Tamyra Gray Joins the Cast of Bombay Dreams
Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment
Jay Sean’s Me Against Myself
The Telegraph (UK) too has praise for Sean, whose real name is Kamaljit,
[for many] the best tracks will be two hidden ones, from his earlier incarnation, including You Don’t Know Me, about the difficulties of trying to make it as an Asian in the hip-hop arena. The title track sees Sean dissing himself for making music ? presumably the poppy stuff ? that “you pretend you are into”. The intro skit has his producer-mentor Rishi Rich telling him, in a posh English accent, to cut out the conscious stuff, that UK hip-hop doesn’t sell and he should write songs about girls. Clearly highly talented, and currently attracting the attention of demi-god producer Timbaland, it will be fascinating to see how Sean resolves his musical schizophrenia.
The Independent (UK) ran an interesting, yet cliched profile of Jay Sean, entitled: “Betwen Two Cultures”, about ten days ago. Click here to read it. Regardless I want to offer an SM Big Up to Jay Sean! Continue reading
“Steamboat Willie” to be re-named “Steamboat Vijay?”
No, I don’t think Disney would take it quite that far, but the company does want to start making some Indian animated films. Its about damn time. I think there should be more animated characters who look even remotely like Princess Jasmine. Wow…that sounded awfully desperate of me. From The Financial Express:
The Walt Disney Company wants to make original desi animation films and TV shows in India for the world market, as against the outsourcing model prevalent in the industry, it is learnt. In effect, everything will be Indian, from start to finish, in these films.
The possibilities are endless with stories from India’s rich mythology to draw from. And while we are on the subject of India and animation it is worth pointing out that Disney’s Pixar studio will be releasing a dubbed version of the current box-office hit The Incredibles, retitled Hum Hain Lajawaab (somebody please translate for me). Guess whose voice will be cast in the lead role? No really, just guess.
Law & Order gets sued for use of bald head
Anyone who has seen the fine American television show Law & Order, or any of it’s many spin-offs, knows that the show is loved for its gritty reality from the streets to the jury box. The show even starts by claiming that it’s stories are ripped from the headlines. Well apparently one story hit too close to home for attorney Ravi Batra. From IrelandOnline:
Producers of TV series Law & Order were sued for $15m (€11.5m) on Friday, by an angry attorney who accuses them of portraying him as a villainous lawyer.
Ravi Batra complains an episode titled ‘Floater’ deliberately inflicted emotional, monetary and professional injury on him by featuring an Indian-American, Brooklyn-based lawyer named Ravi Patel who has similarities to Batra – including a bald head and a beard.
And the character Batra claims is based on himself is found guilty of fixing matrimonial cases, corruptly selling consultancies and appointments to judgeships.
The lawsuit says people who know Batra “were disturbed and distressed by the story line of criminal conduct attributed to plaintiff (Batra) by the defendants”.
I think Ravi is more disturbed by the fact that people notice that he has a bald head.
“Veer-Zaara” Storms U.S. With Impressive Opening Weekend
“Veer-Zaara” made
a strong debut last weekend, opening on more North American screens than
any previous Bollywood release and finishing 15th among all films at
the domestic box office.
Starring the ever-popular Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta, “Veer-Zaara” took in an estimated $903,010 during the four-day period beginning on Nov. 11. Its per-screen average of $10,261 was among the highest of the weekend, bested by only two other films in the top 25.
Shiraz Jivani of Naz8 Cinemas told the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News that he expects the three-hour film to break box office records for Bollywood releases in the U.S.
“We have it, and we’re going to be playing it around the clock, 24 hours a day,” Jivani told the newspaper. His chain of Calif.-based theaters expects to collect $1.2 million over the film’s six-week run. The final tally will receive a bump from ticket prices that were increased just for the film.
No word yet on how pirated copies of “Veer-Zaara” fared at unscrupulous video rental shops, as such businesses are only required to report their earnings to hell’s despotic overlords.
Box Office Mojo: Gross Tracking
for “Veer-Zaara”
San Jose Mercury News: High Hopes for Bollywood Musical (Registration
Required)
The Chief Report: Review
of “Veer-Zaara”
Naz8 Cinemas: Official Site
“Veer-Zaara”: Official
Site
Norah and Dolly’s double-E’s
Part-desi songstress Norah Jones and Dolly Parton teamed up for ‘Creepin’ In’ on Jones’ album Feels Like Home. Ennis notes that the lyrics can be read as coarse double entendres:
There’s a big old hole
Goes right through my soul
Oh that ain’t nothin’ new
So as long as you’re around
I got no place else you’ve found
There’s only one thing left for you to doJust creep on in
Creep on in
Creep on inThere’s a silver moon
Came a little too soon
Oh for me to bear
It shines brightly on my bed and the shadow’s over head
Won’t let me sleep as long as it’s there
And once you have begun don’t stop until you’re done
Sneakin’ in…
But then, Ennis is a long-time Norah perv, seeking filth in that innocent hit ‘Don’t Know Why’:
I feel as empty as a drum
I don’t know why I didn’t come
For shame, dude. Jazz, that last bastion of civility, has always been wholesome and clean.
