‘Namesake’ nuggets
This Mira Nair interview in the S.F. Bay Area’s Metroactive ferreted out some interesting nuggets on the eve of The Namesake’s release:
… Kal Penn [is] rescued from the dumb comedies he has been trapped in… [and] proves himself likely to become the first Indian romantic lead in American movies… “… not many people could do Gogol both as an adolescent and a dashing youth. It would have been a real casting challenge to find two separate actors who matched…”
The paper’s South Bay demographic can relate to this:
[One memorable image] is an interior shot of the so-called “living room” of an extended-stay apartment where one of the characters lives during long-term assignment. The white, deep-pile carpet is spotless, and the frosty-white walls are blank and cheerless. The room is as welcoming as the inside of a freezer. I’m sure the image will be as bitter as wormwood to the Indian engineers who have come to the valley… “We tried to make it as white as we could,” Nair says. “Typical and charmless, the foreign place within a foreign place…”
Like the Dum Dum Project’s infectious ‘Supafly Bindi,’ Monsoon Wedding’s soundtrack had non-desi collaborators:
… the film played at the Toronto Film Festival during the Sept. 11 attacks, and distributors got cold feet about any movies with people wearing turbans. “I knew it was going to be a time of demonization of the Other. But by the time Monsoon Wedding opened in February 2002, it was embraced…” … the title theme [was] “Baraat” by Mychael Danna. “… what I was aiming for was an Indian version of Nino Rota. We used a street wedding band. I’m happy to see the song got picked up as the repertoire for wedding bands all over India ever since…”
Nair’s AIDS short is called ‘Migration’:
She recently made a four-minute AIDS-prevention picture attached as a short in India to more mainstream Bollywood opuses. “It’s called ‘Migration,’” she explains, “and it’s about how the virus moves from the rural world to Rolls-Royces. I’m working in the style they call ‘chaalu’–meaning ’sexy, streetwise.’”
Why she picked America over ye old colonialist island:
… Nair was a good enough student to get a scholarship to Cambridge but, she says, “I had a chip on my shoulder about England, and I didn’t want to go there.” Instead she went to Harvard to study theater, but she found the scene there stodgy: “It was performances of Oklahoma! more than anything else…” [Link]
on Thursday, March 1st, 2007, 5:11 pm in Film, Kal Penn, Profiles › 
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The New York Public Library is hosting an evening with Jumpha Lahiri and Mira Nair on Saturday the 10th at 7pm. I believe Ms. Lahiri is interviewing Ms. Nair. I’ll be attending if anyone is interested in coming along.
wow nayantara - thats like a dream come true of mine. how much does it cost?
This is a copy of my email to Nair:
I believe that one big mistake that is made by Bollywood or Hollywood Indian actors and
directors is that they do not go on the popular television talk shows such as Oprah , Jay Leno and David Letterman to talk about and preview scenes from the movie , such as The Namesake - stars of other Hollywood movies quite frequently made rounds of talk shows to plug their movies. Karl Penn if you read this do let me know if you agree with me -
nazir1@rogers.com
I would also like to send to you a suggestion about your sequel to Harold and Kumar.
Dear Ms Nair ,
All these different reviews and critic reviews and festival showcasing is alright but I strongly believe that more American audience become familiar with upcoming Hollywood movies after their stars appear on popular talk shows and talk about the movie and also preview a scene or two from the movie. You should have Irfan Khan , Karl Penn and Tabu appear together on the talk shows I mentioned above. If Tabu and Khan schedule does not allow them atleast get Karl Penn on some talk shows before the movie opens on March 7
Nazir Patel
PS. Just today on Oprah there was Travolta and the other male leads of Wild Hogs
http://www.travolta.com/news.htm
PK,
Unfortunately it’s sold out!
Boo!
Kal penn and Tabu are talented actors and mira is a talented movie maker so should be a good one to watch..it would be interesting to see how penn and Tabu look when they grow older as the movie progresses..
if you live in the new york area, you might be interested to know
that both mira nair & jhumpa lahiri will be at the barnes & noble in
union square on monday (3-12) at 7pm. they’re promoting the making
of the namesake book.
Kal’s acutally a really smart guy, and I think you’ll see that reflected in his interviews. I think you have to be really smart to do good comedy, and have something to say about race or society at large. he talks about his opinions on race more in this interview I found: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976927602