Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

‘Love’-ing and leaving

Posted on by

I went to the the first South Asian American art exhibit at a major museum that I’ve ever heard of:

I saw a queer Rani of Jhansi, she of the Mutiny, lying dead in snow. I saw a six-yard sari made of Coca-Cola bottlecaps, silver with an orange border. I saw a wall of crimson medicine bottles called ‘Blame’: blame a minority, you’ll feel better in the morning…

I saw a book of memory by a Malayalee daughter, Annu Matthew, who must’ve loved her daddy like Anna loved hers. Her father had died young of smoking. She collaged her childhood snaps into new photos, painting her own Pygmalion paternis. Then she surrounded her false memories with tobacco strewn on cigarette paper like ashes…

I ran into Kal Penn and asked him how he’ll play a super-henchman. ‘Dude, I haven’t even seen the script yet,’ he said. But he remembered the Harold hungama. Boy, did he ever. He was in celeb-out-for-groceries attire, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes; he’s taller and thinner than he looks on screen…

Outside the museum, Shea Stadium and the World’s Fair site were wintry carcasses. The Unisphere, its fountains drained, hung without an Atlas. I stood below the Indian plate, staring up at the stainless-steel underbelly of America.

Continue reading >>

Previous post here.

Posted in Art

“Brothels” nabs Oscar; “Terrorist” comes up short

Posted on by

“Born Into Brothels” picked up the Academy Award for documentary feature, and filmmakers Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski were on-hand to accept the award. In case you missed it, here’s a Quicktime video of the presentation, and acceptance speech (2.3 MB, 2:20 mins.).

Ashvin Kumar’s “The Little Terrorist” lost out to “Wasp” in the category of live action short. Here’s a brief clip of the presentation, where you can briefly spot Kumar (900 KB, 50 sec.). Spain’s “The Sea Inside” took home the award for foreign language film, beating out South Africa’s “Yesterday,” which was produced by Anant Singh.

Previous posts: The award for the most sepia film goes to…, The Little Terrorist, “Born Into Brothels” earns Oscar nom, & Kids with cameras

Continue reading →

The award for the most sepia film goes to …

Posted on by

This morning, I had a vision of a meta-awards ceremony, one that honored all things brown at the Oscars. Although the Oscars aren’t until later tonight, desis are lousy at keeping secrets (what’s the last successful desi surprise party you went to?), so I’ll let you know what was inside the brown envelope:

  • Award for the brownest movie goes to … The Little Terrorist. How much browner can you get than a movie about Indo-Pak conflict and cricket at the same time? The star is a former street child who was taken in by an organization founded by Mira Nair after the success of Salaam Bombay, so this movie gets bonus brown movie points. Better still, the movie is a testiment to desi frugality and ingenuity:
    • With little cash to fund his project, Kumar’s hopes rested on a short script with a strong message. He posted the script on the internet, asking people to help him make the film even though he couldn’t pay for their services. Kumar was also keen to cast non-professional actors, a technique he admired in Iranian film. “Around 15 people turned up from all over the world. I met most of them for the first time on location in Rajasthan,” says Kumar. [BBC]
    This is India’s first entry in the short film category since 1979, and the first short film to get a commercial release in India.
  • The award for the brown-themed movie with the best chance of winning goes to … Born Into Brothels. A documentary about prostitutes’ children who take photos of their lives, it’s already won almost every other documentary prize out there. It will be hard for the Academy to resist a movie about the transformative power of film, even if the kids are taking `still’ rather than `moving’ pictures. [There is controversy about the film, including whether it can even be considered a documentary, but I don’t think it will have an impact on its Oscar chances.]

  • The award for stealth brown entry goes to … the South African film Yesterday, a tragedy about an HIV positive South African woman facing death. The movie is noteworthy for having been shot entirely in Zulu, despite dire warnings that nobody would show or watch a film that was in a vernacular language. The film’s producer is Anant Singh who worked with director James Darrell Roodt on films like Place of Weeping, Sarafina! and Cry, the Beloved Country. Anant Singh will also be working on the movie version of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela and directed by Shakhar Kapur.

