What happens when Prides collide? Aishwarya Rai and Colin Firth are filming a $70M sword-and-chappals epic with Sir Ben (via DesiFans). Harvey Weinstein is backing Rai again despite the disappointing U.S. box office of Bride and Prejudice. It’s called The Last Legion:
The Last Legion is an epic adventure based on acclaimed author Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s international best-selling 2003 novel of the same name. The film is set against the fall of the Roman Empire in 470AD and its last emperor, 12-year-old Romulus Augustus…
Over-run with rebellion, Rome is a city on the brink of chaos and destruction. Imprisoned by rebels on the island-fortress of Capri, Romulus, aided by the clever strategies of his teacher Ambrosinus (Sir Ben Kingsley) and the heroic skills of his legionnaire Aurelius (Colin Firth), escape the island.Despite the turbulent events around them, this small band of Roman soldiers, accompanied by Byzantine warrior Mira (Aishwarya Rai), are determined to continue their mission to restore the Empire. This resolute group sets out on an arduous and dangerous trek for Britannia in search of the Last Legion, in their bid to make one final stand for Rome. [Link]
Colin Firth …. Aurelius
Ben Kingsley …. Ambrosinus
Aishwarya Rai …. Livia [Link]
Finally, we’ve got a suitable hero for the queen of mock chastity: not Colin Farrell, but Colin Firth, the serious Darcy in a ridiculous jumper. Though now that I mention it, the other pairing would have been interesting, the louche Lothario meeting chastity princess:
Farrell: ‘You know, I’ve dated a desi woman before.’
Aishwarya: ‘Strippers don’t count.’
Instead we get Aishwarya Jones’ Diary. ‘Aurelius, do these knickers make me look fat?’
The plot sounds like a yawner, though — road movies are better in Chargers than chariots. There lie perils in being the foreign babe du jour, e.g. the continuing obscurity of Diane Krueger from Troy. If they were going to waste an actress in an epic snooze, they should’ve just scooped up Kareena Kapoor from the remains of Asoka.*
* I haven’t seen Asoka yet, that’s a drive-by snarking.
Well Ninjas, that Russell Peters gag is based on a colonial document stating that “the Indian is not built for physical labour. For toiling the fields in the blazing sun, no race is as adept as the negro”. Which is why the slave trade was in black people and not Indians – their fault for being physically superior.
Raju I know you’re the resident die-hard nationalist, but please base your arguments in facts. Plenty of my friends are Punjabi. Yes yes I know there’s great pride in the Punjabi physique but let’s take a look at Indian sporting prowess…our greatest athlete was Milka Singh, a Punjabi. He won no world titles. Apart from him, there’s no one. Punjabis do certainly tend to be our best sportspeople, but even then they’re not world standard. And I’m sure you’re a badass dancer – but my point wasn’t rhythm, it was power. Breakdancing is something you need serious muscle to be good at, Oriental people, white people and black people just put on muscle more easily than Indians, on the whole.
I stand by my assertion that Indians are just crap at physical pursuits. It’s all in the genes. Where’s Razib?!
That’s way too broad. Many Koreans put on muscle more easily than many Japanese; many Punjabis put on muscle more easily than many other ethnicities; and so on.
And dance ability depends on region, it’s somewhat self-selecting. E.g. UC Berkeley is next to a hip-hop capital, Oakland, and had lots of amazing, desi dancers. Though the best desi dancers I’ve seen, aside from filmi forms, have been in hip-hop and salsa. Haven’t seen a hardcore breaker yet.
there’s plenty of good dancers who are desi. amir khan is a great boxer. the greatest batsmen in cricket arguably is sachin tendulkar.
can you name me the national martial art of mexico?
this is basically an excercise in pulling up generalizations and then agreeing with them
there’s probably structural reasons indians don’t win olympic medals. there has to be some reason countries vie for medals; it says something about the society, but not about race. The US does not have a single race that wins its medals. And now days it wins more female than male olympic events
there’s a great deal of holes in this arguement. if you are not a good dancer, or are not physically adept, its not the cause of your “ethnicity”. its even more strange considering how varied indians are
sorry for getting off the handle, but i’m good at very few things and dancing is one
Didn’t catch this part, but I hope I’m not the resident nationalist here, I don’t feel like one
Do you know how much physical toil happens in India? How many indians went to the Indies? What did they do, run corner shops?
