I keep forgetting that Mike Myers is not actually playing an Indian in The Love Guru, and yet I’m constantly reminded by the film’s commercials, which show that ridiculous shot of a little kid’s body with Myers’ giant head digitally superimposed onto it. Really, Myers’ character (Pitka) is a white American who is left on the doorstep of an Indian ashram when he’s a child. Then he’s raised as Indian, I guess (or simply Hindu, but then why the accent?).

Apparently the character, Pitka, couldn’t simply look and talk like Myers. He had to have that silly accent and the clothes and the facial hair, despite the fact that Deepak Chopra, who partially inspired the character (and who appears in the movie), is able to wear jeans and be clean-shaven. Because who would believe Myers as an Indian guru with just the voice, the clothes and his baby face?

Of course, Myers is not the first actor to wear or grow a beard and/or mustache in order to take on the guise of another ethnicity. Sure, it’s also the accent and the makeup that transforms the actor, but with the most recognizable faces, it’s the facial hair that really seals the deal for supposed authenticity.

1. Charlton Heston as Mexican in Touch of Evil (pictured above) - Maybe if Heston could maintain the accent he wouldn’t have needed the mustache. But then in photos he still would have just looked like regular old Heston. With the whiskers, however, he looks like regular old Heston with a mustache. If this look defined a man as Mexican, then many characters from the ’30s must have been Mexican. Rhett Butler? Mexican. Nick Charles (and anyone else played by William Powell)? Mexican.
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• Department of Bad Ideas In The Name of Box Office Equivalency, Part 1: Apparently inspired by the success of Indiana Jones and It Really Didn’t Make THAT Much Money, Paramount is hiring Brett Ratner to direct Eddie Murphy in a fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie. It was Murphy’s idea, and there’s currently no script.
• Department of Bad Ideas In The Name of Box Office Equivalency, Part 2: Apparently emboldened by the success of Transformers, Michael Bay is working on another film based on a toy: Ouija. Yes, that board with the alphabet on it that allows slumber partying fifth graders to talk to the dead.
• Department of Things We Can’t Complain About: In honor of their 85th anniversary, Warner Brothers is dipping into their catalog of 6,800 films to push forth a ton of new DVDs and reissues, including “sets of superhero films, musicals and Westerns, including three editions of the MGM’s How the West Was Won, all slotted for third-quarter release, followed in the fourth quarter by horror and holiday collections, including an ultimate collector’s edition of A Christmas Story.”

• Are you ready for Children of Men: The TV Series? John Brownlee isn’t! Alfonso Cuaron’s film is “genre-defying masterpiece, exactly as long as it needs to be, every shot and line perfect,” he writes at Sci-Fi Scanner. “So obviously it requires weekly extrapolation to dilute the effect.”
• “It dawned on me as I was getting started that there is an important piece of information that many of you younger Pajibans may not be aware of. It saddens me to think this might be the case, and thus this review is given another purpose: to perhaps educate y’all. Because you see, here’s the thing: Eddie Murphy used to be funny.” Dustin Rowles watches 48 Hours with a hangover.
• Tee hee. Critic of Creationism/science blogger PZ Myers was banned from a screening of Ben Stein’s anti-Darwin propaganda film Expelled, but was told his guests could attend. One of Myers’ guests? Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, whose arguments the film basically exists to refute. Via Boing Boing.
• Andrew Bujalski has moved to Austin. He doesn’t know when his next movie will be finished.

• Paramount has reshuffled its 2008-2009 release calendar, and the big headline is the move of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek from December 2008 to Spring 2009, in order to position the film as a summer tentpole instead of a Christmas/awards offering. Which seems like a no-brainer, but this project has been so slow getting off the ground that we’re sure SOMEONE will cry red flag. But really, isn’t the bigger red flag the bumping of Eddie Murphy’s Nowhereland from Sept. 26, 2008, to June 12, 2009? I guess the fate of Eddie Murphy projects is not at the top of the list of nerd concerns.
• The middling-to-good post-strike news: most writers whose deals were terminated by the strike will now find themselves “free agents,” and the spec script market is apparently expected to shortly be on fire. The bad news: TV networks and studios are planning to be extremely frugal about pushing projects into development and signing long-term deals.
• Major stars like George Clooney and Tom Haks pitched in on an a full-page ad in today’s Variety, encouraging SAG to come to the negotiation table as soon as possible before the actors’ contracts run out on June 30.
• In a think piece on actors who “thrive on the ambiguity of their multiethnic heritage,” Peter DeBruge informs us that “there’s a new kind of hero in town”––typified by none other than Vin Diesel. Is he even still in town?

Complaints about the Oscars include the following: the people who choose them are too old and out of touch; they don’t adequately honor comedy; they don’t give enough recognition to science fiction and fantasy movies; they fail to recognize that often the best animated film should also be nominated for best picture. Well, except for that last issue, the Kids Choice Awards, which announced their 2008 nominees today, should be then be a favorable alternative. Obviously they are chosen by people who are young and hip. They continue to acknowledge the worth of both comedy — Eddie Murphy received his eight and ninth nominations this year — and science fiction/fantasy (note to the Academy: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Transformers are more than just special effects and other technical achievements!). If only Shrek the Third, which received four nominations, was in the race for best movie in addition to best animated movie then the Kids Choice Awards would definitely be the most perfect kudos fest ever.

Beginning on March 3, kids get to vote online for the winners. I know Karina will be stuffing the ballots for her favorite, Alvin and the Chipmunks, while I’ll be busily trying to get Ice Cube that win he deserved two years ago for Are We There Yet? (he’s nominated this year for the sequel, Are We Done Yet?). By the way, speaking of the best actor category, kids need to stop recognizing Johnny Depp so much. Don’t they realize he can’t be cool with them and with the old codgers in the Academy?

Odienator at Big Media Vandalism is publishing one essay per day this month, in honor of “Black History Mumf,” in an attempt, as he puts it, to “explore the movies Black folks love, regardless of how I personally feel about them.” I’m loving this series, even though the fact that I haven’t seen many of the movies being written about makes me feel like whitest White girl in White City. Here are some of my favorite pullquotes from the nine chapters published so far. You can check out all of these essays and future editions to the series here.

• On Sidney Poitier and No Way Out: “No Way Out is the cynical shocker in [Joe] Mankiewicz’s canon, a film about racial hatred that dropped my jaw. I can’t imagine the reaction people had when they saw this picture in 1950, but it couldn’t have been good…Finally, in a movie, passing for White helps the entire community!”
• On Joel Schumacher’s early career as scripter of Sparkle, Car Wash and The Wiz: “Perhaps the guys who assumed Joel Schumacher was the foremost authority on Black culture were the same ones who left the blackface aspect of The Jazz Singer in the 1980 remake…I don’t even think Car Wash has a screenplay. Yet, I must point out that his characterizations aren’t offensive; he tries and for that I must give some credit.”
• On the arranged marriage scene in Coming to America: “Now, a note to the bougie Negroes and liberal White folks who thought this section of the film was some kind of offensive representation of African culture: SIT YO’ ASS DOWN. Find me another movie where this much glitz and glamour, on such a grand scale, has been afforded people of color.”

Hopwood DePree, screenwriter and co-founder for the Waterfront Film Festival, wraps up Sundance. Paul, Dave and Kevin debate questions like, who is The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? How do they pick a winner? Are losers chosen so they make better films? What is up with Dreamgirls among other bizarre anomalies of the 2007 Oscars?

Download FilmCouch #5 or subscribe to FilmCouch in the iTunes store (search for “filmcouch” or click here to launch iTunes) and a new free episode will download every Friday.