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LAKERS REPEAT !-Beat Boston for 2010 NBA Title

BILLIONAIRES MEETING

FORTUNE -- Just over a year ago, in May 2009, word leaked to the press that the two richest men in America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, had organized and presided over a confidential dinner meeting of billionaires in New York City. David Rockefeller was said to have been a host, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Oprah Winfrey to have been among those attending, and philanthropy to have been the main subject.

Pushed by the press to explain, Buffett and Gates declined. But that certainly didn't dim the media's interest in reaching for descriptions of the meeting: The Chronicle of Philanthropy called it "unprecedented"; both ABC News and the Houston Chronicle went for "clandestine"; a New Yorkmagazine parody gleefully imagined George Soros to have been starstruck in the presence of Oprah. One radio broadcaster painted a dark picture: "Ladies and gentlemen, there's mischief afoot and it does not bode well for the rest of us." No, no, rebutted the former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Patty Stonesifer, who had been at the meeting and had reluctantly emerged to combat the rumors. The event, she told the Seattle Times, was simply a group of friends and colleagues "discussing ideas" about philanthropy.

And so it was. But that discussion -- to be fully described for the first time in this article -- has the potential to dramatically change the philanthropic behavior of Americans, inducing them to step up the amounts they give. With that dinner meeting, Gates and Buffett started what can be called the biggest fundraising drive in history. They'd welcome donors of any kind. But their direct target is billionaires, whom the two men wish to see greatly raise the amounts they give to charities, of any and all kinds. That wish was not mathematically framed at the time of the New York meeting. But as two other U.S. dinners were held (though not leaked), Buffett and Gates and his wife, Melinda, set the goal: They are driving to get the super-rich, starting with the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, to pledge -- literally pledge -- at least 50% of their net worth to charity during their lifetimes or at death.

Without a doubt, that plan could create a colossal jump in the dollars going to philanthropy, though of what size is a puzzle we'll get to. To begin with, a word about this article you are reading. It is the first public disclosure of what Buffett and Melinda and Bill Gates are trying to do. Over the past couple of months Fortune has interviewed the three principals as the project has unfolded, as well as a group of billionaires who have signed up to add their names to the Gates/Buffett campaign.

In a sense this article is also an echo of two other Fortune stories, both featuring Buffett on the cover. The first, published in 1986, was "Should you leave it all to the children?" To that query, Buffett emphatically said no. The second article, "Warren Buffett gives it away," which appeared in 2006, disclosed Buffett's intention to gradually give away his Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) fortune to five foundations, chief among them the world's largest, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (For Buffett's thinking on the disposition of his wealth, see "My philanthropic pledge.")

Since then, in four years of contributions, Buffett has given the foundation $6.4 billion, not counting the 2010 gift, to be made this summer. The foundation in turn has in that same period combined Buffett's money and its immense gifts from the Gateses to raise its level of giving to about $3 billion a year, much of it for world health. One small example: the Medicines for Malaria Venture, heavily funded by the Gates Foundation, has worked with pharmaceutical company Novartis (NVS) to develop good-tasting malaria pills and distribute them to millions of children -- the principal victims of the disease -- in 24 countries.

Another fact about the 2006 Buffett article is that it was written by yours truly, Carol Loomis, a senior editor-at-large of Fortune. Besides that, I am a longtime friend of Buffett's and editor of his annual letter to Berkshire's shareholders. Through him, my husband, John Loomis, and I have also come to know Melinda and Bill Gates socially. The Loomis team has even occasionally played bridge against Warren and Bill.

LOOK WHO CAME TO DINNER: The crowd at the inaugural event added up to a list that would make any charity – or any conspiracy theorist – swoon. Left to right: Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett, Eli and Edythe Broad, Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, Chuck Feeney, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Julian Robertson, John and Tashia Morgridge, Pete Peterson

All that said, the question of what philanthropy might gain from the Gates/Buffett drive rests, at its outset, on a mystery: what the wealthiest Americans are giving now. Most of them aren't telling, and outsiders can't pierce the veil. For that matter, the Forbes 400 list, while a valiant try, is a best-guess estimate both as to the cast of characters and as to their net worth. (Buffett says he knows of two Berkshire shareholders who should be on the list but have been missed.) As Bill Gates sums it up, "The list is imprecise."

Those qualifiers noted, the magazine stated the 2009 net worth of the Forbes 400 to be around $1.2 trillion. So if those 400 were to give 50% of that net worth away during their lifetimes or at death, that would be $600 billion. You can think of that colossal amount as what the Buffett and Gates team is stalking -- at a minimum.

Leaving aside the Forbes 400 and looking simply at Internal Revenue Service data for both annual giving and estate taxes, we can piece together a picture of how far the very rich might be from a figure like that $600 billion. Start with an admirable fact about Americans as a whole: The U.S. outdoes all other countries in philanthropic generosity, annually giving in the neighborhood of $300 billion.

