Some of you may be old enough to remember a letter to an academic journal that Sepoy posted last February. Below, I furnish the piece of writing in question for those who are curious. The article, on the portrayal of terrorists in Indian cinema, was written in 2002. It was, I like to think, fresh [...]
{ 12 comments }
A guest essay by Basanti Mushtaq Bhai: Any last words? Babban: How about a joke? Mushtaq Bhai: Yes, go ahead. Babban: (nervously) There was once this mullah who had a female parrot. This female parrot had quite a mouth on her, always saying the foulest things. The mullah was at a loss, what to do. [...]
{ 38 comments }
David Bordwell, John Ford, silent man One headliner is the early Ford series: all his surviving silents, plus a selection of rarely-seen talkies. The first one screened, The Black Watch (1929), concentrates on the Khyber Pass incident of 1914. Captain King is assigned to India while the rest of his Scots regiment is sent to [...]
{ 6 comments }
But the problem with my analysis is, you will say, that Cameron is not the Department of State or Labor nor is he the official mouthpiece of some quasi-empire. You would be right. Yet Avatar is consensus. It is the consensus of nearly $300 million dollars – pored over every lovingly rendered pixel flesh and [...]
{ 12 comments }
(sepoy sez: you can find an introduction to purdah on the about CM page) Greetings CM readers, Sepoy has generously offered me a spot on his soapbox, a turn at the helm, a cameo in his story? Um a chance to reach out to some gentle minds…I would like to begin by discussing the current [...]
{ 23 comments }
Go watch the whole thing, now. Then go pay your regards to Director Nina Paley. Seriously, go. [via Kottke]
{ 4 comments }
I usually don’t watch telly, but this caught my attention. I missed the segment but found the transcript on NBC’s news site. Not being up on my gossip, I can only hope this is the good news that it seems to be. Profile: George Clooney talks about Fatima Bhutto and how he’s become involved in [...]
{ 10 comments }
Thanks to Moacir, I watched the documentary Kabul Transit. Eschewing the usual talking heads approach – or even much of a linear narrative at all – it allows us to follow some people in Kabul for short periods of time. An entrepreneur, some government officials, some Canadian force members of NATO-ISAF, a yunani physician, some Kabul [...]
{ 1 comment }
I highly recommend that you go out and watch Tarsem Singh Dhabdwar’s The Fall. Think of it as a companion piece to del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth – obsessed with stories, story-tellers and the corrosive realities that surround them both. I was hesitant to go see it, until I read Ebert’s interview with Tarsem (worth reading [...]
{ 1 comment }
“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 [...]
{ 53 comments }
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.
{ 0 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). [...]
{ 5 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 [...]
{ 9 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 [...]
{ 7 comments }
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 [...]
{ 0 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, [...]
{ 9 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 [...]
{ 4 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 [...]
{ 6 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 dying [...]
{ 3 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 [...]
{ 16 comments }
You can purchase, for delivery around the world,