2011 Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. Who’s in?

I can’t tell you just how excited I am. After being away from LA for the past three Aprils I am now back to enjoy this year’s film festival which, as always, will be at the Arclight. In the past I would have done a detailed breakdown of the films and then maybe recommended some to you based on my LA street sources. Nah. Times have changed and I have been out of that kind of hard slog blogging for much too long. I am going to crowdsource this. Here is the program complete with trailers to most of the films. Tell me what you think I should go see either because the trailer “speaks” to you or because you know that one of these films has serious buzz or you’ve seen it. Better yet, if you made one of these films then leave a comment. The artist is the best advocate. Filmmaker Geeta Malik sent me the trailer to her film which will be playing at the festival so I will feature it:

Also, do any of you plan to go to some of these films? Please let other like-minded readers know in the comments below and maybe we will see each other there.

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Tagore makes a (uncredited) Congressional cameo

Actor Martin Sheen (The West Wing, Apocalypse Now) spoke before a Congressional briefing last week in favor of funding for drug courts.

The Washington Post’s Reliable Source column singled out this section of Sheen’s “heartfelt, yet grandiose oratory”:

“A dream that helps lift up this nation and all its people to a place where the heart is without fear and the head is held high and knowledge is free, where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls where words come out from the depths of truth and tireless driving stretches its arms towards perfection where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way to dreary desert sands of dead habit.”

Sound familiar? As the Reliable Source pointed out in a follow-up column, Sheen forgot to note that he was quoting from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali.

It looks like the mistake was inadvertent. Sheen quoted the same Tagore excerpt during a 2008 speech at Notre Dame and promptly devoted the next paragraph to explaining who Tagore was.

Sheen first became familiar with the poem while filming the movie Gandhi in 1981.

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Brimful of Music from Cornershop

Guess who is back? Cornershop. And this time they are back with a brimful of music for today’s #MusicMonday.

The song above is United Provinces of India (hmm, India’s anthem in light of the cricket win?) and is my favorite out of their latest. A couple of weeks ago, Cornershop released their 8th album Cornershop and the Double “O” Groove Of. Six years in the making, the album came together when the band met unrecorded Punjabi singer Bubbly Kaur. They were inspired. Her voice lilts through the entire album, acting as a consistent thread in an eclectic mix of music. This album maintains the unique Cornershop Brit-pop flavor and has pushed the envelope on redefining the ‘fusion’ genre while keeping it fresh and new. You can get the album now directly from the band’s online store right here.

Interested in a free download off of their latest album? Check out the link below!

It’s a comeback for Cornershop – for people that have heard their recent songs, what do you think? Continue reading

Somebody’s Gonna Get Hurt Real Bad… in Source Code

russell.jpgOn Saturday, I had the opportunity to see Source Code, the new thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as an army helicopter pilot serving in Afghanistan who awakens to find himself in a Chicago man’s body in a train headed for disaster. He’s given the difficult task of attempting to stop a terrorist who plans to blow up the train and other parts of Chicago. Imagine my surprise when I saw Canadian comedian Russell Peters (who Manish first introduced back in the 2004) playing the role of one of the passengers in the train. Certainly he doesn’t play a leading character in the film, but he does have a somewhat significant part in the plot. No spoilers, don’t worry. And not to worry Peters fans, the brusque, comedian plays pretty much himself in the entire movie. As Max Denoff, Peters plays a comedian whose sharp wit doesn’t leave him out of the terrorist suspect pool. Take a look at the first five minutes of the film in the trailer below. Continue reading

Chowpatty Time

veggie.sloppy.joe.jpg Top Chef veteran Preeti Mistry has a pop-up lunch spot in San Francisco called Juhu Beach Club. Pop-ups are temporary guerilla-style dining spots that take over an existing location, and Mistry’s is located in the front part of a liquor store that has a deli and sells lotto tickets. I’ve yet to check out a Sassy Lassi or Bizarre Love Triangle from the Club, but I’m intrigued by the chef’s description of her food.

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Batting Lashes for Strangelove

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I may be just sliding by with slipping you a #MusicMonday tune at 11:45pm Pacific Standard Time on this Monday night, but I came across this song at the last minute that just had to be shared.

