Category

talkies

• 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 [...]

• imperial watch, talkies

  Hic Locus Terriblis Est

  05.18.06 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  sepoy notes: At long last, I have cajoled our friend farangi back to CM. Be thankful. This is his first post on Da DaVinci Code. If you haven’t read his Religion in America series, do yourself a favor.

  When a cryptographer and a symbologist get together, it usually ends in tears. — A. O. Scott, [...]

• talkies

  Hazaroon Kranti

  01.31.06 | Permalink | 6 Comments

  The title leaves a tad to be desired but Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi really impressed me [no, it is not an underworld movie. wtf is up with the marketing on this one?]. It is sad that I cannot watch any Indian movie without thinking, ‘how would I teach it?’ but, at least, this will [...]

• optical character recognition, talkies

  Sunday Reading for Damn Dirty Apes

  12.18.05 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Saw King Kong on Friday. I must have been 9 or 10, maybe younger, when my father took me to see King Kong at the Doha Cinema. It is a particularly cherished memory because that was my first outing with my father and I felt…special. I remember little of King Kong since then, just that [...]

• talkies

  Notflix

  11.25.05 | Permalink | 5 Comments

  A solitary Netflix has sat on top of my tv for the last month. It just sits there. Sometimes, it makes it all the way into the DVD tray. Maybe even the menu comes up. Maybe a few scenes play out. But, this is one movie that never ends because it never can begin. There [...]

• talkies

  Violence is Bad

  09.30.05 | Permalink | 9 Comments

  Perhaps the best reviewed movie of the year, David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, pissed the living hell out of me. It has been proclaimed “Epic”, “Incredible”, blah and blah. I had been looking forward to this for a while. I thought - here is a good director, an interesting script and a lot of [...]

• talkies

  The Rising

  08.15.05 | Permalink | 20 Comments

  The Rising is a Bollywood movie - with a vibrant palette and a song on the lips - unless it is a historical epic with a vibrant palette and a scowl on the lips. Oscillating between scenes of village life, romantic intrigue, communal harmony and British racism, oppression, exploitation, it sets the viewer up perfectly [...]

• talkies

  Quick Hit List

  08.09.05 | Permalink | 34 Comments

  update: Ok, ok. ok. Now, I am in it for the glory. We shall compile the Top 25 of Indian Cinema for a newbie. The movies should be representative of genres, influential directors or stars, cultural themes or epochs, and regional film industries. They should have had popular appeal. They should be available on DVD [...]

• homistan, imperial watch, talkies

  Pandy’s Hornpipes

  08.01.05 | Permalink | 9 Comments

  The intellectual level of HT City, the no-brain supplement of a rather no brain paper, the Hindustan Times, went up many notches yesterday. They actually had a sort of debate on Empire, history, myth and representation on their front page (instead of a model saying that s/he loves reading ñ s/he just couldnít put [...]

• talkies

  main course - in response to saladin dressing

  05.19.05 | Permalink | 5 Comments

  Let me say it people, even at the risk of eternal damnation. I liked Kingdom of Heaven.
  I even liked Orlando Bloom’s second assay as a blacksmith. Has everyone forgotten ‘Pirates of the Carribean’ already?
  So am I, like Saladin, now destined to be a heathen in Limbo?
  What I like about the film [...]

• talkies

  Saladin Dressing

  05.16.05 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  It is through Richard the Lionheart that we get Saladin [neÈ Salah ud Din Ayyubi] into Western cinema. In most cases, these were small roles or even just dialogue. His character was peripherally important to the story of King Richard - the noble savage who personified the purity that eluded King Richard’s crusading brethern. Hence, [...]

• talkies, wizbango! tech

  Original Copy II

  04.26.05 | Permalink | 5 Comments

  Meanwhile, how do these DVDs get to The Shop in the first place? This is a long and complicated story. And my telling of it starts in another shop. G. Electronics, in a market in Lodi Colony.
  S. G., the owner of G. Elec, is a movie fanatic with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Hollywood [...]

• talkies, wizbango! tech

  Original Copy I

  04.25.05 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  [Names have been changed for obvious reasons.]
  January in Palika Bazaar. A day before the beginning of a major conference on Inequalities, Conflicts and Intellectual Property. I am with Brian Larkin, who is here for the conference, and we are looking for DVDs. Palika Bazaar, an ëundergroundí market in more senses than one, is of course, [...]

• talkies

  Calling All Filmmakers and Fans

  04.12.05 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  A lovely group of Seattle-based cineastes are calling out for new independently produced films about South Asia. Their Independent South Asian Film Festival (ISAFF) was a blast last yearÖ a well-balanced mix of very cool filmmakers and ñgoers, but refreshingly lacking in pretense. Maybe it’s the salty breezes of Puget Sound, or some lingering spirit [...]