois)” also made an impressive showing rising to 171 places to nine.

In the album charts rock band Keane went straight to number one with “Perfect Symmetry” as rockers Oasis dropped to two with “Dig Out Your Soul, while the Kings of Leon and “Only by the Night” fell one to three.

There was one other new entry in the album charts with Irish boy band Boyzone and “Back Again — No Matter What” coming in at four.

“Max Payne” marked a successful transition from video game star to hero of the silver screen as the film debuted atop the North American box office, preliminary figures showed Sunday.

Fox’s noir, fantasy-tinged movie, based on the best-selling video game and starring Mark Wahlberg as a tragedy-stricken undercover New York cop hell-bent on revenge, racked up 18 million dollars at the weekend, box office tracker Exhibitor Relations said.

Payne knocked the pooches of “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” off their number one perch. The Walt Disney film about a pampered pup forced to fend for herself on Mexico’s mean streets slipped to second place, fetching 11.2 million dollars.

Buzzing into third place in its debut weekend was “The Secret Life of Bees,” a sweet story of a young white girl (Dakota Fanning) taken in by three African-American sisters. The film, an adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd’s best-selling book, took in 11 million dollars.

Director Oliver Stone’s hotly anticipated “W.” biopic of the life of US President George W. Bush — also making its debut this weekend — was closely behind in fourth, earning 10.5 million dollars.

Slipping one notch to fifth, with a 7.3-million-dollar take, was “Eagle Eye,” a futuristic thriller starring young Hollywood phenomenon Shia LaBeouf about a villain who infilitrates phones, televisions and computers.

Acting giants Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio join forces in the Ridley Scott-directed spy thriller “Body of Lies,” which dropped three spots to sixth place and earned 6.9 million dollars.

“Quarantine,” last weekend’s second place finisher about a television crew trapped in a small apartment building whose residents have been infected with a new strain of rabies, slipped to seventh, earning 6.3 million dollars.

Romantic comedy “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” featuring “Juno” and “Superbad” star Michael Cera, took eighth place, with 3.9 million dollars.

Debuting in ninth spot was “Sex Drive,” which follows the tried-and-true formula of teen sex comedy — 18-year-old virgin protagonist obsesses over losing virginity — to earn 3.6 million dollars.

Big-screen veterans Diane Lane and Richard Gere try to rekindle some romance in “Nights in Rodanthe,” which rounded out the top 10 with 2.7 million dollars.

“Max Payne” is a banal revenge melodrama-cum-detective story, but fans of the video game on which it is based should not be alarmed. The crews on production design, cinematography, visual effects, costumes, makeup, prosthetics and pyrotechnics do everything in their power to disguise this fact.

In a monochromatic New York of perpetual night, where each set is made to look like a fresh new outpost of hell, Mark Wahlberg’s morose and melancholy antihero strides through the cityscape looking for villains to blast, fellow cops to ridicule and femme fatales to scorn. For lovers of cinema, however, the title reads “Maximum Pain.”

When a movie is based on a video game that is itself based on genre movies — mostly film noir and the otherworldly fictions of “Batman” and “The Matrix” movies — you’re not too surprised at such a mess. The emotional underpinnings and psychological depths of great detective fiction get tossed aside for a wallow in stylistic excess. The 20th Century Fox film, opening Friday (October 17), looks to have box-office potential with under-25 males, especially video-gamers — that is, if gamers are willing to sit back and let a game, or rather a movie, play all by itself.

Of Max Payne, one character tells lovely Russian mobster Mona Sax (Mila Kunis), “You don’t want to be near him when Judgment Day comes.” Trouble is, you don’t want to be near him any other day either.

Stuck fittingly in NYPD’s cold case department, Max is mad at the world. Three men killed his wife and kid. He managed to shoot two, but the third escaped, for which he blames his fellow detective (Donal Logue) and just about everyone else who crosses his path, making him extremely testy even with his former mentor, B.B. (Beau Bridges), who now runs security for a large pharmaceutical company, and that annoying Internal Affairs guy (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges). Mind you, Max is the one who let the third man get away.

Max likes to live dangerously. He is constantly walking down dark alleys or into filthy, graffiti-ridden corridors and rooms where someone is waiting to pop him — or offer a helping hand. The latter would be the Russian bad girl, who similarly is motivated to avenge the murder of her younger sister (Olga Kurylenko).

Death scenes are accompanied by visions of a winged demon, which along with all the interior shadows and permanent midnight gives the film the look of a bad drug trip. Snow comes down constantly on a sad city (Toronto again masquerading as New York), and everyone snarls and sneers.

Logic is pretty much a no-no here, with villains easily tracked down, clues so large that Max literally is the last guy to figure things out, and, no matter where he goes he runs into somebody or something that’s Really Important. Even so, some scenes seem to exist solely to give director John Moore a new set or visual effect to play with.

The writer of this script is Beau Thorne, who is described simply as “a recent graduate of the University of Texas film program.” Which makes him perfect for such an assignment. He knows enough about cinema to borrow from here and there but isn’t old enough to be embarrassed about how badly he does so.

English actress Dame Helen Mirren, 63, denies that she looks as sexy in real life as she did in a bikini shot that was taken in France this summer.

She revealed that a photographer had caught her at a flattering angle.

“I looked at that photo - I swear to you - I looked at that photo and thought, maybe if I exercise I could look like that,” the Daily Express quoted her as telling columnists Richard and Judy on TV as they discussed the photo.

“I started exercising the next day. I was doing sit-ups and thought ‘Oooh, maybe I’ll actually look like that if I do exercise’. But I don’t,” she added.

Mirren also insisted that she did not take to any fancy diets or personal trainers to make her look the way she did.