Some of that gets reported as charitable deductions on the tax filings made by individuals. But taxpayers at low income levels don't tend to itemize, taking the standard deduction instead. At higher income levels, charitable gift data begin to mean something. To take one example for 2007 (the latest data available), the 18,394 individual taxpayers having adjusted gross income of $10 million or more reported charitable gifts equal to about $32.8 billion, or 5.84% of their $562 billion in income.

And billionaires? Here, the best picture -- though it's flawed -- emerges from statistics that the IRS has for almost two decades been releasing on each year's 400 largest individual taxpayers, a changing universe obviously. The decision of the government to track this particular number of citizens may or may not have been spurred by the annual publication of the Forbes list. In any case, the two 400 batches, though surely overlapping, cannot be identical -- for one reason because the IRS data deal with income, not net worth.

The IRS facts for 2007 show that the 400 biggest taxpayers had a total adjusted income of $138 billion, and just over $11 billion was taken as a charitable deduction, a proportion of about 8%. The amount deducted, we need quickly to add, must be adjusted upward because it would have been limited for certain gifts, among them very large ones such as Buffett's $1.8 billion donation that year to the Gates Foundation. Even so, it is hard to imagine the $11 billion rising, by any means, to more than $15 billion. If we accept $15 billion as a reasonable estimate, that would mean that the 400 biggest taxpayers gave 11% of their income to charity -- just a bit more than tithing.

Is it possible that annual giving misses the bigger picture? One could imagine that the very rich build their net worth during their lifetimes and then put large charitable bequests into their wills. Estate tax data, unfortunately, make hash of that scenario, as 2008 statistics show. The number of taxpayers making estate tax filings that year was 38,000, and these filers had gross estates totaling $229 billion. Four-fifths of those taxpayers made no charitable bequests at death. The 7,214 who did make bequests gave $28 billion. And that's only 12% of the $229 billion gross estate value posted by the entire 38,000.

All told, the data suggest that there is a huge gap between what the very rich are giving now and what the Gateses and Buffett would like to suggest is appropriate -- that 50%, or better, of net worth. The question is how many people of wealth will buy their argument.

Would love to do a Yash Chopra film – Katrina Kaif

She has scaled tremendous heights in her seven-year-old career, pushing the boundaries with her performance in ‘Raajneeti’, but guess what Katrina Kaif wants to do now? A typical Yash Chopra-type love story.

‘There are a lot of sides to me that are yet to be tapped. After having done ‘Raajneeti’, it isn’t that I am going to do just female-oriented roles because the film has worked in my favour. I want to keep exploring and experimenting with characters and filmmakers,’ Katrina told IANS on phone from Spain.

‘In fact, right now, I would love to have a one boy-one girl Yashji type of love story in hand or, say, play a loud, boisterous girl – something on the lines of Hemaji’s role in ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’. Those are fun and interesting roles too. Why limit myself?’ asked the 25-year-old.

She is basking in the success of Prakash Jha’s ‘Raajneeti’ where she wowed the audiences as a young, madly-in-love girl who becomes a pawn in the game of politics. In the last 10 minutes of the film, she is seen playing a chief minister and manages to leave a strong impact on viewers.

So far the actress has managed to deliver hits. But Katrina is quick to counter the notion that she is a ‘formula’ for filmmakers in search of a hit.

‘I am no formula. It isn’t true that a film becomes a hit because of me. I always put a script above my own role. I always see a film in totality and not just on the basis of my role. The film comes first, the role comes second for me. It’s just that god has been very kind and my choices have mostly turned out be right,’ said Katrina.

But doesn’t she fear failure after such bundles of success?

‘I don’t get scared. It’s wrong if people say a hit is expected of me all the time. Of course, everyone fears failure, but for me there is no added pressure to succeed. It is up to the audience to accept or reject a film and I am happy my audience has supported me so far,’ she said in a confident tone.

Currently shooting in Spain for Zoya Akhtar’s tentatively titled ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’, which also features Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar and Abhay Deol, Katrina is also looking forward to the release of Farah Khan’s ‘Tees Maar Khan’.

In Farah’s film, she will be featured opposite Akshay Kumar, with whom she has doled out hits like ‘Namastey London’, ‘Welcome’ and ‘Singh Is Kinng’.

After that, she is looking forward to stepping into the shoes of Priyanka Chopra for Karan Johar’s much-awaited sequel to ‘Dostana’.

