11.07.09
إضحك… الصورة تطلع حلوة
أعشق أداء أحمد ذكي لهذا الدور… أحب جداً اللقطات الأولى للفيلم في محاولاته البحث عن الإبتسامة في الوجوه التي يقوم بتصويرها… إنه لا يأخذ التصوير مهنة… إنها متعة و شغف… هو لا يصور… هو يعمل على أن تأتي عدسة كاميرته بصورة أجمل حتى من الواقع… إنه ذلك البعد الجوهري في الشخصية… الذي يجعل ذات الشخص الذي يرسم الضحكة على شفاه زبائنه يمر بمواقف تراجيدية تمس مشاعرك في لحظات…
“إضحك… الصورة تطلع حلوة” هو واحد من تلك الأفلام الحالمة التي لا تملك إلا أن تترك إبتسامتك تطفو بسلام على وجهك من مشهد البداية حتى مشهد النهاية وسط أداء سلس ورائع لكل أبطاله بداية بأحمد ذكي مروراً بليلى علوي ونهاية بالقديرة جداً سناء جميل… هو واحد من أفلامي المفضلة جداً والذي لا أمل من مشاهدته أبداً…
وزي ما أحمد ذكي قال: “الصورة لما بتبقى وحشة بنقطعها وبنرميها… والصورة لما بتبقى حلوة بنحتفظ بيها لأنها بتفكرنا بأجمل لحظات عمرنا…”
10.30.09
A Genius in the Family…
Rou…
07.14.09
UP!
Never had I imagined that an animated movie would touch me as such… well… I caught myself getting really sentimental after almost 5 minutes of watching one remarkable animated movie, and it was only then that I knew how come it was chosen to be played in the opening ceremony of Cannes Film Festival …
I’m talking about the delightful animated movie “UP”…
With a loving widower old man (Carl) and a curious young kid (Russell) as the main heroes of the movie, there’s a surprising heartfelt emotion that seems to be flowing all through the movie… Stunning and colorful imagery along with an astounding music, taking you into a gentle ride that makes you at times almost flying with them, and touching the skies and landscape of the movie…
It’s not very common to have such an old man as the main hero of an animated movie… it’s pretty obvious to you at the beginning of the movie that the years have done a lot to that old sad man, to his spirit even more than to his body, to the extent that you can see the corners of his mouth almost pointing down, as if he is desperately wilting into earth…
I can’t really describe how much the early scenes of the movie, which tell Carl’s story and his love to Ellie and the couple’s dreams and disappointments with extraordinary tenderness, were touching… and yet how breathtaking were the later scenes of the movie with Carl’s bravery and adventurous spirit…
The idea of a flying house was more than amusing, where a huge bouquet of thousands of balloons sends Carl and his house soaring into the skies and into an adventurous trip to South America, to that one place that he used to dream of all through the years of his life with his beloved wife…
“Up” is a pretty engrossing movie that gives you a noticeable emotional impact of the beautiful wordless life of a lonely old man, opening up new routes in life to him and consequently to those who thought they were stuck in their loneliness…
I just loved it!
Rou…
07.10.09
On the charm of history… A 100 years of Egypt!
I just finished one amazing night watching one remarkable documentary movie written and directed by Dr. Madkour Thabet, documenting the history of a nation in a time of 100 years…
100 years of Egypt in one movie that lasted for more than 2 hours… I’m talking about: “سحر ما فات في كنوز المرئيات” documentary movie…
The exciting thing about this is the fact that it was screened on the “old-new” TV show; “نادي السينما”… presented by the superb Doreya Sharaf El Din…
If you’re one of the followers of Mona Al Shazly’s TV show “العاشرة مساءً”, you would have probably watched her episode hosting Doreya Sharaf El Din, in which the latter was offered, live on air, to revive her amazing TV show on Dream TV …
I can’t describe how much I was excited about this, mostly because this woman seriously had generations raised on watching her TV show among other limited programs at that time when the week was divided into days identified by certain programs that one used to wait for and anticipate the flow of info she used to provide before the movie…
Cinema Club was never about a movie showed on TV, but rather it was about a history of a movie, and info that you enjoy listening to as much as you enjoy watching the movie itself… I’m just glad it’s back in show!
