SRK’s My Name is Khan is apparently very un-Bollywood. This makes me want to see it.
I’m also pretty curious about Three Idiots given the ubiquitous marketing campaign…
Latest Updates: movies RSS
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aziz
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thabet
The Infidel is a new comedy written by David Baddiel, and starring Omid Djalili:
Watch a clip at the Graun.
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johnpi
“Neseli Hayat” or “A Cheerful Life” is the story of a down-on-his-luck, working class Turk who is hired to work as a mall Santa.
The trouble is he doesn’t really know who Santa Claus is, and needs some very basic lessons.
….Riza then spends much of the film, embarrassed and hiding his job and costume at a posh Istanbul mall glittering with holiday decorations, from his wife and family in a shanty neighborhood where one would be hard pressed to find a single piece of tinsel.
The writer, director and actor who played Riza, Yilmaz Erdogan, says his character is a metaphorical bridge between two worlds in Turkey: wealthier, upper class Turks who live a “Western” lifestyle and have adopted the trappings of Christmas to celebrate the new year, and poorer Turks who have emigrated from the Anatolian heartland to the big city and are more familiar with traditionally “Middle Eastern” customs.
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johnpi
Top American film critic Roger Ebert has published a letter from a fellow critic in Egypt who tells how he and a small group of writers and film editors advanced on the censorship office, protested to fix the changes that had been made by the censors and eventually did fix them.
This article will also probably get some interest for the colorful Egyptian insult that was leveled at the critic: ‘Sushi eating testicle.’ And of course the other great Egyptian cuss word: ‘liberal,’ as in
…before we knew it a line of security guards and some police officers were between us and the two censorship guys. One of the guys told the security guards “Don’t let them in…they’re liberals.”
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johnpi
‘Sinister Muslim’ stereotype fades.
Muslim voices are finally being heard by and from Hollywood, and it’s in Tinseltown’s best interest to listen.
Negative stereotypes of Muslim characters date to at least the black-and-white era, but by the 1990s and the end of the Cold War, one-dimensional Muslim terrorist characters were the generic “bad guy” in countless movies and television shows, including True Lies (‘94) and Executive Decision (‘96). Even the cartoon Aladdin (‘92) portrayed villains with Middle Eastern accents while the hero and heroine had standard American voices.Such repeated portrayals have colored public perceptions of Muslims and Middle Easterners. The events of 9/11 crystallized and, for some, affirmed the stereotype. But nearly a decade later, Hollywood seems to be changing its tune toward Muslims and Arabs.
It’s about time.
Recently, especially on television shows, Muslim characters are being treated differently. On 24, federal agent Jack Bauer protects the U.S. against terrorist attacks, but those attacks aren’t all coming from stereotypical Muslim characters anymore.
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aziz
Hindus are mad at James Cameron for naming his new alien flick “Avatar”
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buzz
Emmerich reveals fear of fatwa axed 2012 scene
Roland Emmerich, the director of the ‘end of days’ disaster movie, had wanted to depict the destruction of Islam’s holiest site, but was persuaded not to.
He blew up the Empire State Building and the White House in Independence Day, sent a giant monster careering through the heart of Manhattan in Godzilla and destroyed the famous Hollywood sign in The Day After Tomorrow. But it seems there are places even Roland Emmerich will not go – the German film-maker has revealed he abandoned plans to obliterate Islam’s holiest site on the big screen for fear of attracting a fatwa.
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shahed
My latest op-ed regarding the planned biopic of the Prophet is up over at the Guardian.
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aziz
Is it just me, or does Jackie Chan look a lot like Shahrukh Khan?
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buzz
How do you make a film about the Prophet Mohammad (s) and not depict him?
DOHA, Nov 1 (Reuters) – An epic film about Islam’s Prophet Mohammad backed by the producer of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Matrix” is being planned with the aim of “bridging cultures”.
Filming of the $150-million English-language movie is set to start in 2011 with American Barrie Osborne as its producer, Qatari media company Alnoor Holdings said on Sunday.
The film – in which the Prophet would not be depicted, in accordance with Islamic rules – is in development and talks are being held with studios, talent agencies and distributors in the United States and Britain, Alnoor said.
Osborne told Reuters the film would be an “international epic production aimed at bridging cultures.”
“The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam,” he said.
Rumi Film planned by Qatar Foundation still apparantly on track…More.
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aziz
Ricky Gervais’ Invention of Lying looks surprisingly philosophical – complaints it is “anti-religion” may be missing the point.
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thabet
Not that controversial after all then:
A nice publicity stunt by the producer: begin the possibly boring task of negotiating a rights deal with a distributor, but in the meantime pretend you can’t find a deal in a country which is considered to have a loud enough anti-evolution population.
And on that note, does anyone know if it will/has been shown in a Muslim country?
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johnpi
First there was Hollywood, then there was Bollywood, now there is Nollywood in Nigeria.
According to a UNESCO Institute for Statistics survey, Bollywood—as the Mumbai-based film industry is known—produced 1,091 feature-length films in 2006. In comparison, Nigeria’s moviemakers came out with 872 productions—all in video format. The United States, on the other hand, produced 485 major films.
….According to the study, American movies continue to dominate in terms of cinema admissions around the world, and all of the top 10 films seen in Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Costa Rica, Namibia, Romania and Slovenia were U.S.-made. Nigerian films, however, outsell Hollywood films in Nigeria and many other African countries, where Nigerian video movies are available in even the most remote areas. Nollywood films also enjoy immense popularity among the African Diaspora in both Europe and North America.