Yeah I like making sweeping generalisations, it keeps things interesting. Sure my argument’s based on opinion, but I can’t be bothered to cite references and I severely doubt anyone has conducted a study involving Indians into who builds muscle most easily. Although if I said black people are better at running – ON THE WHOLE – would you be criticising the statement? I doubt it, but I didn’t cite any references there either. It’s a generalisation as there are great runners from all races. But MOST top sprinters and middle distance runners are black.
All I can say is what I’ve observed. Raju if you’re a great dancer that’s cool – I’m not saying you’re not! If I was insinuating ALL Indians were lousy dancers, then I’d be calling myself lousy and my name would make no sense. I can’t keep suffixing every statement with ‘of course there are exceptions to this’. But ON THE WHOLE, Indians are just less good at sport (sorry I brought dancing into the equation, I only really meant the power aspect of things – rhythm/style is a whole different argument. Which I’m happy to debate too). I don’t think I really need to provide evidence to support such an obvious observation. But population:medal ratio is an easy one to choose.
PS – Amir Khan is handy, but let’s see what happens to him, he hasn’t proved his mettle yet. His first pro fights have been against useless opposition. A boxer friend thinks he’s rather overrated. Still, that’s ONE. Cricket is a game more about skill than power or athleticism – now that’s something Asians can have in abundance. In the UK the most skilful junior footballers are Bangladeshi (according to the Leeds coach) but they can’t make the transition to senior level for some reason.
PPS – Manish, that Giant Singh fella has acromegaly, it’s nothing to do with his ethnicity.
True, but muscular Punjabis are a dime a dozen. Just swing by my gym.
Anecdotally, one of the biggest humans I’ve ever seen in person was a Jat from Yuba City, a mountain of a man.
dude-man: where is apul?
My gym is run by a muscular Pakistani Punjabi (that sounds rather gay) and is filled with Poland and Al Qaeda’s finest. Once we saw a girl in there.
Yeah I can’t afford a decent gym.
Actually, seeing as I’m already sounding gay – I had a discussion about Indian guys’ bodies WITH MY GIRLFRIEND, who was telling me that John Abraham had a good body, which is rare. So then it got me thinking, part of it is to do with body fat. Once again I’m inviting criticism, but you rarely see really cut (defined) Indian guys, even if they’ve got bulging muscles.
There’s a difference between Sunil Shetty/Salman Khan/Any actor with a name beginning with ‘S’/Sunny Deol’s chub-covered obviously sizeable muscles and Bruce Lee’s relatively smaller chiselled muscles. Now OK, he was a freak with something like 3% body fat, but perhaps Indians have more body fat on average? PERHAPS! I’m not suggesting they do, just posing a question, don’t shout at me! Don’t mention Sumos cos that ruins the entire hypothesis.
What you said Manish begs the question; if muscle-bound Punjabis abound, why don’t they do anything with it? World Strong Man competitions – all North European, Poles, Scandinavians, Americans presumably of the same stock and Pacific Islanders. Mainstream sports we’ve already covered.
Sania Mirza is making heavy going of it again. Thank God she’s not muscle-bound. Although, one of my mates fantasises about Serena Williams. shudder
Except for the widespread, skinny phenotype. Maybe you could say there are more true endomorphs and ectomorphs than mesomorphs among desi phenotypes.
Isn’t John Abraham part Iranian or something? Anyways, BB keep talking about his body and you might not have a GF for long.
j/k.:)
And do that I shall. Quite an astute observation you make there Manish, now that I think about.
-Bong Ectomorpher.
Shut up ms, or I’ll eat you.