Back to the movie itself ba2a… well… what can I say…
A full coverage of Egypt’s history from 1897 to the late 1990s… From Ismail Pasha, till Mubarak… At times you will see same angels of screening… but different people… different scenes… The amazing thing about it, is that it’s not only about scenes… it’s also about the amount of info given throughout the movie… in all aspects of our history…
Amazing and rare scenes from the late years of the 19th century; a 1898 scenes of “Al Bosat Al Moqaddas” caravan, Qasr El Nil bridge, Soliman Pasha Square, Opera House, Azbakeya Garden, Attaba Square, Sayeda Zaynab Square, Mohamed Ali square and Mahatet el Raml in Alexandria, AL Qanater, the island of Zamalek…
Pyramids and Sphinx, Saqqara, A boat trip in the Nile, tourists at Meet Raheena village; where the famous Ramses status was laid on the ground, before putting it in Ramses square 60 years after….
Kum Ombo, the first Israeli colony in Egypt, where the Jews bought its land for 20 pilasters per Fadden…
Abdeen square after 25 years from its construction during Abbas Hilmy II reign, Parade of Abbas Hilmy II…
Moving to some outstanding scenes during the 20th century… Denshway, return of Saad Zaghloul from exile in 1923 and people’s celebrations… Mustafa AL Nahaas, and Alwafd… the reign of King Fouad in 1932… Arrival of 16 years old Farouk to Egypt in 1936 after his father’s death, and the people’s celebrations… Formal celebration in Abdeen square for Farouk…
Different scenes of Egypt during the 40s and the 50s… Groppi and downtown, Streets, Egypt’s railway station…Horse races, Cotton scenes…First Arab summit with King Farouk in 1946… Division of Palestine in 1948… Farewell of the Egyptian army heading to Palestine in 1948… Gaza people receiving the Egyptian army…War scenes in 1948… Israeli captives during the 1948 war…King Farouk in the front in Palestine during the cease fire phase…
King Abdallah of Jordon visit to Egypt visiting the injured in Cairo hospitals… Princesses wearing military cloths and visiting the injured with Farouk…
Fallujah siege scenes… Hedar Pasha in Fallujah with the army… Officer Nasser in the scenes… Fallujah martyrs names… Celebrations of Fallujah heroes…
1952 revolt and Farouk’s leave on Al Mahrousa…
Mohamed Nageeb speech and the oath by Abd el Hakeem Amer and the army… Gamal Abd el Nasser speech after he became the president…
Nile flood… High Dam building scenes…
The 1956 war…
Abd El Nasser during the Arab Republic… and visiting Al Golan heights…
The 1967 relapse… The War of Attrition… Nasser at the front…
Nasser death and funeral passing by Qasr El Nil bridge…
October war 1973 real scenes… not the poor ones we always see in movies… Sadat and the victorious troops… Reopening of the Suez Canal…
Mubarak rules… Getting Taba back… Toshka project… Al Salam Canal…
Princess Diana in Cairo…
A FULL coverage of Egypt’s recent history in 2 hours… amazing narrations in the background… heartfelt music played with every scene…
In short… A must see documentary movie! Don’t miss the replay tomorrow!
Blissful Night,
Rou…
05.11.09
Eye of the Sun!
With almost no budget, depending only on individual initiatives and the volunteer team of actors, comes quite a different movie experience called “Ein Shams” or “Eye of the Sun”, which takes Cairo neighborhood of Ein Shams, that was once built on the ruins of the ancient city of Heliopolis, as its main setting…
Directed by Ibrahim El Batout and written for screen by Tamer El-Said and El Batout, the movie was screened by a digital camera, and converted later to a 35 mm film through the support of the Moroccan Cinema Center. The movie represented Egypt in a number of international film festivals and won several awards, while banned from being showed in Egypt for almost a year until lately.
The acting in general was very good along with the building blocks of the movie that reflected many of the everyday problems of Egyptians, such as unemployment, drug addiction, and football obsession…
One of the important scenes from my point of view was that of the demonstrator who was having a lift by the Taxi driver Ramadan who knew absolutely nothing about the reason of the demonstrations… The demonstrator told Ramadan while stepping down of the Taxi, “By the way, I wasn’t in the demonstration by coincidence…” leaving Ramadan staring at him without a word… For me, this showed the amount of isolation that the various sectors of the Egyptian community live in; “كلٌ يغني على ليلاه”… The shots for real demonstrations that El Batout included prior to that scene, showing the amount of brutality that the security officers face the demonstrators with, gave a much more “Real” meaning to this part…
I loved the little girl “Shams” ’ dreams of being taken to downtown Cairo, which she envisioned as a place of fairy-tale charm… only to find out eventually when she visits it for real that her dreams were much more beautiful that reality…
I also loved the scene finale of the movie, with the narration voice saying that people will soon get used to “something”, just the way they get used for everything… and the scene ends with the police officers waving for “Ramadan” the Taxi Driver to stop for a checkpoint (without any particular reason as usual)…
The few flaws I found in the movie were mainly regarding the way the threads were connected… I felt like there wasn’t enough exploration in each character to leave me dramatically satisfied… Same goes for the real scenes of Iraqi troops after the first Gulf War that El Batout included in the movie through the story of the Egyptian doctor Mariam, who goes to Baghdad to research the carcinogenic effects of the depleted uranium left by U.S. troops in the first Gulf War. For me, it was out of context, even with the fact that he wanted to make a sarcastic comparison that Egypt, without being affected by such war in terms of Uranium, had cancer spread in it through other forms of pollution…
However, in all cases, “Ein Shams” is a very good experience and trial, and by all means is well worth watching…
Have a good day,
Rou…
P.S.
