Category Archives: Film

Pakistanis, Slackistanis & Gossip Girl

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“No more news, please. No more news.” That’s been my early-morning refrain while checking news websites ever since 9/11. But inevitably, there is news from Pakistan. This past year, very few mornings have gone by without Americans waking up to read “Ten Taliban Members Killed in Pakistan” or “Militants Take Over Swat Valley, Close Girls’ Schools.” There is always news and it is always bad.

A new movie, Slackistan, wants to change that perception of Pakistan. Directed by British-based Hammad Khan, Slackistan is about a bunch of bored rich kids in Islamabad. And that’s it. That’s the plot. But that’s okay because they’re all hot. Oh yeah, and there’s probably an existential crisis or two thrown in for good measure. So basically your average American stoner movie sans the weed. At least that’s the impression I get. Watch the trailer for yourself and tell me if you see anything other than glamorous side-profiles of perturbed-looking young adults.

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Mira Nair’s Amelia Releases Today

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Finally! The day I’ve been waiting for. TGIAED. Thank God It’s Amelia Earhart Day. Today marks the release of Mira Nair’s Amelia, a biopic on the record-breaking aviatrix herself. And the reviews are…not so great. (Washington Post calls it “historically safe and cinematically dull.”) Roger Ebert implies that this is because Earhart herself was a bit…boring.

That’s the trouble with Amelia Earhart’s life, seen strictly as movie material. What we already know is what we get. To repeat: She was strong, brave and true, she gained recognition for woman flyers, and she looked fabulous in a flight suit. She flew the Atlantic solo, she disappeared in the Pacific, she died too young, and there was no scandal or even an indiscretion. She didn’t even smoke, although Luckys wanted her for an endorsement.

But who cares if she was a prude? It’s Amelia Earhart, the girl crush from my childhood. The flying femme phantom of my fantasies! And Mira Nair! The one who made Denzel famous in Mississippi Masala, brought us Monsoon Wedding and finally gave Kal Penn a serious role in* The Namesake*. Okay, I’ll stop with the hyperbole. Continue reading →

Taqwacore. Documented. X2

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With regard to one of the most well documented subcultures I’ve ever seen, there are two major Taqwacore events culminating in this month: a documentary and a photography book (Past SM Taqx post here, here and here). The first would be the Canadian premiere of the documentary full length movie Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam. Documentary producer Omar Majeed in conjunction with EyeSteelFilm, follows author Michael Muhammad Knight and subsequent Taqwacore bands for four years to make this film.Taqx Doc Movie Image.jpg

In the first part of the film, Knight organizes a taqwacore tour of the U.S., bringing the Kominas, Vancouver-based Islamic riot-grrl trio Secret Trial Five, and a shapeshifting crew on the road. After documenting this Islamic twist on the typical hijinks and humiliations of the road, the chapter climaxes with an appearance at ISNA…The film’s second half is even more interesting, as Knight, Khan and Usmani travel to Pakistan, where their efforts to bring politicized rock to the people encounters a whole different form of opposition.

“To some extent,” [says Omar Majeed], “the reason I called the film The Birth of Punk Islam is because I saw this whole process as a kind of birthing. It wasn’t just that this was happening and I was filming it, but rather that by my being there and filming it, we managed to give birth to this thing. I think that kind of shows in the filmmaking, the way it’s put together. I’m not always rushing to get the other side of things, I’m not looking to be journalistic or fair and balanced. I’m really trying to tell their story in a way that I find relatable.”[montrealmirror]

The film has been well received at the Vancouver International Film Festival and The Kominas and Sarmust joined Majeed for the Montreal screening this past weekend. It looked like it was a huge success with a packed audience (watch the q&a here) and the film tour continues to Toronto this weekend. If you are in Toronto, go Saturday for the TaqwaToronto after the screenings with a fantastic line up performers including The Kominas, Sarmust, Secret Trial Five, and panel discussion including Knight.

GIVEAWAY: We have two tickets available to the October 17th Saturday night screening and TaqwaToronto concert in Toronto! Details after the jump… Continue reading →

Just in Time for Halloween: Zinda Laash

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If you’re looking for a scary flick to watch this Halloween season, look no further than Zinda Laash (thanks to Nilanjana and her brother Durjoy for the tip). Growing up, my siblings and I always complained because our parents didn’t let us celebrate Halloween. “It’s not a part of our tradition,” they would say. Boy, oh boy were they wrong. Halloween may not be, but vampire movies certainly are. Zinda Laash, which literally means “alive corpse” is the Pakistani version of Dracula. What, you didn’t know there were Pakistani vampires? Anything is possible in Lollywood, okay. Especially 1960’s Lollywood. (Although when I asked my parents about the movie, which would have come out when they were in high school, they had no recollection of it. Good two-shoes.)