  • The award for the brownest member of the academy goes to … Ashutosh Gowariker, the director of Oscar nominee Lagaan. It’s funny to me that the Academy has put an old-school Bollywood guy like Gowariker on the film jury at the same time that the Little Terrorist’s Ashvin Kumar is saying things like
    • “I hope my film starts a trend encouraging alternate and experimental film-making. That way people can discover that there is more to Indian cinema than Bollywood [BBC]“
  • The award for the lamest Oscar rumor goes to … the claim that Ash might be presenting at this years Oscars if her film with Paul Berges (Gurinder Chadha’s husband) doesn’t run over schedule. Huh? Do or do not. There is no try with the Oscars. Does anybody think the producer of tonight’s show is going to leave that one hanging? But if I’m wrong, I’m sure you’ll see photos here tomorrow …

See also previous SepiaMutiny posts on The Little Terrorist, Born into Brothels, and Gowariker and the Oscars . Continue reading →

“This Moment” viewable online

Posted on by

A Windows Media version of Leena Pendharkar’s short film, “This Moment,” is downloadable over at Cinequest Online (via Hollywood Masala). You can watch the film in its entirety by registering with the site, which is free. The 15-minute film stars Purva Bedi (“American Desi”) and Danny Wooten. From the film’s official web site:

Can love really conqueror all? Uma Balachandran, a 20-something Indian American woman is at a unique crossroads: faced with a romantic, sunrise proposal from her African American boyfriend John Ray, her instinct is to say yes. But she’s haunted by her father’s wishes for her to marry the perfect Indian man. What’s worse, Uma’s old flame of 4 years, the all-American Troy Black, wants Uma back so badly, he’s planning to storm in on Uma and John and break up their sunrise tryst. But an unlikely stranger alters his destiny. Does love really conquer anything? Maybe. Maybe not. Set in front of the rising sun behind the beautiful backdrop of San Francisco, A Moment is about choices. (15 minutes, Super 16 mm)

Unfortunately, Cinequest disdains cross-platfrom compatibility, so the film only plays on Windows Media Player 9 for Windows 98/2000/XP. I won’t be able to watch it on my trusty Mac, so you’ll have to guide me with your reviews.

Continue reading →

“Baby 81” visits U.S.

Posted on by

Abilass Jeyarajah, a four-month-old Sri Lankan boy who was separated from his parents by December’s tsunami, will travel to the U.S. on Sunday as a guest of a morning news show.

First known to the world as “Baby 81,” Abilass was recently reunited with his birth parents after DNA tests confirmed their paternity. He was claimed by as many as eight other couples. From Reuters:

“Abilass is taking us to America,” his father Murugupillai told Reuters on Thursday on his way to obtain passports for the trip.

The excited father said he had never been out of the country and the baby had brought him and his wife Jenita luck. They are due to fly out on Sunday courtesy of an American television network, reportedly ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

There’s no word yet on who will conduct the interview, but co-hosts Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer shouldn’t have any trouble with precocious Abilass. They’ve both interviewed the president, so they have plenty of experience with someone who doesn’t read newspapers, has trouble swallowing food, and is largely incoherent.

ABC’s “Good Morning America” airs on weekday mornings at 7 a.m., and the interview is slated for Wednesday, March 2.

Reuters/Yahoo!: Tsunami baby goes to America

Continue reading →

American Desi Financing

Posted on by

am_desi.jpgInteresting stats on the $$$ behind the flick “American Desi” –

The budget for “[American] Desi” was roughly $200,000 and was released in 2001 on a limited basis — in about 40 U.S. art house movie theaters. The film earned about $1 million in U.S. ticket sales. Overseas receipts took in another $1 million in the United Kingdom and India. “All of the investors (families included) were able to get their capital back, plus the agreed 25 percent,” said Pandya. …Pandya said a sequel for “American Desi” is in the works. Most of the investors who funded the first film are already committed to the second project.

Casting suggestions anyone? Continue reading →

Nelly Furtado’s desi connection

Posted on by

The Record, a music mag out of Bombay, ran an interesting interview with Nelly Furtado:

My daughter Nevis [with her DJ, Lil Jazz] is actually a quarter East Indian so I have family there now…

… I grew up with a lot of Asian and Indian friends speaking Punjabi and Hindi. And I grew up watching a lot of bhangra, Bollywood, religious music and we even had it on television on Saturdays. Actually sometimes while I would clean hotel rooms… my friends invited me to sing at their Indian cultural festival when I was about 18 years old, and my friend’s father said I should sing in Hindi, and I really liked it. I learnt Kabhi Kabhi and I really like Lata Mangeshkar and of course Asha Bhosle who I did a little collaboration with…

I’ve already done Indian remixes in the past. In particular I had an ‘I’m Like A Bird’ remix… And Josh (the Indian band who did the remix), are Canadian — they’re from Montreal actually… It has a lot of hip hop energy to it.

Heck, with that surname she could’ve been Goan 🙂 Here’s a previous post on the Josh remix of ‘Powerless’ (thanks, Sajit).

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before …

Posted on by

With increased freedom in Afghanistan (at least for men, at least around Kabul) comes the natural consequence of freedom: stand-up comedy.

