Scene from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Asian panorama

The seventh edition of Osian-Cinefan, the annual festival of Asian cinema held in New Delhi ends today. The centrepiece of this year’s festival was Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy; it also had a special feature on Asian martial arts films, including the international hit Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The festival has become the largest of its kind in Asia ? 120 films from over 30 countries, kicking off with a screening of Shanghai Dreams, directed by China’s Wang Xiaoshuai, the Jury prize winner at this year’s Cannes film festival. The festival saw larger crowds than ever before, despite obnoxious, over-intrusive security personnel who denied entry to large numbers of people for carrying water or mobile phones. Phones rang in the middle of every film, though.

Eyeing the Potter pie

Coming soon: Pirates of the Arabian: The Curse of the Black Market, hopefully starring Johnny Depp as a Mumbai book pirate. What’s most impressive about the book buccaneers who’ve been making headlines worldwide is the speed and efficiency of their printing and distribution process, which would put most mainstream publishers to shame. But the pirates of Mumbai have nothing compared to online pirates ? Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was available for downloading ? free ? on various sites on the Internet within hours of the book being released. I wonder if the maniac who scanned the book first even paused to read it. Rowling’s publishers are spitting curses, of course, but they’re probably right when they say that these pirated versions are a minuscule part of the Potter pie. The book sold more copies in a day than Da Vinci Code did in a year, for crying out loud.

Bride and Prejudice star Naveen Andrews is on a roll. Lost, the American drama TV show he appears in, has picked up 12 Emmy nominations this year ? one of which is for Andrews, as best supporting actor.

Friends forever

According to Courtney Cox, the Hollywood actress best known for her decade-long run as Monica in the smash hit US sitcom Friends, the stars of the now off-air show might reunite for a special Thanksgiving episode where audiences get to find out how Rachel, Chandler et al have been doing a year and a half after the end of the 10th season.

Courtney Cox

Porn stir

They said sex was the best form of exercise, and they weren’t kidding. 200 porn film buffs casting a discerning eye on a lust-fest flick in Balasore district, Orissa, a few days ago were rudely interrupted by the police, who proceeded to march them to the town square and make them do sit-ups in public ? as well as promise that they would never watch porn again. The audience contained a number of school students, whose parents had to come and watch. This is part of a police drive to promote Internet porn ? no, wait, sorry, to close down illegal movie theatres.

AWARD OF THE WEEK

To 19-year-old Mexican pornstar Lolly, the real protagonist of the explicit Mallika Sherawat MMS clip that everyone in the country except me has seen. Sherawat’s Bollywood critics are now wiping mud off their faces.