What does eye surgery have to do with a crime movie? Plenty if the movie in question is “One in the Gun,” according to Dr. Rajesh Khanna.
Khanna is a Beverly Hills Lasik surgeon, and one of his patients has a role in the upcoming noir-style crime thriller directed by Rolfe Kanefsky. “It’s all about different perceptions,” Khanna said of the plot. “In the movie, how you perceive things can change. Since I deal with eyes, I like the idea of perception changing your reality and your future actions.”
Khanna was so impressed, in fact, that his eye institute recently helped sponsor a private screening of the movie at Raleigh Studios’ Chaplain Theater. Among those attending were the director and cast members Robert Davi, Katherine Randolph, Steven Bauer, Steven Man, Dana Fares and Esther Goodstein.
“It was wonderful,” said Khanna, 43, whose own celebrity clients include Brenda Song of “Suite Life on Deck,” Corbin Bleu of “High School Musical” and Olympic water polo medalist Ryan Bailey.
Will he be sponsoring another film screening soon? Under only one condition, the surgeon said: “If it has something to do with eyes.”
Hybrid Power
Tim Lappen’s been driving two cars and each has at least 400 horsepower and can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than five seconds – which typically is done only by sports cars. But both of his cars are considered luxury sedans, different versions of BMW’s venerable 7 series sedan.
One, the new BMW 7 Series Active Hybrid, runs on gasoline and electricity, and offers 15 percent better fuel economy than a standard 7 series car. The other, the B7 Alpina, has 500 horsepower, and well, doesn’t set any fuel records, at least not for economy.
Lappen, 62, a car buff who often gets to try out exotic cars through his personal and client relationships, owns the B7 but has been driving the Active Hybrid for a few weeks recently because BMW let him test the car, set to debut later this year.
He said the Active Hybrid, clad in “blue water metallic” paint, is a hoot to drive – fast and responsive, but also refined.
“It’s a very sedate daily vehicle if one wanted it to be,” said Lappen, the chairman of the family office group at the law firm of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmaro LLP in Century City. “It’s also extremely fast when the driver requests the power.”
He might have considered buying one, except for one thing: “I just bought the Alpina. Otherwise, I’d be thinking about it.”
The cars have one more thing in common – each will set you back more than $100,000.
Staff writers David Haldane and Daniel Miller contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