According to Wikipedia, Zinda Lash was one of the most controversial Lollywood movies of its time. The movie barely made it past the censor board and even then sans its songs, which were considered too provocative in its time. (See this song for yourself and tell me if you think Bipasha and Mallika should give up their day jobs…)

Zinda Laash, which follows the basic plot of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, also has the distinction of being the first movie in Pakistan to be rated X. When the film opened July 7, 1967, it was designated “For Adults Only.” And with scenes like this, you can see why it was reported that a woman died of a heart attack upon watching Zinda Laash. Here, Dr. Bukari comes upon the house of Dr. Tabani, i.e. Dracula. There, he is entranced by the song and dance of Dr. Tabani’s assistant, played by the lovely Nasreen. But wait, was that fangs he just saw? (Hint: Skip the song by going straight ahead to 3:42.) Continue reading →

More Naseeruddin to Love and Admire

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What the people want, the people get!

(Sorry, Joolz, not Keegan Singh.)

Due to popular demand I’ve got three more segments of the MTV Iggy interview with Naseeruddin Shah. Looking back, I can’t believe we asked some of these questions. He continued to be gracious, thoughtful, and startlingly candid:

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What’s the difference between theater and film? Legendary Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah explains to us why the two should be starkly delineated. “I can’t understand why they remake movies as plays — and then do them exactly like movies!” he says, referring those well-known Broadway plays in which helicopters crash and ships sink onstage. With his theatrical company, Motley, Naseeruddin is bringing back the lost art of Dastangoi, the ancient practice of storytelling in which the end of one story leads to the beginning of the next — bringing theater back to its original intent: one actor, one audience:

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Ash and Abhishek on Oprah: “The Most Famous Couple In THE WORRLD!”

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Yeah. TMBWITW is now one-half of TMFCITW. Ash and Abhi flew in from Mumbai to chat with the talk show Queen today, and sadly, it was still a clusterf*ck of embarrassment: aishwarya_rai_bachan.jpg

It was as if she didn’t believe in the Bollywood titans’ fame. Or had to put it in terms that Westerners understood.
“They’re the world’s most famous movie-star couple. More famous than Brad & Angelina, anybody…”
Some pictures flashed onscreen of Justin Timberlake skirting paparazzi as he flung himself into an awaiting limo.
“Now imagine that kind of attention times 1000.” She showed footage of them with some Dutch girls in the stereotypical peaked Dutch caps. “They have FIVE! BILL-YON! fans. In Asia, Europe…” etc.
Then, of course, she had to explain that Julia Roberts had called Aishwarya the most beautiful woman in the world, as if only the opinion of a white celebrity could mean anything to her audience. And she couldn’t let them on without mentioning the issue that tickled her last time Aishwarya was on. “Here’s the best part,” Oprah said, gleeful. “They live at home with his parents.”

Aishwarya was wearing a sari and was gorgeous, etc. Abhishek was his handsome self in a velvet suit. Behind them, Oprah’s set background showed an image of shooting stars, upon which the phrase: “Famous Around the World” had been printed. It looked like the banner you sign at someone’s bat mitzvah. When she tried to make a big deal of how this was their first American national TV interview, Abhishek wasn’t buying it. “We sit together all the time.”

He explained how he had proposed to her on the same balcony where he had first longed to marry her. You could hear the “ahhhh…cute” sighs in the audience.

For some reason, the host thought it would be a good idea to keep talking not about the content of their work or Bollywood versus Western cinema types, but just about how amazingly famous they are.

More on the Oprah Bachchan segment on the MTV Iggy blog, and a full recap of the show (the Julia Roberts/Daniel Craig of every country!) in a second post. Continue reading →

Interviewing Naseeruddin: The Lion Roars

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Well, he was really incredibly nice…but he certainly had little patience for stupid people asking stupid questions, so the possibility that he would lose his temper lent a certain charge to the proceedings.

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I’m talking about Naseeruddin Shah, of course. The yin to Big B’s yang, the iconoclast, the evergreen, the lion of Indian cinema with over 150 films to his credit. From Umrao Jaan to Monsoon Wedding to Omkara, he disappears into a role so thoroughly, I usually have to check IMDB frequently to make sure it’s really him.