Raju wrote: there’s probably structural reasons indians don’t win olympic medals
Salon had an interesting story about that several years ago, about the “genetics of athletic excellence.” It theorizes why different ethnicities excel at totally different Olympic sports.
BB: as for your male-dominated gym, I was just thinking last week how weird my gym is — it’s got a separate section just for women, but both the gyms play MTV Base. So, while Muslim women are hiding away from the male gaze on their own private little stairmasters, their Muslim men are in the next room, gazing upon MTV’s finest booty while pumping iron.
Just about all gyms seem to play MTV Base. Of course mine switches over if the cricket’s on. If I were a woman, I think I’d like a separate part of the gym. All those testosterone-overloaded men would intimidate me. Hell they already do, but I guess it’s cos I’m so pretty.
A friend just joined the Virgin Gym in south London, it is insane. They have programmable TVs in the treadmills, spas, massages, pools, aromatherapy etc etc. My gym has a hole in the roof. The owner thinks I’m Muslim, so he treats me well. But I am LITERALLY the only non-Pole, non-Muslim guy there. And it’s in a black area, oddly enough. Polish people sure love to pump iron.
Some Breakerisms:
Is it just me or is BB sounding…
Dang. So today I’ve learned that if I really want to discuss male anatomy in all its cut/ripped/built/mesomorphic splendor, I should hang out with men! Women don’t talk about this nearly as much 😉
Speaking of which, I think that skinny, ghee-belly FOB look is quite cute. Spread collar-ed polyster makes it even better. Vijay Raaz? If you’re reading this..Call me!
.. Indians are just crap at physical pursuits. It’s all in the genes….
Mostly true, but then who knew of all these guys http://pib.nic.in/feature/feyr2000/fapr2000/f040420001.html
Who knew ’em? Well precisely. A catalogue of mediocrity.
“Is BB sounding…” finish the sentence ms! The luxury of not caring if people think you’re a faygele means you can be a lot more relaxed with what you say. Now I’m off to get a facial, listen to my Judy Garland collection (Best Of) and watch some pro-wrestling.
Ta-ta sailor!
I have a hard time believing in innate racial characteristics. in general I think structural environment plays a larger part. Especially given the migration patterns of the world population, and then if you factor in we’ve been miscengenating since the beginning of time, and not since the 1960’s when it became cool
I have no idea how the US’s sports performance is supposed to indicate anything about race. Have you seen the United States? In a generation or two there might be more mixed people in Cali than others. Hawaii is one heck of an athletic place from what i hear, and thats mix capital USA
I read the Salon article and here is one potential hole, out of many
The author talks about Kenyans being good at different sports than West Africans. So therefore, how are West Africans and Kenyans related to each other? By his example, Kenyans and West Africans are as different as Kenyans and Ukrainians, because they excell at different sports. Therefore race as it relates to a monolithic community does not work. I read somewhere that Africa has more genetic diversity than any other continent. There is no “race” by this measure. Maybe just regional variations with a sociological contrstruction called “race” that lumps Kenyans with West Africans. But by the authors viewpoint, they are not the same race, since they perform differently in different sports
Maybe my theories about Indians and race and sport and dancing and standing on your head are a bit hit and miss. But to say that race has nothing to do with athletic ability is poppycock.
We’re always hearing about races having different prevalances of disease – and not environmentally-influenced disease – but genetic conditions like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Type 1 diabetes or whatever you like. So why can’t we ascribe ‘higher rates of being able to run fast’ to races?
The Kalenjin tribe, mentioned in that article, are highlanders and have lived where they do now for hundreds of thousands of years. The same goes for the Sherpas in Tibet. Both of these ethnic groups have been in these areas for so long that they have adapted to altitude. Sherpas share a characteristic with the Himalayan yak – neither’s lungs constrict due to low oxygen, whereas ours will. Hence they can survive at lower oxygen levels than a regular person. These characteristics persist in 2nd or 3rd gen Sherpas at sea level.
I would imagine a similar trait exists in the Kalenjin, (here is another article) and in their case this aerobic ability is combined with an ideal physique, making a perfect distance runner.
