what is the vertiginous chapati saying to me?
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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“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 [...]
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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.
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(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). [...]
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» 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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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!
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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 [...]
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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, [...]
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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 [...]
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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, [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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