American Idol results:
The bottom three this week: Matt (hard to believe!), Michael (sorry, but he’s not a strong contender), and Scott (I think he has potential). Then it went to bottom two: Matt and Michael. Sorry to Michael fans, BUT he lost out!
Wow, Ruben has lost QUITE a bit of weight! He also got married- how cool is that!?
Pics of Boston (where Dad went for a conference):
Indie films from director Ramin Bahrani:
The Jackson Heights Film Festival (in my old ‘hood in Queens) showed Chop Shop last fall. I wanted to see it, but got the info too late. This film is about an orphaned Dominican boy who works at an auto repair shop in a rough area (near Shea Stadium). Ale (as he is known) has never been to school and worries about his 16 y.o. sis. The sibs’ big dream is to save enough money to buy (and eventually run) a food van. I wondered who the director was.
I read about director Ramin Bahrani, an Iranian American raised in Winston-Salem, NC, in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine. He has already made 3 movies and teaches at Columbia (where he received his BA). And he’s only 34!
Bahrani’s 1st film, Man Push Cart, is about Ahmad (a young Pakistani immigrant) who runs a coffee cart in NYC. He is also a dreamer, a lover, a hustler, a pop singer and, not incidentally, a Muslim man making his way through a city still gripped by post-9/11 anxiety.
Bahrani’s latest film, Goodbye Solo, is set in his hometown of Winston-Salem. It will be out tomorrow (March 27). The protagonist is a young Senegalese family man who drives a taxi. He becomes friends w/ one of his passengers, an elderly white Southern man who is nearing death.
Goodbye Solo web site: http://www.goodbyesolomovie.com/
More about Bahrani: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramin_Bahrani
Bahrani’s film company: http://www.noruzfilms.com/index.html
Knightleyemma 