Tag Archives: Where Do We Go Now

Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now Shortlisted for Original Song & Score Oscars

Where Do We Go Now - Nadine Labaki new movie - poster w halla2 lawein - et mainteant on va ou

Who knew that more than a year after its release Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now, which lately garnered Paulo Coelho’s love, would be in the running for an Oscar?

While going through recent articles regarding the upcoming movie award seasons, I stumbled on two press releases published by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for the shortlists of original song & original score, which are quite extensive. However, keep in mind that they have been narrowed down from a much wider selection.

The original song list can be accessed here. The original score list can be accessed here.

As you can see, Hashishet Albe has been shortlisted for best song and Khaled Mouzanar’s musical work has been shortlisted for best score. I don’t think they stand a chance at a nomination, especially not when you have people like Adele and Hans Zimmer in the running. But it’s still interesting to see that the great musical work done on the movie hasn’t been lost.

It’s slightly ironic that the movie is doing better at the Oscars with its music than with its film aspect. Where Do We Go Now failed to be shortlisted for best foreign movie last year.

This is hashishet albe:

My Last Valentine in Beirut – Movie Review

“This movie is for serious and smart people only” said the marketing tagline. Then by all accounts, I’m a stupid person who knows nothing of seriousness.

My Last Valentine in Beirut is not a movie. I have no idea what to make of it actually. It’s a horrid mess. It’s a nauseating spectacle. It’s a disgustingly bad atrocity. It’s a jumble of scenes with no apparent link between them except a quest to build up into a running time of approximately 80 minutes. Meet Juliette, a whore in Beirut. Meet a movie director and his assistant wanting to make a movie about Juliette. That’s basically the entirety of My Last Valentine in Beirut for you.

There’s no depth in the movie. Not one bit. The characters are as flat as a board. The storyline – or lack thereof – is so void that you shouldn’t even attempt searching for anything in it. The jabs at Lebanese society are delivered by the characters turning to face the camera – there’s not even one hint of subtlety anywhere. The movie takes cheap shots at other Lebanese movies such as Caramel, Bosta and W Halla2 la Wein which by all accounts are much, much better than this mess. Juliette’s attitude, obviously hyperbolic, becomes more than grating at points. The point of this being a critique of Lebanon today becomes entirely detached from what’s happening on screen that any message the movie tries to pass feels forced especially as the last scene rolls around and you start wondering how the movie got to the conclusion it tries to bring forth with its obvious lack of build up towards anything mentally stimulating.

The absolutely useless 3D is only here for the extra revenue and it’s so distracting at times that it visually hurts. Some camera angles, which are supposedly “artistic,” don’t make sense – even to someone like yours truly whose expertise when it comes to movies is restricted to being an enthusiastic viewer.  Even the only sex scene in the movie is of such catastrophic execution that it becomes one of the movie’s funniest moments. Those are not many.

You’d think that struggling Lebanese cinema would actually bother to come up with good enough movies especially with production being so scarce. But no, you get movies like My Last Valentine in Beirut which keep throwing one crappy scene after another at you in order to break the worst movie in history record, which is a shame really because the premise of a movie discussing prostitution in Lebanon is so dense that this movie, if actually done like a proper movie with a decent script, could have turned out well. Maybe. Who am I kidding. At some point during My Last Valentine in Beirut‘s rather short running time, I wished I was watching Breaking Dawn again. This was one of the worst movie experiences of my life. And that’s not an easy feat at all. My Last Valentine in Beirut has shattered my faith in Lebanese cinema into so many little pieces that next time a non-Nadine Labaki Lebanese movie is released, I’ll rely on other people going on a martyrdom viewing mission before I venture out.

Do not watch this. Even if your life depended on it. Even if your mother’s life depended on it. You could use the $10 admission price in so many better ways, not to mention the time of your life you wouldn’t have wasted trying to watch this cinematic massacre.

1/10 – and I’m being generous. 

Where Do We Go Now is Banned in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia may not have cinemas but it allows some DVDs to be sold in its shops. Where Do We Go Now won’t be one of those DVDs because the Saudi government has deemed the movie offensive and unsuitable for a Home Video release. Therefore, the movie was banned entirely.

In retrospect, this is very much expected. A movie whose ultimate message is about religious tolerance will be allowed in Saudi Arabia how?

In simple terms, Saudi Arabia is here and the concept of religious tolerance has escaped them so much that it’s flown all the way to Pluto and settled there.

The way I see it, in this day and age, banning any movie, book or TV show is irrelevant. The only entity that will get hurt here is some wallets.

There’s simply  a little bay for pirates where everything can be found. If Nadine Labaki’s aim is to deliver a message first and foremost instead of filling up her treasury, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind audiences in Saudi Arabia making a slight detour to that bay.

Or the Saudis, whose government still allows them to come over to Lebanon for the summer, can purchase the super-overpriced DVD here. You know they can afford it.

Tannoura Maxi is Banned in Lebanon

Because the government has so much free-time on its hands,

Because nothing else is important & going on nowadays,

Because there’s nothing wrong in Lebanon that needs to be rectified,

Because our threshold for offenses is so damn low and our pride so damn high,

Because our journalists are so keen on research,

Because our TV stations can’t wait to eat up a controversy,

Tannoura Maxi has been banned in Lebanon, following a request by the Lebanese Catholic Information Center. Hate or like the movie, you can’t but be against such a thing. If you think this is irrelevant compared to what the country is going through, you are right. But then think about how such a decision came to be in the light of what the country is going through and you’ll come to the same conclusion I got to.

This is pitiful. This is a disgrace. This is an insult to our intelligence and our freedom. This is an insult to Christianity, an insult to the Bible and an insult to anything Jesus Christ stood for.

Christian priests, are you happy? I am a Christian and I’m telling you – you are disgusting. You are so narrow-minded that if I tried to look through the hole that is your mind, the only thing I can see is emptiness. Is that what they teach you at whatever school you go through to become priests? To close in your mind and get offended at anything that touches on your religion in a way you find unfavorable?

How does this reflect on us, Christians, when your narrow-mindedness if the only thing people can see of us? Have you perhaps wondered that if some people decided to convert from Christianity because of a movie like Tannoura Maxi, however unlikely that may be, it’s not the movie’s fault but it’s your own? Or it’s perhaps because you don’t want the reality of having so many people with so little faith on your hands that you are panicking about anything and everything?

Weren’t you offended, dear priests, by Muslims smashing statues of the Virgin Mary in Where Do We Go Now? Weren’t you offended by them faking a miracle and saying the word “waté” in church? Weren’t you offended by one of the actresses throwing dirt at the statue of the Virgin Mary?

Or is “offending” religions also hypocritical in Lebanon, some can get away with it while others are burned at the stake?

The whole idea of bans in Lebanon needs to be banned. Censorship is never the solution. Prohibition should never be allowed. Religious men should not be permitted near anything that exceeds their field. Go to your churches, parishes and mosques and leave books, movies and TV shows alone.

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.