Shorts, 4/26.

The cultural stew is simmering and ready to boil over. Just as Indian food graduated from big-city exotica to mainstream international cuisine, Indi-pop culture could become a new part of American pop culture. It certainly has the energy and glamour to curry favor with more than those who favor curry. It might even gain the hipness it has in Britain - where, as Meera Syal, the original librettist of Bombay Dreams, boldly said, "Brown is the new black."

Corliss also profiles composer AR Rahman, who's scored around 70 movies: "By some counts, 150 million albums of Rahman music have been sold, which could make him the top-selling artist in recording history."

Also in Time, Corliss again, albeit briefly, on The Saddest Music in the World and, just as briefly, James Poniewozik on those other Canadians, The Kids in the Hall.

Back to Bollywood. For Outlook India, Saumya Roy on Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy, who scored Kal Ho Naa Ho and "became the toast of an industry getting zippier and less self-conscious." Perlentaucher points to samples and Hamida Parkar's interview with the trio for the India Times.

And back to Bombay Dreams: Jesse McKinley reports in the New York Times on how the producers plan to go about marketing their Broadway show to the half a million South Asians within driving distance of NYC. Also in the paper:

• Ten countries join the European Union on May 1 and, for all the other challenges this major expansion poses, Alan Riding argues there's this, too: "As Europe moves toward 'ever closer union,' unless it also communicates culturally, popular taste will become ever more American." Riding checks in on the state of several arts, and as for the movies, "three decades after the wellsprings of Fellini, Bergman and Truffaut, Europeans now rarely choose to see one another's films. In 2002, a good year for French cinema, 50 percent of the box office went to American movies and 35 percent to French movies, but only 4.9 percent to British films, 0.8 percent to German and 0.2 percent to Italian." But France is a special case. Spain's figures - 67 percent Hollywood, 15.8 percent Spanish - seem more representative of what's going on throughout the rest of the continent.

• Wasn't all that long ago, the entertainment and tech industries were at each other's throats. Evelyn Nussenbaum conjures those days well and then reports on how things have changed: Hollywood and Silicon Valley are beginning to get along because they can't afford not to.

• Sharon Waxman: "What do girls want? That's what panicky marketing experts and studio executives are asking themselves after a string of disappointing results for movies aimed at girls and young women this year."

• Laura M Holson on Disney's in-house search for a new chief exec.

Chris Fujiwara sends over a hefty report from the Hong Kong International Film Festival; also at indieWIRE: "SFIFF Sizzles During Final Weekend," reports Brian Brooks.

The New Yorker's Rebecca Mead attends a screening of Town Bloody Hall (more), a doc DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus shot back in 1971, a record of a debate on feminism pitting Norman Mailer against Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, Diana Trilling and then-NOW president Jaqueline Ceballos. A panel discussion followed the screening and a release on DVD is in the works.

Lauren Kern in New York: "Forty years later, [Bibbe] Hansen - daughter of Fluxus artist Al Hansen, mother of Beck, and, in her youth, one of the youngest members of the Factory crowd - tries to mimic the pose but can't keep from smiling. This is the first time she’s seen her screen test, and it's like watching an old home movie that happens to have been shot by Andy Warhol."

Again via the unmatched Perlentaucher, Uri Klein's praise in Haaretz for Arna's Children.

Space is the Place is showing in London, so Will Hodgkinson preps Guardian readers. Also in the paper: Why all the amnesia movies lately? Natasha Walter has a theory: "[O]ne of the things that keeps striking observers of American politics is the way that politicians are lost in their own pursuit of an eternal sunshine, in which they remain determined to keep their minds spotless, unencumbered by the past." Plus news that Sam Mendes will be adapting Jarhead.

Online viewing tip. Dreamworks' English-language site for Innocence. Hope it loads faster for you. Via Anime News Network.

Posted by dwhudson at April 26, 2004 8:19 AM