Here is our first look at Danny Boyle’s new film on “Steve Jobs.” Written by Aaron Sorkin, the film stars Micahel Fassbender, Seth Rogen, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels and others. Earlier this year Boyle and his crew spent a couple of months in various parts of San Francisco bay area shooting their film. The film is… Continue Reading
With a title like this “The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared,” your interest is piqued. Your interest is further kindled when you hear the opening lines of the film. Pardon me if the dialog is not verbatim, but it went something like this. “No one has meant to me… Continue Reading
Austrian Chocolate Burrito? Vietnames Apple Kebab? Like me, you probably have not heard of these dishes. You are probably thinking there is an error and it should really be Mexican burrito or Turkish kebabs. But, what happens when you introduce big data into the kitchen and let IBM’s Watson do all the data crunching, analysis,… Continue Reading
B.B. King, “The King of Blues,” passed away tonight in Las Vegas. He was 89 years old. He had been unwell for sometime and on May 1, 2015 King shared this on his Facebook page: “I am in home hospice care at my residence in Las Vegas. Thanks to all for your well wishes and… Continue Reading
There I was waiting for “Piku” to start. Instead, I was sitting through a series of Bollywood trailers. All of a sudden I heard a very exciting exchange between a group of women seated right behind me. “Every Friday there is a new movie.” “Such good movies too, nah?,” responded another. “Summer holiday right now… Continue Reading
Director Shira Piven’s new film “Welcome To Me,” made me laugh and also made me a bit sad. We caught up with her at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where her film was shown. In this interview we spoke to Piven about how she came to direct this film, Kristen Wiig and the… Continue Reading
I had no idea what “Piku” was about. All I knew is the film starred Deepika Paduknone, Amitabh Bachchan and Irrfan Khan. The film is directed by Shoojit Sircar, whose previous film “Vicky Donor,” I enjoyed watching. The other bit of information I knew was that Juhu Chaturvedi wrote the story of “Piku” and “Vicky… Continue Reading
Over the years I have seen pictures of Iris Apfel in various magazines. How could you not notice her? She jumps out of the page with her eclectic, colorful, stylish and layered ensemble paired with those over- sized jewelry and glasses? And then there that energetic aura about her. Most often, you will find her smiling… Continue Reading
This is our final episode with Dr. Salman Akhtar about the history of Bollywood or Hindi cinema. We talk to him about the label “Bollywood,” used to describe the Hindi film industry based in Mumbai. There are those who don’t like the term, while others see nothing wrong in using the term. What does Dr. Akhtar… Continue Reading
There are some books that are easy to read, and then there are some books that are dense and at times confusing to understand. One such book for me was Thomas Hardy’s “Far From The Madding Crowd.” Hardy’s book was our assigned reading for our literature class in high school and I can still vividly… Continue Reading
Meet Anshuman Bapna of MyGola.com. Bapna and Prateek Sharma founded their startup in Bangalore in 2009. They raised a seed round and Series A and pivoted a couple of times. Here is how Bapna describes the pivots: Arguably, travel planning is one of the top worst ideas entrepreneurs can think of. In our quest to crack that impossible… Continue Reading
With one more week to go, here are my 3 picks from this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (April 23-May 7, 2015). These are films that I have seen. There are lot of films I have not seen, and would like to see them. These include “The Diplomat,” “The Deep Web” “Tangerine” and “The… Continue Reading
We continue with our history of Hindi cinema or Bollywood with Dr. Salman Akhtar. We pick up the threads of our conversation and look at how Bollywood films underwent a change during the 1980s. The films made in 1970s belonged to the angry young man genre and were marked with narcisstic rage. Concerns about the market… Continue Reading
Today is Ella Fitzgerald birthday, one of the greatest jazz singers in the world. She was born on April 25, 1917 in Virginia Beach. She was 21 years old when she recorded “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” which sold over a million copies. For the next 50 years she performed and sang in various venues around the world. She recorded… Continue Reading
Leila Sen shares the story of Hedeya Khayat, her Armenian mother’s unusual story and journey from Turkey to Egypt, to India, to England and finally to the USA. As part of a people who define themselves as ‘survivors’, one wonders what it was like for Khayat who became Hoda Dutt after her marriage and learnt… Continue Reading
Alex Gibney’s documentary “Steve Jobs: Man In The Machine,” was the opening night film at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival. In this 120 minute long documentary we get to see Steve Jobs up close and personal and discover facets of him like his obsession with Zen Buddhism. Jobs apparently wanted to be a monk… Continue Reading