One final point, I’m in no position to talk technically here, but the sound was really terrible at some parts, especially in the narration at the beginning of the movie…
03.07.09
Wahed.. Sefr!
Today I saw “Wahed…Sefr” or “One…Zero” movie, which presents one day in the lives of 8 different characters (the day of the final match of the African Championship 2008, between Egypt and Cameron, that Egypt won 1/0)…
The idea of the movie itself is good, presenting 8 different lives with the different struggles they encounter, reaching somehow their peek on this particular day, only to melt down (even if it is only for a while) as the day reaches its end with the historical victory of Egypt over Cameron, with the outstanding celebrations and carousing of the Egyptians with their different social levels gathering together all over the streets in joy and happiness…
Even with the fact that the plot is a bit naive at some parts, and some relations are a bit… mmm… artificial… but I would say that overall the movie is good and the acting is excellent, especially “Nelly Kareem”, “Entessar”, and “Lotfy Labib”…
On another note, I wonder why is the movie causing this amount of outrage and criticism from many Copts who sees the movie as an attack on one of the fundamentals of the Christian faith… I mean… “Elham Chahine” ’s role in featuring a divorced Coptic woman struggling with the church to receive a religious permit to remarry is basically a real case that can happen with any Christian woman (I have a friend who had been into this before)… the movie simply puts some light on an existing problem, without giving any solution to it, and without being disgraceful to the Christianity as a religion by any means… Over and above, the movie is not merely about this case… the movie highlights this case through one scene only, along with another 7 different characters and their problems resembling different categories of the Egyptian community… and Christian women are part of the community…
A final comment… I absolutely have no idea what was Aida Riad doing in the movie… One scene, with no value add at all!
Anyways, again, overall, it is a good one… am glad I watched it…
Have a good day,
Rou…
02.26.09
On Benjamin’s splendid and curious case…
Daisy: Would you still love me if I were old and saggy?
Benjamin Button: Would you still love ME if I were young and had acne? When I’m afraid of what’s under the bed? Or if I end up wetting the bed?
Ever wondered how would it feel like to age backwards? Ever imagined if you can fall in love with someone knowing that someday you’d appear young enough to be his child?
Before I start talking about this brilliant movie, I must say that am not very sentimental when it comes to movies with romantic epic in general, I do not sigh easily or cry easily, or say that a movie is heartfelt easily… I may be touched by certain scenes, certain words… but to say that a whole movie was amazing, this is something that rarely happens to me…
The thing is that, I don’t think I ever cried my heart out the way I did after watching “The curious case of Benjamin Button” movie… An incredibly heartfelt movie about moments in life when you feel joy and ecstasy, sorrow and pain all together through a story that carries so many twists and heart aching scenes, leaving the audience completely engrossed into the movie…
It’s absolutely mistaken to think that the movie is about aging, death… or even love… The movie is rather about LIFE… about everything this word might mean… Life as a whole… Every little detail, every experience we have, our relationships with people around us who affect our lives in some way or another, every fine moment of one’s life, and every loss along the way…
“The curious case of Benjamin Button” is a movie that understands the human mind and digs deeply into it, resembling moments of love, happiness, depression, and confusion that life provides us, through a sincere and genuine story that leaves you utterly speechless while thinking of one important fact that we seem to forget through the hectic life we live… that age is only a number, and that we can choose what we do with our lives, no matter what our age was… that it’s never too late to do what you wanna do… or be what you wanna be… and that no matter how short the happy moments are going to be, we should enjoy them to the utmost, because it is through living them in that sense that such moments will live forever…
I highly recommend it to all…
The movie is full of touching quotes, my favorite of them was:
“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
All the best,
Rou…
02.18.09
Operation Walküre
“Do you know what will happen to that portrait when the war is over?
The portrait will be unhung, and the man will be hung!”
– Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg
Last Monday I saw “Valkyrie” movie starring Tom Cruise and a group of fine actors. Covering what is known through history with the name “Operation Walküre”, the movie is immensely one of the best I have seen lately… If you’re a World War II history buff like me, you’ll probably appreciate the effort done in this movie.
