Take one statuesque transgender absentee father, a would-be godman reborn from the sea, a former porn actress and devoted mother, four horny teenage boys, a film-savvy loan shark, one unfaithful newlywed wife and her cuckolded husband of six months, a very, VERY bad cop, one firecracker of a young son, oh yes, AND a cadaver […]
Category: Tamil
Jai Ho in the General Assembly: AR Rahman at the UN
When I first got a text weeks ago from the event organizer hinting there was something big happening in New York on August 15 with AR Rahman, I said “Oh, India Day parade?” and was told “No, no, this is something different.” Well, it certainly was! To see and hear – along with the 1,897 […]
Mani Ratnam at MOMI
Starting tonight (Friday) and running through Sunday afternoon, the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, NY is holding a special retrospective of director Mani Ratnam’s films under the title Politics as Spectacle: The Films of Mani Ratnam. The organizer of the program, Christina Marouda, the Museum’s Deputy Director for Development and Founder of […]
Singam 2: Too Lite
First time in all my Tamil movie-watching in New York and New Jersey, I witnessed in person Friday night that massive hero worship of Tamil film fans. When the opening credits of Singam 2 started rolling, folks were already clapping and whistling, and when Surya appeared on screen for the first time, they burst into […]
Aiyyaa: Let’s hear it for the girl
When I was a teenager in Catholic school, somewhere in either Junior or Senior year, I remember sitting in Mass one day and hearing the priest tell the congregation during the homily (the discussion of that day’s gospel reading) that sensuality is bad, and I remember thinking “Really? But why?” His sermon didn’t answer my […]
Le Tamoul – for a change!
When recently directing a friend who was in Paris to the website for L’Harmattan bookstore there, and their amazing selection of Francophone African literature, and all variety of “international books,” I couldn’t help but notice a brief paragraph on the page promoting an upcoming salon about Indian writing (in November) this year. Wonderful, of course, […]