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Between the surprise success of "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," starring a who's who of venerable English actors, and "Trishna," Michael Winterbottom's subcontinental adaptation of "Tess of the d'Urbervilles," India seems to be an unexpectedly happening location for movies this summer. Add to this list "Patang," a gorgeous indie flick that has been making the festival rounds and is hitting the theaters this week.


The title refers to simple paper kites using in kite fighting. During the annual Uttarayan festival in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, neighbors square off against neighbors in spectacularly colorful battles from the rooftops. Against this backdrop, first-time director Prashant Barghava sets his neorealist family drama.

Wealthy, middle-aged Jayesh (Mukund Shukla), along with teenage daughter Priya (Sugandha Garg), journeys from the cosmopolitan Delhi to his more traditional hometown. As he barks commands to the rickshaw driver zigzagging through the narrow, crowded lanes, Priya shoots the passing scene with her Super 8 camera.

The best part of the movie is when the Chicago-born Barghva does the same thing. He reportedly shot more than 100 hours of documentary footage with small HD cameras to capture fleeting moments of grace in the dizzying chaos of the city -- the sunlight hitting a temple in just the right way, the expression on the face of street kid. In the process, he created a stunning, joyous visual portrait of Ahmedabad. It's eye candy in the best possible way.


The movie's narrative unfolds when Jayesh returns to this childhood home, where the specter of his dead brother casts a pall over the place. While his brother's saintly widow, Sudha (Seema Biswas), greets the visitors with a smile, his ne'er-do-well nephew Chakku (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) -- a dissolute wedding singer -- blames Jayesh for his father's death.

When the festival kicks off, the poetic visuals kick into high gear. While Jayesh displays his kite-battling prowess, Priya flirts with Bobby (Aakash Maherya), a local with a great smile. During a rooftop picnic dinner, Jayesh lays out his plan for family, which goes very poorly. The scene, though it dredges up plenty of dirty laundry, never quite reaches a dramatic catharsis. A smaller but more interesting clash occurs between Bobby and Priya. Bobby might have a motorcycle and a remarkably shiny shirt, but he proves to be a naive romantic when he confesses his love for her after having known her for only five hours. Priya, who liberally sprinkles English phrases in with her Hindi, is a modern woman and shoots him down.

"Patang" is not a perfect movie -- its story is a might too impressionistic, and its characters are more quick sketches than carefully observed studies -- but it is a ravishing, beautiful look at a part of the world not often shown in American theaters. Given the trend, though, that might be changing.

This weekend ushers in the first movie musical of the year -- since last year's "The Muppets" and "Footloose." And "Rock of Ages," based on the Broadway show of the same name, seems to have all the ingredients to get you chair-dancers out there into full swing: '80s hits, big hair and even bigger stars.

The Tom Cruise-led flick is said to be in contention with "Madagascar 3" to top the weekend box office, pitting karaoke fare against kid fare. But R-rated comedy "That's My Boy" could come from behind for a surprise win if it follows the path of surprise R-rated hit from earlier this year, "21 Jump Street." (Incidentally, we recently spoke with Vanilla Ice, who plays himself in "My Boy," along with the rest of the cast.)

Fun fact: Jennifer Aniston's main squeeze Justin Theroux co-wrote the adapted screenplay.

Here is more on what you can expect from this weekend's wide releases:




Rated PG-13 for sexual content, suggestive dancing, some heavy drinking, and language.

What's the story?

Jam packed with decades-old chart-topping songs, "Rock" is told through the eyes of two young aspiring stars (played by Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta). During their quest for fame, they confront of a slew of characters involved in the late '80s Sunset Strip, Hollywood scene: The aging rock star (Tom Cruise), the mayor's rock-hating wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), the money grubbing club owner (Alec Baldwin), and many more.

Who will dig it?

If you sing along with your car stereo or find yourself frequently chair dancing, this one is for you -- along with shower vocalists and hairbrush microphone users (preferably in front of a mirror). Musical movie buffs and former '80s teens looking to reminisce should also find fun in this one.




Rated R for crude sexual content throughout, nudity, pervasive language and some drug use.

What's the story?

It's about boy who had a boy: Young Donny acted on base instinct, fathering a son -- with his teacher -- when he was just a young teen. His son Todd is now grown up, getting married and Donny wants desperately to form a closer bond.

Who will dig it?

Fans of any or all of the following movies should find this one enjoyable: "Happy Gilmore" (starring Adam Sandler), "Hot Rod" (starring Andy Samberg), or television movie "All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story." There, I said it.