“Valkyrie” covers an important incident in the history of Nazi Germany; the failed assassination attempt of some German officers against Hitler in 1944. Even though the full story of the July 20 plot is complicated and cannot be fully covered within the boundaries of a two hours movie, but the film makers succeeded to a great extent in giving the feeling of what actually happened back then. Even with the fact that we actually know how the story ends, the movie brilliantly managed to keep its gripping suspense!
“Valkyrie” is probably the first movie I have ever seen presenting German People as human beings trapped in a war they didn’t choose, and not merely monsters responsible for all WWII slaughters; for a change the Americans stop featuring the World as merely “The Good Guys” & “The Bad Guys”!
Even though I am hardly ever a Tom Cruise fan, but I must say that – surprisingly – he played one of his best roles ever; very much against his usual type of performance!
Stauffenberg’s last words to one of his colleagues just before they were executed were: “Look them in the eye! They will remember you!”…
I just loved those words…
Anyways, have a good day,
Rou…
Note:
I wonder why Rommel wasn’t portrayed at all in the movie, even though – as far as I know – he knew about the July 20 plot in advance and didn’t inform Hitler about it!
11.21.08
A long-lasting impact…
In two consecutive days, I happened to watch two – fine – movies; Mona Lisa Smiles, and Patch Adams…
With all the differences between the two movies’ plots, they both – from my own point of view – had this scent of leaving a long-lasting impact on the lives of others; students in the first, and patients in the latter…
I always had this thought of “touching the lives of others” while thinking of my school teachers… And many times I wondered if they actually thought while they were in the process of teaching, that five, ten, or twenty years from that day, their students would remember them or even consider some experiences from their classes…
I have always believed that teachers have a very significant impact on their students, an impact that involves not only a particular academic skill, but rather – and more importantly actually – a sense of belonging and development of their pure-still self esteem… An impact that leaves persisting memories that continues to influence our lives years and years later; indelible memories, indicative of the lifelong influence that a teacher can have…
However, touching the lives of others does not merely apply on teachers… as a matter of fact; anyone can leave a significant impact on the lives of others… even without intending to…
Yeeeaars ago, I read a book written by Abd el Wahab Motawe’e entitled “أرجوك أعطني عمرك”… In its intro, he had a very interesting analysis of the book title explaining that as humans, we interact with everything and everyone around us, and each and every one of us leaves an impact on the others in some way or another… He explained that we might need to live our lives all over again a few times to be able to truly “live” it and deal with whatever troubles and tribulations we face, and since this is an impossible thing to do, so the best possible solution he suggested would be to “prolong” your own life, by adding the experiences of others to your own… so that if someone someday asked you to give away your life to him, don’t be shocked… and remember, he’s only asking for your lifetime experiences, because it might impact his own life…
Well… I hope that someday I would be able to touch somebody’s life…
Anyways, away from the above context, I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from Mona Lisa Smile movie…
“Not all who wander are aimless, especially those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image!”
– From Betty Warren’s last editorial: Mona Lisa Smile movie
All the best,
Rou…
08.16.08
What if…?
A few days ago I watched “The Family Man” movie starring Nicolas Cage and Téa Leoni… A film that was screened about 8 years ago, but I never got the opportunity to watch it except last Thursday on mbc 2…
Generally speaking I loved Cage’s acting in portraying the character’s confusion and evolving throughout the movie. His struggles from realizing that he has left his high class business life for a simple family life were interesting and heartfelt…
Aside from the main theme of the movie which is about a person who is rich in material objects but lacks more important things, such as being surrounded by people who care about him and having someone to love, the movie triggered much more important thoughts in my mind…
To have a glimpse on another life you could have had… have you ever had that dream…? Does the “what if…” question pops into your mind every now and then…?
I always tend to enjoy the idea of different perceptions of other lives one could have lived if only certain things happened at certain times… different decisions were taken… or different routes were taken… like the case with “The Butterfly Effect” and “Sliding Doors” movies… With all due respect to the difference plots of the three movies… but the one thing they hold in common is the different tracks that your life might have had… if only…
“The Family Man” is one of those thoughtful movies that leaves you pondering of what you really value in life, makes you reconsider your own life, and think about what is really important to you… It makes you question your success and your happiness with a different perspective, and you can’t help but wondering whether your life is consistent with your values… or are you just… another big mouth…
The movie tagline says… “What if you made different choices? What if you said yes, instead of no? What if you got a second chance?”
What if…?
Rou… Questioning her life decisions…