It’s just so refreshing when famous people turn out to be intelligent and really engage in a conversation. All too often it’s just rote PR fluff. Many mutineers seemed to like the Vik Sahay interview for that reason, so I thought I’d bring over these two Naseerudin Shah interview clips: Continue reading →

Interview with Vik Sahay

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Do you watch “Chuck”? That TV show about the secret, CIA-protected life of a tech dork who works the Nerd Herd desk at a Best Buy like electronics store? The first season was cute, the second sort of lost me, then they got Scott Bakula to play his dad and I’m hooked again. (Quantum Leap forever!)

One of the more amusing aspects of the show is that Chuck’s real world life at the Nerd Herd desk is as drama-filled as his intelligence/espionage secret life — courtesy of a scheming nemesis, Lester, played by desi actor Vik Sahay. vicsahay3-200x200.jpg

It’s a small role, but Sahay really owns it, milking every line for humor and dimensionality. So when MTV Iggy interviewed him, we vaguely thought he would be this, like, funny cocky guy and we’d edit it down to the best 2-3 bits. We certainly had no idea it would turn out to be one of the most searching, intelligent, thought-provoking interviews I’ve seen in years.

We ended up cutting something like 14 segments because all of it was interesting. That’s a ridiculous number, by the way. No one’s ever gotten that much play. Six clips were aired while we try to figure out what to do with the rest. Continue reading →

The New Wave of Filmmakers in Bollywood

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Oh, sh*ts. I’ve been remiss about so much. I’ve got a backlog of things both shiny and smart to share with you, so please bear with me as I suddenly haunt the mutiny.

The first thing on my list: MTV Iggy’s special feature on Bollywood’s “new wave” of filmmakers. The idea is that, much like the French new wave of the 50s, Indian cinema is facing a radical change, with auteur directors leading the way with a new influx of talent, money, professionalism and creativity. And the audience in India is ready for it. 11smoking1-200x200.jpg Anuvab Pal (friend of Sepia alum Manish Vij) is now a screenwriter in Mumbai, and his funny, engaging, and very revealing article is a must read:

In fall 2003, I was asked by a friend of mine, the director Manish Acharya, to co-write a film with him. It would be about a Bollywood singing contest in New Jersey. We were influenced by the movies of Christopher Guest and Woody Allen, and had lived in New York for a numbers of years. At some point, in various coffee shops in Manhattan, as we wrote, I asked Manish who our audience might be. He intelligently remarked that we shouldn’t write with audiences in mind but just try to tell a good story. That’s the sort of answer auteur film directors give at film festival Q&As and grave audiences nod in agreement. It had a sort of nobility to it. I was far more interested in a petty middle-class answer.

“Still, who?” I insisted.

“Whom” he corrected, adding, “New India. This is a film for new India.”

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Actress Lisa Ray, Battling Cancer & Blogging About It

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lisa-ray-blog-picture.jpg Via Chickpea and Nilanjana, I learned that actress Lisa Ray is battling cancer. Ray is best known for her roles in Bollywood/Hollywood and Water, though she also acted in a couple of Indian films in 2001-2002 (one Bollywood, one Telugu), and has done parts in a number of smaller films and TV shows since moving to Toronto several years ago.

Ray has multiple myeloma, which is “incurable but treatable.” It’s a tough diagnosis for the actress, which will involve aggressive treatment. However, she seems to be dealing with it with impressive poise, as can be seen in blog posts like this one:

The media here is reacting with support and sensitivity. I guess many actors or people in my industry rarely go public. I understand why. There’s practical repercussions as in, its become more expensive to insure you on a project. Some producers don’t want to- or can’t- take on that extra cost. So even when I’ve crossed over and joined the ‘Full Remission’ Club, there may be tough career and financial decisions.

It’s hard for me to live any other way than with full disclosure. (link)

She also seems to be enjoying the side effects of the steroids she’s on, which make her hungry:

On Steroids: you are HUNGRY ALL THE TIME.

When Dr. Ahmed Galal, my Warrior-Hematologist at Princess Margaret Hospital gave me my first cycle of meds, he capped his recommendation off with a charming gesture that meant: Beware of sweets.

Well. Sweet things aren’t the only temptation.

Every cycle of treatment, I’m on Dexamethasone for four days on, then four days off.

Who knew it would turn me into a free range chicken, pecking the landscape freely. I find it distracting to walk down my patch of Queen St without stopping for a nibble at the Pie Shack, scoping some sushi or sampling up kimchi and eggs.

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All the best for you, Lisa Ray. Here’s hoping you’ll be able to enjoy the culinary delights of Queen Street (Toronto) for many years to come. Continue reading →