Fixing the economy will likely be put off for a few hours this evening: President Obama will be busy shaking down some celebriguests attending a funraising dinner co-hosted by "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour at Parker's New York City home.

 Tickets cost $40,000, about as much as the average person makes in a year. For donating all that money, what kind of party favors do these guests get? We can't afford to attend ourselves to find out firsthand, and even if we could, journalistic principles would bar us from accepting any of the gifts.

 So we're left to imagine the donation-party-favor ratio for Obama's uber supporters:

 For $10,000: Matthew Broderick will sit next to you. For $5,000, you'll share a table with Will Smith. For $50, Joe Biden will watch you eat and tell you it's a "big f***king meal."

 The standard dinner will be overseen by Michelle Obama and will consist of locally grown herbs, low-fat beet-garnished eggplant and a corn-and-soybean protein shake. For $4.50, you might want to try Burger King.

 For $15,000: You might get a flattering profile in Vogue — though it'll cost another $15,000 for that profile to remain online once the editors kill the link.

 For $2,000: Obama will give you a personal shout-out at the beginning of his speech. For $4,000, he'll serenade you with three seconds of Al Green. For bundling a half-million dollars for his re-election campaign, he'll make you the ambassador to England.

 Donate $30,000, and you'll get you the cell phone number of super PAC Priorities USA Action major domo Bill Burton, but only after working through a series of increasingly complex clues to throw the Federal Election Commission off track.

 For $9,000: Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker will light your table on fire, then carry you out of the house on his shoulders. And for an extra two grand, he'll write you a job recommendation for Bain Capital.

 If Fifth Avenue is packed and you're running late, for $5,000 the president will call you in your car and tell you that "the traffic is doing fine."

New Delhi, June 14  Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Thursday said he is "confident" that the headline inflation will remain between 6.5-7.5 percent in 2012-13, even as the government takes remedial measures to control rising food prices.

"I'm confident that range of inflation will be around 6.5-7.5 percent throughout the year," Mukherjee told reporters here.

He also hoped that a good monsoon would help curb inflationary pressure.

"I hope if the monsoon is quite good, then it will be possible that this type of pressures will be sorted out," he said.

He also said the government would take remedial measures to curb food inflation by addressing supply side bottlenecks.

"We have to address supply constraints, (concerning) cold chaining and warehousing facilities."

India's inflation moved up to 7.55 percent in May as compared to 7.23 percent in the previous month, mainly driven by a sharp increase in the price of food items, which added to the woes of policy makers as the economic growth remains under pressure.

The monthly inflation based on wholesale price index (WPI) was 9.56 percent during the corresponding month of the previous year.

Food inflation surged to double digits in May. It rose to 10.74 percent in May as compared to 8.25 percent in the previous month as vegetables, pulses, milk, egg, meat and fish became costlier, pinching the pockets of common people.

Food inflation had re-entered the double-digit zone after a gap of six months in April and the trend continued in May.

Prices of vegetables surged by 49.43 percent year-on-year. Potato price went up by 68.10 percent. Milk became costlier by 11.90 percent. Prices of eggs, meat and fish rose by 17.89 percent. Pulses became costlier by 16.61 percent.

Mukherjee said food inflation was partly impacted due to seasonality of some of the food items such as pulses and vegetables.

"These (pulses and vegetable) are the commodities in which prices have increased," he said.

Prices of manufactured products increased by 5.02 percent year-on-year, while price of fuel and power grew by 11.53 percent. Petrol prices went up by 10.51 percent.

In May, the three state-owned oil marketing companies hiked petrol prices by Rs.6.28 a litre excluding local taxes, the steepest such hike in recent times.

The companies later retracted the hike by Rs.2 per litre due to the falling global crude prices.

However, petrol as an item has lower weightage in the wholesale price index of about 1.09 basis points and does not primary impact the headline inflation.

Diesel on the other hand has a higher weightage in the index of about 50-75 basis points due to larger usage in the transportation sector. High speed diesel prices went up by 9.24 percent.

The recent data showed that India continued to face the problem of high inflationary pressure and low growth.

As per the data released by the Central Statistics Office last week, India's industrial output grew marginally by 0.1 percent in April due to poor show of mining and manufacturing sectors.

The factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had declined by 3.5 percent in industrial production in March, the first such contraction in factory output since October 2011, when it shrank by 4.7 percent.

The sharp fall in factory output is expected to put pressure on the central bank to cut key interest rates.

The Reserve Bank of India is scheduled to hold its mid-quarterly policy review next week.