List of Best Harry Potter Actors

Overall popularity

Rank	Score		Item
1.	5268		Daniel Radcliffe
2.	3225		Rupert Grint
3.	1564		Robert Pattinson
4.	525		Alan Rickman
5.	515		Emma Watson
6.	295		Gary Oldman
7.	227		Tom Felton
8.	204		Lord Voldemort
9.	176		Jason Isaacs
10.	126		Oliver and James Phelps
11.	110		Keanu Reeves
12.	72		Bonnie Wright

Saif and Kareena were avoiding Vivek!

By: Vicky on: Jun 11,2010 In: Gossips
Recently Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor, who are otherwise quite pally with Vivek (especially since he was their co-star in Kurbaan), effectively snubbed him at a post award party in Colombo recently, which Salman Khan also attended.

Hollywood fails to catch fire at box office

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES -- It didn't feel like summer inside movie theaters this weekend. Though Hollywood offered a quartet of new movies, none caught heat with the public, leading to the smallest total grosses on a weekend in May, June or July - the heart of the summer movie season - in more than two years.

"Shrek Forever After" was No. 1 at the box office, as relatively slow declines on its third weekend gave it estimated ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada of $25.3 million.

The comedies "Get Him to the Greek" and "Killers" both had decent starts of $17.4 million and $16.1 million, respectively, while family film "Marmaduke" managed only $11.1 million and horror movie "Splice" bombed with $7.5 million.

Many studio executives breathed a sigh of relief simply because most of the weekend's pictures performed in line with pre-release polling, or tracking. A number of recent releases such as "Robin Hood," "Shrek Forever After," "Prince of Persia" and "Sex and the City 2" have had soft domestic opening weekends.

"Nothing about the marketplace recently suggests 'Wow,' " said David Spitz, executive vice president of distribution for "Killers" studio Lionsgate. "We were glad we opened in line with expectations since it seems like everything has been underperforming recently."

There was nothing close to "The Hangover," a breakout hit that opened on the first weekend of June in 2009 and helped fuel a very strong moviegoing year.

Of this weekend's rookies, "Get Him to the Greek" has the best chance of being at least a modest hit. Produced by Universal Pictures with Relativity Media and Spyglass Entertainment for about $40 million, the raunchy comedy starring Jonah Hill, Russell Brand and Sean Combs had an opening almost identical to "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" in 2008.

That film, which was also directed by Nicholas Stoller and garnered strong reviews, went on to gross a solid $63 million domestically and Universal executives have similar hopes for "Greek."

Like most R-rated comedies, it drew a majority male crowd and did best in large cities such as Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. "Killers," meanwhile, drew bigger crowds in the Southeast and Texas and more women than men.

The action comedy starring Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher was a big risk for Lionsgate, an independent studio that has traditionally focused on lower cost genre pictures. The studio spent $75 million to make "Killers," but used tax incentives and international pre-sales to reduce its exposure in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain, where it is distributing the picture, to about $40 million

Based on guidance provided to investors by the Santa Monica studio, the opening likely means that "Killers" will be a slight money loser.

Though audiences gave it an average rating of B, critics lambasted "Killers" with overwhelmingly negative reviews after the studio declined to show it to them before release.

By opening "Marmaduke," a live action / CGI hybrid based on the long-running comic strip, in June, distributor 20th Century Fox was clearly trying to replicate the success of the similar canine tale "Garfield" in 2004. However "Marmaduke" managed barely half of the $21.7 with which "Garfield" opened.

Fox, which co-financed the movie with New Regency for about $50 million, is hopeful that the family movie will do well on weekdays as school ends this month.

The unusual decision to open "Splice," a low-budget horror film acquired by producer Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment at the Sundance Film Festival, as summer counter-programming didn't pay off.

"Unfortunately we had higher expectations," said Jeff Goldstein, executive vice president of distribution for Warner Bros., which released the film.

Despite mostly positive reviews, those who saw "Splice" largely disliked it, giving the film an average grade of D.

"Shrek Forever After" was down only 42 percent on its third weekend, as it continues to benefit from strong buzz and declines at a slower pace than "Shrek the Third" in 2007. After its disappointing opening, however, the fourth and final installment in DreamWorks Animation's series is at a domestic total of $183 million, compared with $256 million for "Shrek the Third" at the same point three years ago.

The French independent film "Micmacs" expanded from two to 17 theaters and grossed a so-so $102,000. It performed much better in the Los Angeles area, collecting an average of $10,500 at four theaters, compared to $6,036 nationwide.

Maria Wasti & Ayesha Omer on vacation in Thiland.

Maria Wasti (born 14 August 1974 in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania) is a Pakistani film and television actress. Most of her roles in television serials portray her as a Pakistani woman going through difficult times and have landed her great respect in the eyes of critics and fans alike.

In view of these thoughts, Wasti opened up a production house in 2002, where she has successfully produced several serials and a dozen plays.[3] Her productions aim at the revival of television in Pakistan through better quality and content rivalling the glamour filled television plays from across the border in India.