Madhuri Dixit’s comeback movie Aaja Nachle has failed to resonate at the U.S. box office in its opening November 30-December 1 weekend dealing a severe blow to its producer Yash Raj Films.

U.S. box office numbers show that Aaja Nachle brought in an embarrassingly low $257,500 and debuted at No-22 in its opening weekend.

Aaja Nachle’s unimpressive performance at the U.S. box office is hardly surprising considering it’s a mediocre movie that’s been almost universally panned by critics.

Aaja Nachle’s opening is real lousy when you consider that even a miserable dud like Laaga Chunari Mein Daag did $320,987 in its opening weekend recently although it debuted at No-32.

In its opening weekend, Om Shanti Om came in at a respectable No-11 and had a gross collection of $1.76 million while Saawariya’s first weekend gross was $542,192.

Aaja Nachle was released in 66 theaters in the U.S.

India’s military has carried out its first launch of a single stage interceptor missile against an electronic ballistic missile as target.

The interceptor missile launch took place from Wheeler Island, an island off the coast of the east Indian state of Orissa.

Indian defense personnel claim that the Endo-atmospheric interceptor intercepted the missile at 15 kilometers altitude exactly as designed for high supersonic speed.

Apparently, all the elements of ballistic missile defence (BMD) required for control and monitoring performed in a copybook fashion validating the design of the “Endo-atmospheric” layer of BMD system.

Defense officials said high-tech instrumentation provided precise and accurate data regarding the performance of the interceptor missile.

It seems the success of this operation has given confidence to India’s military to proceed with the next test of intercepting adversary ballistic missile by Endo-atmospheric interceptor missile.

The next test is scheduled to take place soon.

Meanwhile, India’s first domestic-built nuclear-powered submarine is said to be getting ready for trials by 2009. The submarines will be able to launch nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

If you love movies as much as we do, you’ll love the book Eyewitness Companions - Film.

For movie buffs, the 501-page book provides a nice introduction to the films business and whets the appetite for more indepth reading.

Besides giving us an overview of the Story of Cinema from 1895 to the present, this book also briefly touches upon the process of making a movie, describes the various movie genres, profiles the 200 top movie directors (dead and alive) from Hollywood to Bollywood, discusses cinema in various countries including India and ends with a guide to the Top 100 movies.

So, if you are too embarrassed to ask anyone about Avant-Garde movies or clueless about Film-Noir, pick up this book.

In the section on India, the author Ronald Bergan writes:

Indian films mean different things to different people. For the majority they mean Bollywood,  and for others they mean exquisite art movies as exemplified by the work of Satyajit Ray. The films of “Bollywood,” a conflation of Bombay, the old name for Mumbai, and Hollywood, are generally rigidly formulaic Hindi-language musicals, comedies, or melodramas.

Besides Satyajit Ray, the section on Indian Continue Reading…

Whoever said big corporations don’t have a sense of humor better think again.

Unless you’ve just come in from a different planet, you know Microsoft’s adCenter web advertising program has so far turned out to be a big dud.

Launched as a me-too, belated response to Google’s highly successful AdSense program, AdCenter is struggling to gain traction in the marketplace.

But that does not seem to deter Microsoft from launching hilarious adCenter initiatives.

Today, Microsoft launched an adExcellence certification program.

This is what Microsoft has to say about adExcellence:

The Microsoft adExcellence program provides agencies and advertisers with the opportunity to become certified adCenter experts. The program offers more than 20 free training modules and a fee-based examination, providing users with the ability to demonstrate to their customers and prospects that they are fully trained and proficient in using adCenter. Accredited members will be listed in the adExcellence Membership Directory and will receive an adExcellence logo for use on their Web sites and marketing collateral.

We can’t wait to see how many adCenter experts Microsoft’s going to certify over the next 12 months.

Talk of throwing good money after bad.