Today is the opening night of the longest running film festival in the Americas – San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). The festival runs from today through May 7, 2015 and is studded with a wonderful array of films, guests and talks. We sat down to speak with Noah Cowan of San Francisco Film Society… Continue Reading
Film lovers are in for a wonderful treat at this year’s 58th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 23 -May 7, 2014). With so many terrific films it is always a challenge to find out which ones to watch. Here are five films from different genres and parts of the world that I enjoyed watching and… Continue Reading
We are obsessed with Steve Jobs. We just can’t seem to get enough of him. There is a new book out about Jobs and two different films about the iconic Silicon Valley entrepreneur. This is not including the 2011 book by Walter Isaacson and the 2013 Hollywood film “Jobs,” with Ashton Kutcher that did not do… Continue Reading
Dr. Salman Akhtar talks about Bollywood or Hindi cinema’s 100 year old history in this multi-part interview. In Part-3 of our conversation he talks about female sexuality and the angry young phase of Hindi cinema during the 1970s. “I will tell you a very interesting story about female sexuality in Hindi film,” he says. And he shares the… Continue Reading
San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) is gearing up to host the 58th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 23 – May 7, 2015). This is the longest running film festival in the Americas points out Noah Cowan, Executive Director of SFFS. What is different about this year’s festival I asked Cowan. The actual festival itself won’t… Continue Reading
Meet Mikey McCleary, musician, composer and music producer.He has been kept busy creating music for Bollywood films and Indian advertisements, and lately he has branched out to score music for Indian-American filmmaker Shonali Bose’s “Margarita With A Straw” If his name is unfamiliar, his music must certainly be familiar to most of us. You might… Continue Reading
Meet Hollywood actor and TV star Tiya Sircar. We caught up with her at this year’s Cinequest film festival in Silicon Valley. She was here for the world premiere of her new film “Miss India America.” A couple of years ago Sircar spent time in Silicon Valley filming for “The Internship.” Naturally one of the… Continue Reading
Dr. Salman Akhtar talks about the 100 year old history of Bollywood or Hindi cinema in this multi-part interview. Dr. Akhtar comes from a family of poets and writers in India. His father Jan Nisar Akhtar worked in Hindi film industry as a lyricist and poet. His mother Safia Akhtar was a talented writer & poet. His brother Javed Akhtar is a well-known writer… Continue Reading
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (1922 -2009), the legendary sarode maestro was born on April 22, 1922. He would have been 93 years old today. He spent his formative years in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. His father Ustad Allauddin Khan was a court musician and is the founder of the Maihar Gharana of Hindustani classical music. Khan sahib as… Continue Reading
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (1922-2009) turned 93 years old on April 14, 2015. And in celebration of his 93rd birthday an all day music tribute to the legendary sarode maestro will be held at the Ali Akbar College of Music (AACM) in San Rafael in San Francisco bay area. He passed away in 2009. Khan sahib as he… Continue Reading
They are back. You know the nerd pack from “Silicon Valley’s“ Pied Piper consisting of Richard Hendriks, Bertram Gilfoyle, Dinesh Chugtai Ehrlich Bachman and others. After a successful first season, HBO’s “Silicon Valley“ premiers its second season today. Sadly, Christopher Evan, who plays the socially awkward Venture Capitalist Peter Gregory in the series passed away. He will be missed.… Continue Reading
Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature film “Court” pulls you right in. That is all I am going to say about this powerful film with its slow, meditative and unhurried pace with excellent acting by Vira Sathidar, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Vivek Gombar and others. “Court” takes you to places that you tend to ignore or overlook in India. The… Continue Reading
“Kinky and cofounding,” is how this film is described. “It is obscene” says Isabella Rossellini in the the video clip embedded at the end of this post. It is a “fun romp,” says Noah Cowan, Executive Director of San Francisco Film Society. Now, don’t jump to conclusions. This “kinky and confounding” and “fun romp” is a… Continue Reading
Dr. Salman Akhtar talks about the 100 year old history of Bollywood or Hindi cinema in this multi-part interview. What is different about Dr. Akhtar’s approach is he brings his trained psychiatrist eyes to the subject and helps us understand what socio-economics factors permeated and colored the narrative and story lines of filmmakers. And how films in turn… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 