Of course as the year draws to a close, we are all bound to be pummelled with numerous top whatever lists. USATODAY, in one of the first lists, has created its own for the top 100 people of 2004. At 78, is none other than Kal Penn. From the lists profile.

Even if it weren’t for Neil Patrick Harris’ cameo, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle still would’ve been a good movie. If you don’t believe me, some further proof: Penn, aka Kumar, has no fewer than five movies coming out in ’05.

IMDB confirms that Penn will play the lead in Mira Nair’s adaptation of The Namesake (due out in 2006), and lists the other five projects as Vegas Baby (starring Kathy Griffin), Man About Town (Starring Ben Affleck and Ling Bai), A Lot Like Love (2005), Son of the Mask (starring Jaime Kennedy), and Dancing in Twilight (Starring Mimi Rogers).

Also listed, and a significant amount higher I might add, is one of the stars of ABC’s silent success, Lost. From USATODAYs commentary…

I don’t have a problem with all these articles about Evangeline Lilly being the breakout star of Lost— I just kindly disagree. I find Andrews, who plays tortured and complex Sayid, by far the most compelling character. Let’s hope he makes out of this season alive.

Here is a link to a post I did on lost back in August, and here is one and another from SM.

Rediff.com is reporting that Abhishek Bachchan has officially bowed out of Mira Nair’s upcoming film effort translating Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake onto celluloid. Bachchan, who was slated to play the lead in the film, may now be replaced by Kal Penn, whom the BBC has reported “will play an important character.” The film is also slated to include Nair’s New York gang–Gabriel Byrne, Natalie Portman, Chloe Sevigny, and Steve Buscemi, among others, according to the BBC story.

This film, if done well, has the potential to place Nair in the top tier of directors, and also will hopefully go quite far in presenting certain aspects of desi-American culture to mainstream America.

The story also notes that Nair has turned down the offer to direct the next Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Playbill.com is reporting that Bombay Dreams, the Bollywood meets the stage production, will be closing on January 2, 2005. The stubborn show did better than many expected after it received a thrashing in its initial reviews from many of the reviewers familiar with Broadway, but seemingly unfamiliar with the Bollywood concept. The show did surprisingly well for an ethnic themed production however, whichi will have played 284 regular performances since opening in April.

So, if you want to see Bollywood on Broadway, you better get tickets soon. You still have a chance however to see the production as it will be starting a national theater runnng in 2005-2006.

Piyush Dinker Pandya, the writer/director of the genre creating film American Desi is bringing the South Asian answer to the Kings/Queens of Comedy, yes, it is The Gurus of Comedy Tour. The first-ever national tour of South Asian standup comedy, kicks off in Los Angeles this Thursday, December 9, with Russell Peters (Comedy Central), Paul Varghese (NBC’s Last Comic Standing), Anand Chulani (American Chai), and host Aladdin (BET, American Desi).

The five-city tour moves on to San Jose on December 10, San Francisco on December 11, New York City on December 15, and closes in Boston on December 16. Other comedians on The Gurus of Comedy Tour include Pooth the Curry Comic, Vidur Kapur, Tony Sparks, and Mo-D. Complete comic lineups for each show are available here.

The Times of India recently ran an interview with the Bootylicious Beyonce in which she described her fascination for the Indian film industry.

I’m a fan of a few Bollywood films. I have seen Devdas and Lagaan , both great films. I loved Devdas — the actress was amazing! I cried towards the end of the film,” she reveals, adding that she also liked Bend It Like Beckham.

When asked if she would ever be interested in doing a film, Beyonce seemed to be down, answering,”Why not?!” Indian films are very colourful. It can be fun to do a film like that at least once. Given a chance, I’d love to do an Indian film.”

And for the encouraging part of the interview, especially for the desi guys, Beyonce noted “I think Indian men are fairly good looking, at least the actors in the movies!” Continue reading →

It isn’t that we can’t get enough of her, well, maybe it is, but we thought we too would assist in the sepia conspiracy to make Aishwarya a global star, so click here to see an interview she recently gave to Emily Flynn of Newsweek Magazine.

Many things amaze me about Ash, two nice bits from the interview, her desire to always reprazent for desi cinema, and of course, the persistent and long-standing Ash is the next Bond-girl rumor. At this point, the producers of Bond need to cast her, just to give some sort of credence to the rumor mill.

In a weird twist on the usual east borrowing from west, especially with regards to film, Hollywood is now borrowing from Bollywood for one of its films.

Believe it. The trade publication Daily Variety (Subscription required) has announced that Mira Nair will be directing Gangsta MD, the Hollywood adaptation of Raju Hirani’s mega Bollywood hit — Munnabhai MBBS. Mira Nair has teamed with “Bringing Down the House” scribe Jason Filardi on “Gangsta M.D.,” a Bollywood remake that’s been set up at 20th Century Fox.

The story focuses on a low-level gangster who keeps his criminal life a secret from his mother by telling her he is a medical doctor, what else? When his mom discovers his criminal lifestyle and threatens to disown him, he’s forced to do the one thing that would make her proud: become a doctor.

The original film was 2003’s Hindi-language blockbuster “Munna Bhai, M.B.B.S.” A second version was produced this year, “Shankar Dada, M.B.B.S.,” which was essentially the same film shot in India’s Telugu language.

In a first for Bollywood, Fox bought the script rights for the Hindi film earlier this year, and Chris Rock’s name has been mentioned several times during initial speculations.

Gangsta MD is expected to hit movie halls in early 2005.

Here is the rediff.com story summarizing the Variety article.

I just finished watching tonight’s episode of the West Wing on NBC. Maybe it is John Wells (the producer of ER and The West Wing), or maybe NBC has simply discovered the Desi market in the U.S., b/c this episode of The West Wing featured who I thought was Pragna Desai (she starred in ER’s episodes based in the Congo and The Ben Affleck flop The Sum of All Fears) as Leo McGarry’s nurse.

In the episode, Leo has lost his appetite, and Desai, as his nurse–ok, so we still only play health care professionals (but it is a start!)–uses Indian food and her good looks to charm McGarry into eating.

Is a South Asian woman, dressed in her wedding best and bearing Indian food better than certain illicit substances at giving people the munchies?

Also interesting was some of the dialogue between Desai and McGarry. In the episode, McGarry was considering joining the board of some sort of corporate chemical company. The company seemed quite similar to Union Carbide, because at one point McGarry asked Desai if she was from Haryana, and that that the company was trying to make up for all of the damage it had done there in 1986. Perhaps this was a reference to the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal in 1984, and the upcoming 20th anniversary of this tragedy on December 3. The issue of a name-change was also discussed, a la Union Carbide to Dow Chemicals.