At a recent impromptu performance, Mubariz wraps on a long black turban – a favorite Taliban accessory – and twists his face into a scowl. He grabs a Kalashnikov to complete the look. Then he screams at the men to go to the mosque, physically prodding them with his rifle. He grabs one long-haired man and berates him for letting his locks grow – a Taliban pet peeve. His imitation is so precise that the audience can’t stop laughing.

Other topics of humor include “the radio call-in show where people dedicated songs by mullahs (minus the music, of course)” and that old favorite of comedians everywhere – armpit shaving. Except in this case, the subject is the Taliban’s spot checks to make sure that men were shaving their armpits. [In accordance with the Taliban’s interpretation of islamic law, hair had to be short, beards long, mustaches short, and armpits and pubes recently shaved or plucked]

And of course, everybody likes slapstick:

one of the most popular shows on Tolo TV, a private cable station in Kabul, is “Lahza Ha,” (Moments). It’s the Afghan equivalent of Candid Camera, where pranksters stop Kabulis on the street and con them with gags. The show is so well liked that some Afghans pray early so they don’t miss it, and jokes are rehashed the next day.

Although comedy has a long tradition in Afghanistan (“comedy in Afghanistan thrived from the 1800s until the 1960s”) one comedian tells the reporter that he takes his inspiration from more contemporary figures, namely “Mr. Bean, Jackie Chan, and Charlie Chaplin.”

Source: In Afghanistan, comedians joke their way to civic renewal Continue reading →

Sticks and Stones

Posted on by

News Flash! Salman Rushdie has found religion, and vows to fight to protect Lakshmi’s honor! The Lakshmi in question, of course, is his wife, Padma Lakshmi, the model/actress/food show hostess/etc extraordinaire.

The whole thing started when Guy Trebay called Padma a “semicelebrated hustler” in his description of Padma’s appearance at NYC’s fashion week: laxmi.jpg

This former model, cooking show host and celebrity spouse has seemed to appear at all places and all times during Fashion Week, like an avatar of the Hindu goddess whose name she bears. In the superpopulated Hindu pantheon, Lakshmi is the domestic deity representing wealth and the embodiment of beauty, grace and charm. One of the cool things about the goddess Lakshmi is her unabashed relationship to prosperity. In the current fashion pantheon Ms. Lakshmi similarly stands for a love of money and commodity

Salman did not take kindly to this portrayal of his wife, even though the article actually takes pains to paint her in a positive light compared with some of the lower rungs of the fashion food chain. According to the New York Metro, Salman threatened to personally enforce the penalty for blasphemy:

“Witnesses say Rushdie walked up to Trebay at a National Arts Club event three days later and said, “If you ever write mean things about my wife again, I’ll come after you with a baseball bat.”

The metro goes on to twit Rushdie for being a hypocrite:

Of course, many found it ironic that Rushdie was threatening a writer with bodily harm for something he’d published. He didn’t return messages, and Trebay refused to comment. But a fellow attendee would: “She’s an ambitious person with a lot of hustle. I would think by celebrity standards she’s fair game. Have you seen her Website?”

Rushdie also refuses to comment on reports that he is taking lessons from Sean Penn on how to handle paparazzi. Continue reading →

Other similarities between mutineers and rappers

Posted on by

We both love desi take-out. Of course, some of us hoof it over to Curry in a Hurry, while others use a whirligig:

Rapper Snoop Dogg paid $5,700 for Indian take-out to be flown to his London after-show party via private helicopter. The rap star ordered the food from The Four Pillars Indian restaurant in Buckinghamshire, England for his Friday night gig at London’s Hammersmith Carling Apollo.

We told you earlier about Beyonce’s 4,000 pound curry (that’s pounds sterling) but did you know that Tom Cruise has food flown from his favorite desi restaurant in the UK when he’s on location? Nor is this just a red carpet privilege, it’s available to the merely obscenely wealthy as well.

Millionaire businessman Baljit Singh surprised staff at Kalam’s Raj Indian takeaway in Brook Road, Shirley,UK, by ordering 35 dishes over the internet and asking for it to be delivered to where he was staying – Ocean Five Hotel, Miami Beach. Mr Singh placed his order and paid for it to be flown from Biggin Hill airport to Heathrow by helicopter and from Heathrow to Miami by plane, a journey costing almost £800.The food cost £589, but Mr Singh was given a 10 per cent discount for spending more than £10. The food was specially prepared, packed and flown to Miami. Mr Malik accompanied the delivery and was on hand to reheat and serve it when it reached the hotel. Speaking after his return, he said: “He was very pleased with it and seemed a really normal man. He even gave us a £200 tip!”

And I thought it was bad enough that my aunties would fedex fresh sabzi and roti, packed in dry ice, to their kids. And doesn’t anybody realize that there is good desi food in Canada? In the US even? Nah … Continue reading →