Category Archives: Entertainment

The Ward el Khal “Scandal” is an LBC Prank

Remember the video that surfaced online a few days ago and featured Lebanese actress Ward el Khal going into a cat fight with a woman who accused her of sleeping with her husband?

If you don’t, then here’s the video.

A few days later, Blog Baladi wrote about Ward el Khal filing a lawsuit against the woman in question. Drama, drama. Literally.

It turned out the whole video is a prank, staged by LBC, who wanted to advertise their new TV station: LBC Drama.

While the prank sure got people talking, I have to say it’s a very cheap shot and I’d be worried if it actually represented the content of what LBC Drama will air.

The new station will go on air starting August 20th.

“The idea was that of brilliance, leading viewers to feel and live the moment and the drama,” Ward el Khal said regarding the video.

I guess some people have a low standard for what’s brilliant.

This is Ward el Khal letting you all know:

LBC are proud by how viral the video went. What I don’t get is how that will benefit them in whatever they were trying to do.

 

The Voice is Coming To The Middle East: The Voice Arabia

I spotted the following poster while walking in Gemmayzé yesterday.

Yes! Another talent show imported to the region for insatiable crazed fans.

The Voice, originally a Dutch TV show, was taken up by the US and then many other countries followed suite. Now it’s the Middle East’s turn.

Because between Star Academy, Arab Idol, Arabs Got Talent and many other talent shows that I haven’t heard of, we still have a shortage.

The concept of the TV show from what I gathered is the following: it starts with blind auditions whereby candidates sing to judges who have their backs turned to them. If only one of the judges likes a candidate, he would choose for this candidate to be on his or her team. So each judge builds a team and then the teams go head to head against each other while people vote, obviously.

I have mentioned The Voice on my blog before when I spoke about a Lebanese contestant on the French version of the show. He ended up losing around the quarter finals.

Will you be watching this? Because I surely don’t have time for it.

The Notre Dame de Paris Concert in Lebanon

Tickets ready, car parked, we went ahead to Biel last night for the Lebanon stop of the Notre Dame de Paris concert. The ordeal to get tickets had caused any enthusiasm we had to get sucked out of us. But man how wrong were we not to be beyond excited for this concert.

Even though it was said the concert would start at 9:00 pm, it started 40 minutes later. I guess they must have accounted for Lebanese people who can’t be on time even if their life depended on it. At 9:40 some people were still trickling in. The seats were a little crammed. Perhaps it’s the venue but a few seats less per row would have made things much more comfortable, despite it being less financially-pleasing.

I had purchased the $100 tickets and thought I had overpaid. The concert proved to me that I had actually underpaid. The orchestra took its place. The conductor struck with the motion to play and Bruno Pelletier came from the crowds to give a brilliant rendition of “Le Temps des Cathedrales.”

And that was the start of two hour long goosebumps. Garou had a rough start in the first act but he brought it back in the second. Patrick Fiori, Julie Zenatti, Helene Segara, Luck Mervil and Daniel Lavoie all gave flawless performances of every single song they sang. They basically showed how a two hour vocal show can be done without a hitch, bringing some crowds to their feet with every note they hit.

I’m not a regular concert-goer because there are very few artists which are brought to Lebanon that I would pay to watch so saying this is the best concert I’ve ever attended wouldn’t be a fair comparison. However, a friend of mine who has attended way more concerts than me said this is by far the best concert she went to.

It’s not very difficult to see why. Each performer had his group of fans rooting for him. Some had even brought out a huge banner for Julie Zenatti which they put up when she sang “La Monture.” She looked at them and smiled halfway through the song.

As the performers left the stage, the crowds started shouting for an encore of the play’s most famous song “Belle.” And that’s what happened. The crowds rushed to the stage. Phones in the air, people singing the lyrics to the song as Garou, Patrick Fiori and Daniel Lavoie gave it their all, before being joined with the rest of the cast to deliver the song’s last chorus.

If you didn’t attend Notre Dame de Paris, let me tell you something: you missed out on a concert that will not be matched any time soon. And I’ve never been more thankful I know French.

PS: I would like to thank my iPhone 4S for filming 11GB worth of videos and pictures and the battery for lasting the entirety of the concert and then some. :p

Let me know in a comment if there’s any particular performance you want me to upload.

The Amazing Spider-Man – Review

Forget dreary Tobey Maguire. Forget melodramatic Kirsten Dunst. Forget depressing spidey. The world’s most popular superhero is back.

The Amazing Spider-Man is more or less the same story of the first Spider-Man movie that saw light in 2002. Peter Parker, a 17 year old high school student who lost both of his parents years before, gets bitten by a spider while visiting a high-tech lab and develops spider-related abilities such as cunning senses and extra sticky digits. He is the victim of radical biological experiments involving cross species hybridization, which his father had started before his death. Soon enough, this research takes a bad turn when its power begins to be used for purposes other than the one it was intended for.

Andrew Garfield, at 28, is far more convincing as a teenager than Maguire, who was even younger when he acted in the first Spider-Man movie. You’d think Garfield just had his growth spurt and is still getting accustomed to his new self. He’s extra shy around the girl he likes: Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), he’s awkward and agitated. He’s also great to watch on screen.

Emma Stone is great as well as Spidey’s love interest in this movie. What’s interesting about her character is that it doesn’t melt in the whole love-aspect of things but stands alone as a credible female character that can surprise you, entertain you and stand up for herself when needed.

Garfield and Stone have stunning chemistry together on screen. They work so well together you can’t but wonder at times where this combo had been hiding for years. Of course, they are helped by a terrific supporting cast in the form of Sally Field and Martin Sheen as Peter’s aunt May and uncle Ben, respectively.

Director Mark Webb, yes that is his real name fitting as it is, does a great job in breathing new life into a story we all know and giving it another dimension we hadn’t been exposed to before. His previous work is the very entertaining 500 Days of Summer, an indie comedy. He pulls off the blockbuster aspect of things in a great way and even adds a little touch of the humanitarian aspect present in copious amounts in indie movies to his reboot of Spider-Man.

The story may be familiar. The last Spider-Man movie, horrible as it may have been, was only five years ago. But The Amazing Spider-Man is a more than welcome restart of a franchise I had thought is long gone by now. The movie exceeded my expectations. I never thought I’d be this entertained by it. I never thought I’d be taken in from the first frame that poped on screen and never let go until the credits started rolling. I never thought it would be this well-casted. The Amazing Spider-Man advances with great pace, works well with its buildup and even has a few tricks up its sleeve so freshen the story up. The special effects are more than well done but in an age where this is becoming easier and easier to accomplish, where The Amazing Spider-Man rises is in it having substantial amounts of heart.

Some parts of the story are left open as the movie ends, to be resolved in subsequent installments. Even the characters’ personalities are not developed until they’ve been turned dull, which makes The Amazing Spider-Man even more interesting to watch and to predict what might come next. It sure doesn’t hurt that the screenwriters are some of the best in the business such as Steve Kloves, the man who brought you Harry Potter. But this is what the original Spider-Man should have been about.

The Amazing Spider-Man is amazing, indeed. Welcome back spidey. You’ve been missed.

9/10

Carrie Underwood Covers INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart” at Australian Concert

I admit I had never heard this song before but I think it’s great. And she delivers a pretty good cover of it as well.

This was part of a string of Australian concerts. She had covered Coldplay’s “Fix You” at her Royal Albert Hall concert in London.

Underwood did the song justice and proved yet again exactly how versatile a singer she is.