Oh, I just read the rest of the article, he uses the disease analogy too.
Sprinting is a far more complex situation, as there is no one country which consistently dominates and no one tribe to highlight. But watch any sprint final and it’s a rare sight to see a non-black runner. All the runners are usually black, but they’re often American, British, French, Namibian etc… So how can one say that it is not race which puts them in the race? They’ve all grown up in different countries, with different diets, training regimes and weather. Yet black sprinters are consistently better.
I’m not quite sure the point you’re making about Hawaii Raju. Brian Clay is from Hawaii and he’s World Decathalon Champ, arguably the best all-round athlete in the world. However they have only ever produced 2 other athletes who have made the US team since the modern Olympics began. They produce more footballers.
the point of Hawaii is there are a lot of mixed people there, and there are a lot of healthy people engaged in athletics
about, race and athletics; first i think you’re talking about extremes when you speak about olympic competition. its not the everday type of thing. its a small percentage of every community. second, i wonder if race is what is going on. like i said, are kenyans and west africans the same race or not? if they are, then why are the elite of those two groups supposedly good at different sports?
another point is, in a mulit-ethnic society, how are you going to give credit by “race”? When a substantial number of americans are mixed — african americans, european americans, and native americans, along with latino-americans are more mixed than might generally be assumed.
then you have the more homogenous communities in skandanvia. they are good at sports that require huge intake of food. you know who i see in world’s toughest man competition? skandanavians and people from the South Pacific. are you telling me they are cousins?
i think more than race, which is arbitrary and socially constructed, there is something to be said for local variation. but thats a far cry from race. a kenyan who has never moved out of kenya may share quite a bit of genetic heritage with other kenyans. but he is not racially determined, there is a big difference. how is he neccesarily more similiar to someone from egypt or from mali? but who is he, racially?
justin gatlin is white but he’s a sprint champion. many people have said they have trouble figuring out if he’s black or white.
did you know Ted Williams, one of the giants of baseball was mixed? Half Anglo, Half Mexican
at base, when you look at a man and think you know his race and therefore what he is or is not good at, are you following a rational world view, or following a world view based in ignorance.
i think sizing someone up by putting them in a racial class is driven by an ahistorical and basically non-rational point of view
just to throw this out there for BB to digest ;)…
Explain Hrithik Roshan, then. Not chub-covered muscles. Extremely good dancer– for my 2p, I’d say the best. (don’t believe? Watch his picturisation of the Prabhudeva choreographed “Main Aisa Kyon Hoon” from Lakshya)
I’ll not accept the easy-out, Bongsy, that Hrithik is an alien species, even though he is the 6-fingered man…
DesiDancer, I was so confused by the repeated references to HR having 6 fingers that I looked through all the pix on that album you linked to. I was still confused for a while (I think a lot of them are photoshopped to look normal) until I got to the end. Augh! My eyes, my eyes! Koi Mil Gaya was the 2nd Bollywood movie I ever saw, and somehow I missed his alien thumb. Holy moly.
Bongo bongo, the women’s parts of the gyms are usually much smaller, with less equipment. The white women seem to stick to the main gym, while the Asians hide. Rude bwoys with greasy spiked hair don’t intimidate me. The old bearded guy with the lunghi and skullcap on the exercise bike last week gave me pause, though.
dear ninja, it’s right in that first link, where HR is flexxing and pouting. Look at his hand, on the left side of your screen, and there it is in all its freakishness!! Twin thumbs! Twin thumbs! aaaagh, the madness!
Actually, that’s terrible to say; I read an interview where HR was saying that as a child, all the other kids didn’t want to play with him because of his freaky thumbs 🙁 Poor little guy.
Yeah, I saw it on your link when I’d studied it more closely. I was initially looking through the photos for an extra FINGER (like, another pinky, perhaps) not a whack thumb. 😉
Check out these x-rays of polydactyls, though!