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thabet
Ali Eteraz says the movie on Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi may gloss over the more ‘more interesting’ aspects of his life:
Second, will western thinktanks, in their quest to appropriate all the creative elements of Islam to advance their own pet wars, turn into the film’s cheerleaders and ensure that it becomes a flop?
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johnpi
Quentin Tarantino’s new movie “Inglorious Basterds,” described as a Jewish revenge fantasy about the Holocaust, is being criticized by some as anti-Semitic.
Pitt and Roth’s characters “behave like butt-ugly sadists,” Wells writes, while the German soldier, despite cursing out his tormentors as “Jew dogs,” behaves like “a man of honor,” accepting a brutal and painful death rather than ratting out his comrades. In Sammel’s brief performance, Wells says, he depicts the German as “a man of intelligence and perception” with “a certain regular-Joe decency,” while Raine and Donowitz come off as unhinged horror-movie villains. (Wells’ post has engendered a fascinating range of agreement, disagreement and debate.)
….Wells implies, but doesn’t quite say, that the net effect of “Inglourious Basterds” may be anti-Semitic, in its depiction of Jews as deranged, unscrupulous killers.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that he came out of the film
“so hopped up on righteous Jewish violence that I was almost ready to settle the West Bank — and possibly the East Bank,” but then started to feel queasier about it over the ensuing few days.
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thabet
Buzz Kill mentioned something on a forthcoming movie about Jalaluddin Rumi. Ali Eteraz has some more:
An Indian website reports that the studio is definitely looking for an A-List Hollywood actor and Al Pacino and Daniel Day Lewis have been mentioned. I really hope Pacino does not play Rumi — maybe he can play Shams of Tabriz.
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johnpi
Saudi Arabia bans public cinemas. This move surprised many as there have been a number of moves recently on the part of the government to allow cinema screening in the Kingdom.
The first commercial screening of a Saudi movie in over 30 years took place last month under much fanfare. “It was a special screening at a cultural center,” Al-Omran said. “People could go and buy tickets and watch a movie but it was only for a week or so.”
Despite street protests by Saudis opposed to the screenings, thousands of people were reported to have attended.
However,
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz reportedly made the decision following pressure from Saudi Mufti Sheikh Abd Al-Aziz Al-Sheikh to make the public screening of films illegal.
The news comes after extensive debate within Saudi society over the propriety of films.
The government has indicated a willingness to consider the opening of public movie theaters. This has been resisted by those who subscribe to the strict Wahhabist interpretation of Islam and believe films have the potential to debase the Islamic fabric of Saudi society. Wahhabism dominates the kingdom’s religious establishment.
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johnpi
“Menahi”: Saudi movie screened in Riyadh first time in 30 years, described as “a daring step and a challenge to the more conservative elements of society” by the AP.
No women allowed.
Young male organizers of the event manned a checkpoint on the road leading to the gated center so no women could reach the theater.
Amazing. At least they didn’t set out land mines…
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johnpi
Planet of the Arabs: This is old news, but I was looking for this recently to link up to a Chuck Norris story – whose Arab/Muslim bashing role features prominently – and couldn’t find it, so I’ll archive it here. For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s the description:
Planet of the Arabs is a powerful 9 minute collage of racist stereotyping of Arabs in movies.Out of 1000 films that have Arab & Muslim characters (from the year 1896 to 2000) 12 were positive depictions, 52 were even handed and the rest of the 900 and so were negative. A montage of Hollywood’s relentless dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims.
Also here’s another CN story – Chuck is threatening to run for president of Texas. Here’s the quote (complete with bad English):
In a recent column titled “I May Run for President of Texas,” Norris writes that he might have no choice: “That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not I, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star State, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state. … I’m not saying that other states won’t muster the gumption to stand and secede, but Texas has the history to prove it.”
Texas is America’s own Northwest Frontier Province…
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aziz
I haven’t read Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons yet, but I found this blurb about a change in the plot for the upcoming move interesting:
Howard admitted he took “a lot more creative license” with this adaptation of a Brown thriller, changing both the ending and an assassin, who is Muslim in the book. They also toned done some of the book’s more explicit religious content, trying to make the film version more of a traditional thriller.
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Fatemeh
This week on MMW, we looked at Mona Abu Sulayman’s interview with Riz Khan, tried to figure out what all the fuss was about in Pakistan, pitted the LA Times against the BBC for more sexist coverage of Egyptian harassment, and reviewed the Egyptian film Her Man, which has sex! in it. We also put together a dashing link list.
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Fatemeh
Great reviews of Traitor from Racialicious and altmuslim.
Bottom line: save your money.
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muse
Few links about Muslim women in art. I can’t promise bikini shots in my links, but they’re interesting nonetheless.
Pakistani director Mehreen Jabar’s film Ramchand Pakistani is the only Pakistani movie featured in NY’s Tribeca Film Festival. (I’m excited to see Pakistani movies moving past depictions of rotund women gyrating their hips – not that there’s anything wrong with that…)
Clinton’s library in Arkansas is hosting an art show containing artwork by women from the Muslim world. It is called, what else, Breaking the Veil.
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aziz
You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is Adam Sandler’s next movie, about Israeli-Arab relations. Also features Rob Schneider in brownface makeup as an arab cabbie.
(via Ultrabrown)
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willow
I love superhero movies, but watching them in today’s political climate is like waiting to get kicked in the gut. Iron Man was no exception. It’s one of the best superhero movies to date, but gets bogged down in the same old tropes when it comes to Islam, the military and the blessed role of a messianic America. Yaman has a very good analysis.