BAT FOR LASHES – STRANGELOVE by Gucci Guilty

The gorgeous Natasha Khan from Bats for Lashes (whom we’ve written about here) just tweeted about her upcoming tour in Australia, which is how I stumbled across the song above. A cover of Depeche Mode’s Strangelove, the song was created for the Gucci Guilty for Him perfume campaign. I usually am not a fan of songs that are created for products but my love for Depeche Mode covers outweighs whatever dislike I may hold. And she’s just so pretty sounding. The cover is ethereal, and reminds me of White Hinterland.

I’m always on the hunt for new songs for #MusicMonday. Keep me posted – if you have a song or an artist that should be featured on a future #MusicMonday, get at me! Continue reading

What Jimmy Wong Taught Me About UCLA Girl

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I will be the first to tell you that I don’t have a good sense of humor when it comes to racist remarks directed my way. When a fellow five-year old at daycare made some sort of remark about my skin color being ugly, I threw a bucket of sand over her head. And a few weeks ago, when someone responded to my roommate’s ad by calling her “egg roll” and “pork fried rice,” I can’t say my initial reaction would have made Gandhi-ji very proud.

Throughout my lifetime, I’ve had trouble moderating my inner Malcom X and channeling a more Martin Luther King Jr. approach. This despite the fact that I grew up in the most turn-the-the-other-cheek of communities, the Amish Mennonites. When I see racism, in any shape/manner/form, I tend to lose my cool. My blood pressure goes up. I start to see red.

The whole Alexandra Wallace incident was no exception. You’ll remember her as the girl from UCLA who made a YouTube video where she rants against Asian students. I admit, I felt a little bit of sympathy at the start of the video. My own classmates often vent about international students in the law library who blab loudly on their cellphones, seemingly oblivious to the glares of fellow students. But when Ms. Wallace started on her “ching chong” rant, I stopped feeling sorry for her and just got mad. Then I saw this. Continue reading

Sanjaya returns to the stage

Good news, American Idol fans! Sanjaya Malakar, Sepia Mutiny’s alltime favorite contestant, is back. Sanjaya, a 2007 Idol finalist, is currently starring in the off-Broadway musical Freckleface Strawberry. Based on actress Julianne Moore’s children’s book of the same name, the play follows the title character and her friends as she learns how to accept her freckles and individuality. Sanjaya plays Danny, a friendly athlete who is one of Freckleface’s closest friends.

“This is the first time I’ve done professional theater,” said Sanjaya when we recently spoke over the phone. “I love the challenge of really taking on a character.”

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Kondabolu on the Comic Quota

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The Economist blog More Intelligent Life has an interview with comedian Hari Kondabolu, who was most recently featured on Sepia Mutiny right before his TV special on Comedy Central (see above for a show clip). After questions about his approach, performing and club audiences, the interviewer asks him about a “comic quota” applying to desi comics and being compared to Aziz Ansari.

Some black American comedians have joked that in American pop culture, there’s only room for one black comic at a time. You’ve joked about being upset with Aziz Ansari comparisons. Does the same comic quota apply to Indian-American comedians?

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Five Rivers to Five Boroughs

bhangraagainstbush.jpgI’ve been obsessed lately with political posters. Particularly artwork depicting struggles of the Desi diaspora. So obsessed that I created Mutinous Mindstate on tumblr to curate the various important images and artwork I’ve come across over the years. In fact, it was DJ Rekha that first responded to my tweet asking for Desi political art with an image of PardonMyHIndi designed event poster for Basement Bhangra Against Bush in 2004.

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Along very similar vein, DJ Rekha is also involved with an art show that premiered in New York City this month at 92YTribeca. The Soho Road to Punjab is an exhibit inspired by bhangra music and has exhibited overseas in the UK over the past few years. This NYC-angled exhibit, title Five Rivers to Five Boroughs, is the first time the exhibit will be shown in the U.S.

The exhibit will showcase behind-the-scenes photography, album sleeves, promotional art, and rare prints from South Asian media. The exhibit also highlights individuals who have helped the Bhangra scene progress.

The exhibit’s story refers to the impact New York has had on the spread of Bhangra. Brooklyn-based DJ Rekha, a musician and curator, named Ambassador of Bhangra by the New York Times, shares her personal collection of material for the New York version of this project. [facebook] Continue reading