Boy, how did we get from Aishwarya to muscular Punjabis to people with too many digits? 😉
Ninja, that’s creepy! in a fascinating way, though.
the extra thumb contains a secret potion, which when consumed, gives one super dance abilities. Does MJ have an extra thumb?
Raju I think I’m gonna call this one quits, cos I really don’t know what you’re trying to say. In terms of the world population, mixed race people are still in a minority. I really don’t see what they (we) have to do with this. The reason I was talking about the Olympics and specifically running was because that is the purest expression of physical ability – along with weightlifting. Both involve technique, but they’re much more about natural ability that baseball or cricket. Hence race plays a bigger part.
Anyway, we’ll leave it there. I do just want to say that I am not sizing anyone up by their race. But as someone who considered pursuing a career in athletics, I find the subject of genetic athletic ability interesting and am sometimes frustrated by political correctness obscuring debate.
Oh and you think Justin Gatlin is white? How do you figure?
DesiDancer, Hrithik is a freak. That’s why he’s more cut and can dance (don’t think I rate him as highly as you though!) Having three thumbs discounts you from any conventional classification. Why didn’t they ever remove it? Because some Indians think it’s lucky. Eesh. I like the wiki link ninjas; he would’ve been burnt at the stake in the past!
In fact his polydactyly (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/handsurgery/EJHS/wend.htm) is often associated with other chromosomal problems. Having an extra pinky is common, but a split thumb is sometimes bad news.
I meant Jeremy Wariner
“Jeremy Wariner is fast—and white.
If the 20-year-old Baylor University junior wins the 400-meter gold as expected Monday night, he would be the first white American man to win a sprint medal since Mike LarabeeÂ’s 400 gold in 1964.”
Race is a made-up thing and you can’t tell people’s attributes by making them into a race
and it annoys me when people say race is a factor in athletic prowess
They also put on more fat than most. Gurinder Chadha is a very typical Punjabi girl. Putting and muscle and losing fat don’t always go and in hand. Which is why you see so many guys (Punjabi or otherwise)with huge arms and huge bellys.
that’s all interesting and such but where is apul?
I studied Korean martial arts for several years, and yes, they were attributed to India too (Bodhidharma etc). Read any good book on the Silk Route and it will be apparent how much interaction existed between ancient India and China. Amartya Sen’s “The Argumentative Indian” (awesome book, btw) has an entire chapter dedicated to this. He highlights the fact that in ancient china, India was the only other country worth learning anything from, hence the scholarly traffic between the 2 countries. Once you read these stuff, the idea of martial arts spreading from India to China seems quite plausible.
Chinese people are not known to be generally war-loving either, so the argument that MAs died out in India coz Indians are peaceful is cr*p. I agree there’s not much of an exercise culture among Indian middle-class. But to say that Indians are not physical is simply dumb, given the amount of physical/manual labor that many many people simply have to perform to survive.
I’ve always heard from my grandfather that the Brits destroyed a lot of local Indian MAs after the original SM (forms of stick and sword fighting etc) that were common in several parts of India, similar to the way they allegedly wiped out Indian competitors to their products (muslin, anyone?) Dunno the history behind this but it would be interesting!
IMHO, the reason India was dominated by foreign powers is NOT that we were less war-like, but coz we were divided into small warring principalities.
And bong-breaker, Olympic medals are not just a product of great talent, but a system that nurtures athletes, funding, attitudes and so on. Wait, didn’t some Chinese win several track and field medals in the last Olympics??? The 110 meter hurdle sprint in particular?? So much for your racial theory…
Growing up in India, I can tell you that sports (other than cricket) was and still is not a great priority here. Other than a few intellectual circles, people rarely agonise over winning Olympic medals, it is seen as a “western” thing.
I’m willing the bet a lot that this will change soon, and within 20 or so years you’ll see a lot more Indian presence in world sport. Attitudes are changing here and more and more parents are willing to “risk” their children to a sporting career.
Long post, sorry!
i read on IMDB that ash the queen of mock chastity was annoying to a person who saw an early viewing. I guess pretty doesn’t buy you talent.