Category

talkies

• talkies

  Jodhaa Akbar

  02.17.08 | Permalink | 48 Comments

  “Gowarikar came before the media with half a dozen history books and said that he researched the subject thoroughly before making the film.” You will just have to imagine my cheshire cat grin upon reading that sentence in an otherwise eye-rolling reportage on the “controversy” surrounding Ashutosh Gowariker’s bollywood spectacular Jodhaa Akbar. I want every […]

• homistan, talkies

  Little Terrorist

  02.09.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  Ashvin Kumar’s Little Terrorist is a wonderful short that I accidently caught on the Sundance channel. The title is a bit misleading - I would have called it “The Wicket” - but it is heartfelt and a nice introduction to some issues of difference and sameness around the partitioned homistan.

• stardust, talkies

  Chapati Review: Wristcutters, A Love Story

  11.28.07 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  (Suggested listening while reading this review: click here; don’t bother to watch the clip, since it’s just a fan slideshow) The film version of Etgar Keret’s novella “Kneller’s Happy Campers” (which is also recreated in the graphic novel Pizzeria Kamikaze) has finally been released in the US (see the earlier review of Keret’s work here). […]

• homistan, talkies

  Round Up VI

  11.14.07 | Permalink | 9 Comments

  » Following last week’s military crackdown in Pakistan and the detention of hundreds of lawyers, the Harvard Law School Association has decided to award Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry its highest honor: The Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom.
  » “Mentally and in my heart, I am not a dictator. In my heart, I have introduced […]

• talkies

  Aliens!

  10.01.07 | Permalink | 7 Comments

  Aliens in America premiers tonight on the CW. Can someone tell me what that poor kid is wearing?
  P.S. Considering it was filmed in Pasadena and Vancouver, let’s not forget to keep a tally of inaccuracies about Wisconsinites as well as Pakistanis.
  P.P.S. Alessandra Stanley places Aliens in the genre of imaginary friend comedies. As […]

• optical character recognition, persophilia, talkies

  Persepolis Hits the Red Carpet

  05.22.07 | Permalink | Comment?

  Just what we’ve all been waiting for: the animated version of Persepolis is being screened at Cannes this week, and that means it should get a general release later this year. There are some great trailers on Satrapi’s MySpace page that include some pretty sweet air guitar and “Eye of the Tiger” renderings by the […]

• optical character recognition, talkies

  Chapati Review: Four Books by Etgar Keret

  05.21.07 | Permalink | 9 Comments

  The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories (Toby Press, 2004), $12.95.
  Jetlag (Toby Press, 2006), $12.95.
  The Nimrod Flipout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), $12.00.
  Pizzeria Kamikaze (Alternative Comics, 2006), $14.95.
  It’s one of those days when you find yourself in a new part of town with an hour to kill, and you decide you […]

• talkies

  Aliens in America!

  05.17.07 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  Here’s the madcap comedy we’ve all been waiting for:
  The CW’s only new comedy, “Aliens in America,” is about a high school student trying to adjust to a Pakistani exchange student.
  UPDATE:
  The plot just gets better. According to this source:

  The comedy will focus on a shy nerdy kid living in a small Wisconsin town whose mother […]

• talkies

  Desi Comedians Don’t Do Yo Mama! Jokes

  03.09.07 | Permalink | 6 Comments

  At a dinner table, recently, I asserted that ‘family’ was largely absent from the routines of desi comedians. Their comedy was largely set in the habermasian realm of the public [yes that is a joke. of course, I would never say anything like ‘habermasian realm’. ever]. You get lots of material about interactions with the […]

• talkies

  Kaanch

  12.05.06 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  From the writing-directing-acting-webdesignin’ duo, the Suhrwardy Brothers comes a Pakistani actioneer, Kaanch. I am unclear as to what Kaanch [crushed/broken glass] is about from the trailer - something about going back home and then running in a jungle? - but, there you go, the fledgling independent cinema of Pakistan.
  While Urdu cinema has been […]

• talkies

  Shakespeare Re-mixed

  10.15.06 | Permalink | 16 Comments

  Recently, we watched Omkara - Vishal Bharadwaj’s adaptation of Othello. A few nights ago, I watched Xiaoxang Feng’s The Banquet - Hamlet set in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms of China. I could seriously geek out over the visual delights offered by both of these productions, but I will restrain myself since I have […]

• noted, talkies

  Mard-e Momin

  10.07.06 | Permalink | 1 Comment

  News arrives about the long-awaited [at least by me] adaptation of Charlie Wilson’s War. Who is going to play General Zia ul-Haq? Om Puri!

• imperial watch, talkies

  That Torture Thing II

  07.09.06 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Last night, I happened to catch the beginning of a Law & Order episode [don’t ask me which variety but it starred Pvt. Pyle] which was set in the ‘tech’ world. The story, though, quickly moved beyond the use of a pringles can for wireless into torture at Gitmo and an army psychologist who decided […]

• talkies

  Gore Warning

  06.04.06 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Go see An Inconvenient Truth. Pirate it. Distribute it. Watch it. I saw it yesterday and while Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change had already scared the living daylights out of me [well, her NYer version], I was still taken aback. It made me wonder, watching Al Gore, […]

• imperial watch, optical character recognition, talkies

  Hic Locus Terriblis Est II

  05.19.06 | Permalink | Comment?

  sepoy notes: It is beyond doubt that the Glorious Lord will send farangi to hell for punning Gloria Dei. It is also beyond doubt that I have been giggling like a, um, girl about it ever since.
  III. A 500 Year Old Argument Over Money
  The controversy between Catholics and the Enlightenment is a deep one, and […]