Angelina Jolie isn’t a big fan of Pakistan’s plans to push U.N. refugee camps back into Afghanistan:

Actress Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency, said that Pakistani plans to relocate refugee camps from Pakistan to Afghanistan would not help the Afghans living in them. “I don’t think it is a good idea,” Jolie told reporters at a press conference on Saturday when asked to comment on remarks made by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf about relocating the camps. [AFP/Yahoo!]

Non-existent sources report that Musharraf responded in-kind, saying he didn’t think Jolie’s move from sexy bombshell to sexy homewrecker was all that good of an idea either, but you didn’t see him complaining.

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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will star Mr. Soggybottom himself, the little person Deep Roy, playing every single Oompa Loompa at once (via Hollywood Masala). Thank goodness for CGI. I refer not to Roy’s hectic shooting schedule but to the SAG overtime pay scale.

Shelley Conn from the British Asian miniseries Second Generation also has a role, as does a new actor named Ray Verma. Multiple desi roles in a mainstream movie? I smell Brits.

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This post is about part-desi actresses who pass for white or Arab in mediocre movies which you’ve actually seen, whose ethnicity you learn later, then feel a really big d’oh! coming on, like Homer Simpson missing the email about an overturned tanker-trailer full of jelly donuts.

Exhibit A: Zuleikha Robinson, the Bedouin love interest in Hidalgo and daughter of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

My father is English and my mother is mostly Indian and a little bit of Burmese and a little bit of Arabic… I was born in England and then I moved to San Francisco, then we moved to Malaysia, and Thailand, and Singapore. By this time I was thirteen and I left to go to boarding school in England.

I hope she means Arab. Robinson is currently filming the part of Moushmi, the love interest in The Namesake.

Exhibit B: Rhona Mitra, the New York friend in Sweet Home Alabama (and Lara Croft).

… my dad is from Calcutta. But I’m also part Irish. It’s a confusing heritage. I never know if I want to be running across the fields with no clothes on or sitting in the pub drinking Guinness… we used to nick holy wine from the church and drink it in the potato patch at the back of the school.

Hmm, yes, that’s definitely convent school behavior. Whether Indian or Irish, I can’t say. Here’s a fun quote out of context (thanks, Chandni):

Q: But you have had your breasts enlarged.

A: Yes, but my dad had nothing to do with it… apparently a load of people phoned up the hospital where he works, the next day asking for tits like Rhona Mitra.

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An online publication reports that Aishwarya Rai has scheduled appearances on “Blind Date” and “Jerry Springer.” Unfortunately, it’s most likely all a dirty, dirty lie.

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A reader of Defamer, an L.A. gossip blog, sends them a Jay Chandrasekhar-sighting:

Saw Broken Lizard’s Jay Chandrasekhar & Paul Soter (SUPER TROOPERS, CLUB DREAD) dining at Sushi Katsu Ya with three lovely ladies (two of which seemed to be sig others of Jay and Paul). Relatively uneventful sighting until the bill arrived and I saw them start to divy it up. Well, Fox Searchlight must not pay very well because when the waiter came to collect they asked to split the ~$200 bill between three cards (one belonging to Jay, one to Paul and the third to the third woman). Now maybe it’s just me but you would think that A.) they would be doing well enough to treat the group to a sushi dinner and B.) that since they were talking business it was easily expensed….right? Regardless, seems like their next project will be a sequel, “Broke Lizard’s Super Cheapers”. I guess no one eats for free in this town. Last note, both the guys looked a bit chubby, I guess they let themselves go after getting buffed out for CLUB DREAD. [Defamer]

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Vivek Oberoi tells a television show that he plans to wed Aishwarya Rai next year:

“I will marry Aishwarya Rai,” Bollywood star Vivek Oberoi said today confessing his love for the former Miss World. “She has been very lucky for me. A right girl brings stability in one’s life,” Oberoi told “Seedhi Baat” programme on Aaj Tak. [Chennai Online]

Then something, or someone (smart Rs. on the latter), compels Oberoi to backtrack:

As news broke out of Vivek Oberoi’s 2006 marriage plans with his green-eyed girlfriend, the actor clarified that his remarks had been taken out of context…“My intentions are honourable, but there are no such impending plans,” Oberoi clarified through an SMS sent to Sunday Mid Day about his throwaway remark. [Mid-Day]

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Like doctoral dissertations on hip-hop, here’s a highfalutin’ take on the original Bollywood ass-kicker by David Chute of Film Comment. It was written in honor of the Amitabh retrospective at Lincoln Center last month (via Hollywood Masala):

… he is most fervently admired for his verbal gifts: the sonorous baritone that makes all his setpiece speeches sound like Mosaic proclamations, and the flair for mimicry he exploits as one of the first Bollywood actors to adopt authentic Bombay street slang in his gangster roles… In contrast, Bachchan’s typical terpsichorean style is about as basic as it gets, a sort of blue-eyed Punjabi variant on one of Zorba the Greek’s “hoop-hah” strut ‘n’ shrug routines… Decked out in what looks like a gaucho outfit in Don (78), prancing and preening next to the staggering Zeenat Aman (India’s answer to Claudia Cardinale), he looks less like a performer working through a carefully choreographed routine than a man enjoying himself, and enjoying life…

… even when Bachchan was playing proletarian characters he always walked “with the posture of an aristocrat.” … this guy never feels outclassed. “You see a certain grace about that character… So many other actors have tried to ape Amitabh, but they’ve failed. Because they don’t have the sophistication and the tehzeeb [culture] that he grew up with. As an actor, Amitabh’s anger was never ugly. Other actors mix anger with arrogance. Amitabh’s anger was mixed with hurt and tears…”

In an ironic reversal, Bachchan has begun playing establishment roles against Shah Rukh’s angry young man:

… in Mohabbatein, he looks more like something carved from granite… the ne plus ultra of all the stern father figures his Vijay characters rebelled against in the Seventies.

The reviewer too lightly skips over the intense Ajay Devgan, who starred in just this kind of role in Yuva:

… as no one in the current crop of younger actors has anything like Amitabh Bachchan’s moral authority… there was really only one viable choice for the voice-of-reason title role, an honest policeman fending off both Muslim and Hindu demagogues.

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Well, a Bollywood Oscar anyway. And the award wasn’t presented in Bombay, but rather in, uh, New Jersey.

Nevertheless, one can only imagine the electricity in the air as hundreds gathered to honor one of the greatest actors of their generation – MSNBC Reports – Apparently, Indians also love David Hasselhoff –

IndiaÂ’s version of the Oscars were handed out at the glittering Bollywood movie award ceremony on Saturday that saw a veteran director sweep the top honors and U.S. actor David Hasselhoff named international star of the year.

Veer-Zaara and Rani Mukherji picked up awards as well presented by… David Hasselhoff.

“The winner is the ‘Spielberg of India,’ Yash Chopra,” said Baywatch star Hasselhoff as he presented the award for best film [to Yash Chopra for Veer-Zaara].

Hasselhoff – so often the butt of late night jokes for his improbably strong European singing career – can apparently count on a billion desi’s within his fanbase. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that, given his repertoire of 80s personae, Hasselhoff continues to inspire modern Bollywood villains and heroes alike – Continue reading →