Category Archives: Movies

The Dark Knight Rises Release Date in Lebanon

This is downright unacceptable!

(Source)

I don’t get how we get The Hunger Games, The Avengers, The Amazing SpiderMan a day before they’re released in the United States yet when it comes to the summer’s most anticipated movie, we have to wait a whole month. What’s the logic behind this? You have no clue? Well likewise my friend, likewise.

How about we start a petition or something to bring the movie’s release date up to normal and acceptable standards (July 19th would be so awesome, being St. Elias’ day and all)? As it stands, a whole month wait is unacceptable and unjustified.

When I get to watch a movie like Mirror Mirror two weeks before it’s released in the United States, the least our theaters can do is let us watch the most anticipated movie of the year not a month after it’s released elsewhere and its hype starts dying down – let alone it possibly leaking on low quality cam-recorded DVDs.

You might want to check out the most recent trailer for the movie in order to get you more involved.

Update:

Apparently the delay is because Ramadan happens to be in July this year. So let me get this – no movies are released during Ramadan because Muslims don’t watch movies after Iftar? Impeccable logic I have to say. 

New Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Trailer

Is it just me or does this movie keep looking better and better, if that’s even possible?

It’s my #1 most anticipated movie of the year and I’m sure Christopher Nolan won’t disappoint me at all.

33 Days – A Lebanese Movie About The July 2006 War Banned At ABC Mall

Picture from the Facebook page: Stop Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon

Just as we talk about the bans and transgressions that happen with what some people refer to as “pro-Israel” entities, we cannot talk about being fair until we point out similar bans that happen on the other side.

ABC Mall’s management banned Grand Cinemas from showing 33 Days, a new Lebanese movie, starring Carmen Lebbos and Bassem Maghnieh as well as Youssef el Khal. 33 Days, which is a Lebanese-Iranian production about a Hezbollah mission to release Lebanese prisoners in Israeli prisoners during the July 2006 war.

Legally, the owners of ABC Mall have the right to allow or disallow movies from being screened at Grand Cinemas. However one cannot but wonder why they decided to ban this movie from being screened?

The movie’s producer said he does not know if it’s for a political reason. I cannot but think of political reasons for the ban, in which case shame on ABC Mall’s management for not respecting the basic freedom rights. You’re against Hezbollah? Fine. So banning a movie that talks about something Hezbollah makes you feel better? Does it make you feel like you did something worthwhile?

The only thing ABC’s management did with banning 33 Days is to make a fool out of themselves for being xenophobic inside their own country.

If there’s anything ABC’s management should have considered, apart from every logical reason that might come to person’s mind, is that you have more than 1000 Lebanese who died in the July 2006 war (You can read a story of one of the war’s victims here). Most of those 1000 people were innocent people whose only fault was being at the wrong place at the wrong time. We may not agree with their politics, but the least we can do is not ridicule their memory by banning a movie about the cause that led to their death.

What’s sad is that news about Lara Fabian being banned from coming to Lebanon spread like wildfire across the cyberspace. News about the movie’s ban did nothing.

The movie is being screened at other Grand Cinemas theaters in Lebanon.

Where Do We Go Now (W Halla2 La Wein) Released on DVD & Blu-Ray

For those searching for torrents or a way to download Where Do We Go Now, you might want to stop searching and go buy the DVD for the movie, which will be released today.

Check out my review of the movie here.

Titanic 3D Released in Lebanon For ALL Audiences: Fail!

Yes, I went to watch Titanic 3D (my review) – Sue me!

The fact that the movie has become engrained in pop culture until it became nausea-inducing doesn’t mean it’s not a good movie in itself. But I don’t need to explain myself.

When I went to a screening of the movie with a friend, I never thought I’d be sitting next to two ten year old boys, in front of three twelve year old girls and behind a new mom with her two year old toddler.

Perhaps the crowd waiting at the door should have been enough to warn me of what awaited. The average age of those entering the theatre was nowhere near an acceptable range for a movie like Titanic. Since when is it acceptable to admit eight year olds to a movie with nudity, a sex scene and people dying in the dozens?

So here’s the story – the two boys next to us behaved exactly as you’d expect two prepubertal boys to behave: wolf-whistling at Kate Winslet’s breasts (we did that when we watched the movie fifteen years ago, the main difference being we were not allowed to watch it at the cinema) and as it is, they were also all over their BlackBerry and iPhone, answering phone calls, BBMing, Whatsapping – you name it. Telling them more than once to shut it wasn’t enough for them to get the hint until they decided, with about fifteen minutes to go, that they’ve wasted their day watching the movie since they obviously know the ending. Duh!

The toddler, on the other hand, decided that a three hour movie, half of which consists of flashing lights and people drowning, was more than she could handle. So she broke into a crying frenzy. Terrible twos redefined. Were the cinema personnel anywhere to be found? Absolutely not.

The girls behind us behaved as you’d expect preteen girls to act – except they were more than a decade late in fan-girling over Leo Dicaprio. But of course, the level of annoyance didn’t stop there – it had to go further when they decided that talking about their private lives was highly appropriate. One of them decided that cinema chairs are appropriate to catch up on sleep, down to the kicks we got in the back as a result.

So naturally, being so careless about social etiquette, I told them to shut up or leave. They gladly obliged.

Upon leaving Grand Cinemas, I demanded to speak with the manager  and apparently Lebanon’s General Security saw nothing in the movie that warrants limiting it to certain ages. He understood the nuisance I had to go through but he couldn’t do anything. He would be sued if he implemented an age limit. The movie was ruined, big deal. Apparently, I should have spent the entire screening going back and forth to the worker at the theatre door to ask him to come talk to the kids, despite him knowing that the screening was having such problems to begin with: some people had been asked to leave at one point for being a nuisance. So after promising my friend, who had never seen the movie, to take her to watch it, we had to spend three hours trying to act as supervisors to a bunch of kids in a movie they shouldn’t have been present in.

I really don’t get how American Reunion is 18+ and Titanic is for general audiences. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have found this many kids in Beauty and the Beast. I actually thought we had mixed movies for a second there. Get a hint, right?

And what’s worse – what parents in their right minds would send their children alone to a movie like Titanic fully knowing what the movie contained? Oh wait, silly me – generations have changed. They must have thought their kids were mentally ready for such a movie, after all owning a smartphone the day you turn 5 is growth-inducing these days. Sorry to break it to them though, their children have the emotional range that ten year olds should have – that of a mustard seed. And their parenting skills are atrocious if they think it’s absolutely fine to send their children to such a movie unattended.

All in all, big fail on Grand Cinemas’ part, big fail on General Security’s part and an even bigger fail on some parents’ reckless neo-parenting. Welcome to Lebanon!