ImaginAsian showing Bollyflicks
The ImaginAsian, a new Asian-American cinema in midtown Manhattan (59th St. between 2nd & 3rd Ave.), has begun showing Bollyflicks. It’s the second Manhattan theater to show Bollywood movies after the Loews State in Times Square.
The theater is currently showing Veer-Zaara, which I found butt-bustingly boring.
Suketu Mehta on Bollywood
Suketu Mehta scribes in the magazine of another maximum city about the film industry of the Mumbai (via Amardeep). He describes it as a love affair with an international beauty:
The Soviets gave us arms; we gave them our kitsch movies in return. Israelis watch them. Palestinians watch them… Dominicans and Haitians watch them. Iraqis watch them. Iranians watch them. In a building full of immigrants in Queens, an Uzbek man once cornered me in a dark stairwell… As he towered over me, he started singing, “Ichak dana, bichak dana…”
The initial flush of romance, often consummated in what used to be a porn theater, the Eagle in Jackson Heights:
Why do I love Bollywood movies? To an Indian, that’s like asking why we love our mothers; we don’t have a choice. We were born of them.
The unreality of the affair:
My aunt’s family emigrated to Uganda from India a century ago; she now lives in England and has never been to India… none of the children under 5 in her extended family spoke English… The children, two or three generations removed from India, were living in this simulated Indiaworld.
Falling out of love:
It was not until graduate school that I became cynical about Bollywood movies. I too began to think that the plots were weak, melodramatic. At the University of Iowa’s student-run movie theater, the Bijou, I could see two movies for five dollars, most of them European. I was introduced to Renoir, Fellini, Fassbinder, De Sica… the Indian movies seemed pointless and absurd to me…
‘Did my Indian balls come in?’
Mira Nair writes in the New York Times Magazine about the chaat-fueled filming of Hysterical Blindness. We apparently share a favorite snack, kachoris from Jersey City’s Little India:
As others tucked into Krispy Kremes, I’d pop the just-made almond kachori in my mouth, no cutlery needed, licking the sour-sweet taste of tamarind chutney off my fingers… Uma [Thurman] would sidle over to me in her ripped Joan Jett T-shirt and blue eye shadow to ask, “Is it samosa time yet?”… I would pop kachoris directly into Juliette Lewis’s rosebud mouth so not to disturb her lipstick. The gaffers and grips would holler across to me, “Did my Indian balls come in?” Soon the little box of snacks from Rajbhog grew into a stack, and kachoris conquered Krispy Kremes.
Batman and Rushdie
The ever-illuminating Shashwati has a precious find: the Hot Spot reviews International Gorillay, a paranoid Lollywood fantasy about assassinating Salman Rushdie (circa 1990). With disco. And batsuits. Aw, yeah! Praise the Lord and pass the cheese.
Rushdie plans to drive the final nails into the coffin of Islam by opening a new chain of Casino’s and Disco’s spreading contemptable vice and debauchery. Mustafa Qureshi… decides to call it a day with his day job at the Police station and induct his unemployed brothers to create a Mujahid (God’s soldiers) trio whose sole aim is to seek out and destroy the despised Salman Rushdie before he manages to destory all virtue and decency on the planet. The trio have a personal axe to grind as their beloved family cherub was recently slaughtered by Rushdie’s men while protesting Satanic Verses… The direction is sledgehammer subtle as is the norm for Punjabi cinema and the one-liners have to be delivered slowly and deliberately and sometimes even three times in a row so as to not miss their point!
Rushdie is eventually offed by a laser beam to the head from four flying Korans (watch the cheesy special effects). The Koran as a directed-energy weapon: Isn’t that, um, a bit sacrilegious? But wait, there’s a subtext — the film functions as sly literary criticism:
… Rushdie… is of course a man of unsurpassed evil and tortures his hapless victims by forcing them to listen to chapters from his fatwa-inducing book…
I can think of several desi authors, the reading of whose works would qualify as torture. Rushdie ain’t one of them. Ironically, this film was banned in the UK, a country which defended Rushdie against censorship for years. The ban was eventually lifted at the behest of the author himself. Apparently, Rushdie wasn’t too worried about death by killer lasers from levitating religious screeds.
Don’t miss Bubonic Films’ archive of cheesy Bollywood clips and Lollywood horror films. The scariest things about these movies are the hairstyles.