Raakesh Agarvwal’s spring/summer collection is titled ‘Summer Solstice’ and captures the essence of the season with breezy shades of white and fruity tones of orange, yellow, red and raspberry. Primarily a resort wear, the range comprises Agarvwal’s interpretation of short dresses with lots of drapes and embroidery.

Pristine white Italian cotton-satins are presented in the form of jumpsuits and dresses for a cruise across sun-kissed seas.

Audrina Patridge, who is best known for her role in ‘The Hills’, has revealed that she was regularly picked up upon by high school bullies.

The American TV personality, who went back to her old high school for the OfficeMax “A Day Made Better” campaign, summoned up her hard days spent there.

“I got picked on,” Fox News quoted her as telling Tarts.

“Girls were always rude and catty to my sister and I. They will say anything to put you down and make themselves feel better,” she added.

The 23-year-old further revealed that dealing with such ‘rude’ situations made her stronger.

She said: “I had a few close guy friends and the girls didn’t like it, so they would call me names and spread terrible rumours.

“You just have to hold your chin up and take it as a compliment that certain people dedicate that much time and effort to talk about you.

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop experiencing that, I have just gotten better at understanding and dealing with it.”

Popstar Britney Spears has said that she repents her past chaotic years, insisting that she’s shocked to realize what was she thinking all these years.

The ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ hitmaker has a tough time in the past when she had a public meltdown, custody battle of her kids and a terrible MTV award performance.

“I sit there and I look back and I’m like, ‘I’m a smart person. What the hell was I thinking?” News.com.au quoted Spears, as telling People.com.

“I’ve been through a lot in the past two or three years, and there’s a lot that people don’t know,” she added.

Britney, who has had an image makeover and is again trying to carve a niche in the music industry, stated that as a popstar she was always guarded, which led to loneliness.

“Sometimes I think I get kind of lonely because you don’t open the gate up that much, you know I mean?” she said.

“You’re guarded. You have to be that way, so I’m kind of stuck in this place and it’s like: How do you deal? And you just cope, and that’s what I do. I just cope with it, every day,” she added.

isney’s planned sequel to the 2006 hit film “Cars” has been postponed from 2010 to 2011.

The studio said it would also produce a series of animated short films starring Mater, an anthropomorphic car character, and other characters from the first feature that will air on the Disney Channel and in the theatres, reports thehollywoodnews.com.

The original “Cars” movie took a massive $462 million at the box-office.

Versatile actress Nandita Das’ directorial debut ‘Firaaq’ has already received rave reviews at different film festivals across the globe, but she says making a movie was the ‘worst challenge’ for her. She now wants to go back to acting.

‘Directing a film has been the worst challenge for me. The whole project took me around two years to write and conceptualise. In fact, I was so busy that last year almost didn’t exist for me. Making a film involves a lot of things - pre-production, dubbing, post-production, etc,’ Nandita told IANS in an interview.

Nandita, who has won several awards for her acting, has no plan to go behind the camera again too soon and is looking forward to getting back to acting.

‘I think it (direction) is so engaging that I won’t like to do it sooner. I’ll like to get back to acting. I have always been inclined towards acting as I have a sort of responsibility to support the work. I’ll also get back to my human rights advocacy that has taken a backseat,’ she said.

Produced by Percept Picture Company (PPC), ‘Firaaq’ is based on the 2002 Godhra riots in Gujarat and stars Paresh Rawal, Naseeruddin Shah, Tisca Chopra, Deepti Naval, Raghuvir Yadav, Sanjay Suri and child actor Shehmat Khan.

Having been screened at the Telluride Film Festival (TFF) in the US and at the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in the Contemporary World Cinema Premiere category, ‘Firaaq’ is also competing in the Asia Pacific Screen Awards to be held this November in Queensland, Australia.

The film will also be shown at the Pusan International Film Festival and the South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF) in New York.

The film is slated to release early next year in India and Nandita said she wanted to show the ‘impact of violence on the human psyche and relations’ through her movie.

Another of Nandita’s movies doing the rounds of the world festival circuit is her first Pakistani film ‘Ramchand Pakistani’, which releases commercially in India Oct 2.

Nandita shares screen space with Pakistani actors like Rashid Farooqui, Noman Ijaz, Maria Wasti, Farooq Pario, Navaid Jabbar and Syed Fazal Hussain in the film.

Directed by Mehreen Jabbar, the film shows the trauma of people living in the India-Pakistan border areas and how an accidental crossing of the border changes the lives of a Hindu ‘untouchable’ peasant family living in Pakistan.

Sharing her thoughts on her cross-border debut, Nandita said: ‘I have known Mehreen for the last five years. People in Pakistan get to see a lot of India in the Indian movies released there, especially after the lifting of the ban. But in India we don’t get to see that amount of Pakistan.

‘After ‘Khuda Kay Liye’ and ‘Ramchand Pakistani’, I hope things would change and more Indian and Pakistani actors would work together.’

Known for her strong roles in offbeat films like ‘Fire’, ‘1947 Earth’ and ‘Bawandar’, Nandita also thinks that her being typecast as an ‘art-house’ actor is natural.

‘Some amount of typecasting is inevitable. I am basically used to doing what reflects with me and whatever I relate to. Beyond a point, I am not concerned about it. That is the reason why I do regional films. These films are also to be made and seen because they are good stories and good directors are making them.’

As far as selection of roles is concerned, Nandita says that an actor has to choose from what he or she is being offered.

‘As an actor, you are dependent on projects that come to you,’ she said.

Her next release this year is Santosh Sivan’s internationally acclaimed ‘Before the Rains’.

Right now Nandita has no film in her kitty - she is concentrating on her directorial debut and planning to take ‘Firaaq’ to more film festivals.