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Showing posts from July, 2013

Movie Critic Review: A Prophet (2009)

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".. that’s what cinema is all about – it produces monumental figures, icons, male or female, people who are emblematic of their time, who are in their time and who define their time.” French filmmaker  Jacques Audiard Tahar Rahim Was it a bit over for the producers of this movie to compare it to "The Godfather" and therefore hint at a fleeting resemblance between the Corsican gang leader Cezar and Don Corlioni and, by extrapolation,  between Tahar Rahim (as Malik) and Al Pacino (as Michael.)! Chances are!   The screenplay for "A Prophet" was inspired by a  visit Mr. Audiard made to a video club in a French prison. It was then written by Audiard (himself a screen writer)  and other prominent writers such as Abdel Raouf Dafri (winner of French Cezar Award.). It was based on the shocking realization of the conditions in the French prisons.Therefore it can be viewed as a cinematic critique of real life situations as much as it is an iconizatio

Movie Critic Article: The Da Vinci Code

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Umberto Eco- "I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel Foucault’s Pendulum , which is about people who start believing in occult stuff." Editor- But you yourself seem interested in the kabbalah, alchemy and other occult practices explored in the novel. Umberto Eco- "No. In Foucault’s Pendulum I wrote the grotesque representation of these kind of people. So Dan Brown is one of my creatures. " Umberto Eco Are you initiated? If not, do not watch this movie! It will appear dull to you whereas it is only dim! The perceived dullness is due to the fractional differences between the large number of codes, the Fibonacci numbers, and our average ability to assimilate information. It might occur to you that parts of this movie were shot in Paris, the City of Light! But all you can see is dark and Un Paris ly ! But dimness becomes conspiracies! To be initiated on th

Article: The Mandela/Kedrova Situation

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Reality While the heroic  Wilson Mandela  lies on his deathbed, his family and kinsfolk break a fight over his belongings! Cinema In Michael Cacoyannis's masterpiece  Zorba the Greek  1964, while Mme Hortense  (portrayed by legendary actress Lila Kedrova)  lies on her deathbed, the villagers start invading her house to steal her belongings!  Lila Kedrova The world is a ghetto! The Gulf International Film Festival Gulf Film Festival 2013 (opening video) from Beyond Dreams on Vimeo. Beautiful video directed by Abdulla Boushahri Abu Al.Ala with Iranian master filmmaker Kiarostami Famed Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us)  supervised the young Sudanese filmmaker Amjad Abu Al.Ala on  his short film (Studio) during the 2011 Kiarostami workshop. This year 2013 the workshop was mounted on the Hong Kong International Film Festival 2013 .  Read more here about the workshop. The two f