Eid Mubarak to everyone!
Bronx Princess is an independent film that premiered last night on PBS at 10 p.m. If you missed it, you can watch it online for a month starting today.
During a Qiyam I planned for the youth at my Masjid this past Ramadan, we held a discussion with about fifteen 11 to 16 year olds about the American-Muslim identity. To say the least, the open discussion ended with the girls on their feet arguing with each other in small groups about who was American, who wasn't, the definition of an American, of American-Muslim. Not much of a conclusion was made.
Rocky Otoo and her search and struggle to find her identity is not a secluded story - just one that you don't hear very often. Bronx Princess was about the discussion of identity and who we are in America (mostly from the point of view of American born children of immigrants).
Though I felt the movie transitioned too quickly between the events of Rocky's summer, filmmakers Yoni Brook & Musa Syeed did a great job telling her story and captured touching & intimate moments with her mother especially as well as with her father.
Bronx Princess also brought back memories of the first (and only) time I went to Syria and the culture shock I got from being in a strange country where my parents grew up and I had no clue about. It wasn't until the end of my trip and after I left till I truly understand, appreciate and was able to love Syria which in turn helped me understand who I am today.
Hopefully the girls at the Masjid can watch this movie (found here), relate to it and and help them understand their identity as well.
Showing posts with label Movie Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movie Review. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Bugs Life Wisdom
The short scene from A Bugs Life I want to discuss starts with a leaf falling in the middle of the long line of ants that leads to a huge pile of food. The colony was gathering this food for the grasshoppers. The falling leaf lands in front of one of the ants and all of the sudden, this ant couldn't see the line and didn't know what to do... he starts to freak out.
The Queen Ant comes to the rescue, bringing with her a Specialist in this crisis area. The Specialist quickly calms the ant down and tells him it wasn't a big deal, they were going to go around the leaf. The Specialist slowly leads the ant around the leaf right back into the line.
That's amazing. This short scene in the cartoon can be compared to people who don't know what to do when a small obstacle is put in front of them. And while it may seem large (the size of the leaf compared to the ants), in reality, it is really a simple solution.
However, the scene also portrays a specialist leading the way back to the goal - getting back in line to put the food for the grasshoppers. It is interesting that sometimes we go through this as well. We may get off the right path because we reach a seemingly difficult obstacle or obstruction, but once we take other's advice or look at things from a different perspective, we can see that it's not that difficult to get back on track to attain our goal, inshaAllah.
-ScreenRighter
The Queen Ant comes to the rescue, bringing with her a Specialist in this crisis area. The Specialist quickly calms the ant down and tells him it wasn't a big deal, they were going to go around the leaf. The Specialist slowly leads the ant around the leaf right back into the line.
That's amazing. This short scene in the cartoon can be compared to people who don't know what to do when a small obstacle is put in front of them. And while it may seem large (the size of the leaf compared to the ants), in reality, it is really a simple solution.
However, the scene also portrays a specialist leading the way back to the goal - getting back in line to put the food for the grasshoppers. It is interesting that sometimes we go through this as well. We may get off the right path because we reach a seemingly difficult obstacle or obstruction, but once we take other's advice or look at things from a different perspective, we can see that it's not that difficult to get back on track to attain our goal, inshaAllah.
-ScreenRighter
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
"American East" Movie Review
If you want to make a social point in a movie, there should be two rules of thumb.
a) Entertainment Value
b) Not making the message overbearing
Do not continue if you do not want to be spoiled…
AmericanEast is an attempt at mainstreaming American Muslims and attempts to portray the struggles Muslims face in the United States. In my opinion, they overdid it and never established a coherent plot. And on top of that, I found that the characters had no depth and some were cartoonish caricatures.
The main character, Mustafa Marzoke, is an easy going immigrant from Egypt that owns a Middle Eastern restaurant in Los Angeles in a (fictional?) neighborhood called “Little Arabia”. He is an archetypal jolly “just happy to be in America” immigrant with a heart of gold. His character reminded me of the way Russian immigrants were portrayed in the early 1980’s.
Mustafa gets detained at the airport in the beginning of the movie while looking for his son Mohammed. One can understand being afraid of losing a child, but Mohammed was about 13 or 14 and Mustafa was screaming through the airport in search of him as if here a toddler. It just came off as a weird over reaction. But there was no reason for the police to jump and grab him either. The entire sequence was strange. By the way, Mustafa was picking up his cousin Sabir who’d come from Egypt to marry Mustafa’s sister Salwah in an arranged marriage.
Meanwhile, Mohammed, Mustafa’s young son was having some type of crisis of faith and explicitly told Mustafa that he no longer wanted to be Muslim. However, the movie never resolved that that angle was left.
Leila Marzouke, was Mustafa’s dope smoking/dawah giving daughter. She had a scene that was like an infomercial in which she is talking about Islam and Middle Eastern history with her friend while smoking marijuana. That seemed to be her only purpose in the movie. Came off as very forced and as if the movie was preaching to the audience.
Sam, was Mustafa’s Jewish partner in his business. They really wanted you to know that he was Jewish. He had an Israeli flag on his car, wore a Star of David ring and yarmulke.
Salwah Marzouke, Mustafa’s sister, was a nurse that styled hair in the back of her brother’s restaurant and was arranged to marry her cousin Sabir. However she did not like him and they did not get married. But the cousin was never informed (at least not on camera) and the story was dropped. Salwah was also interested in a doctor at her hospital who was not Muslim.
Omar Nasser was an aspiring actor that drove a cab owned by Mustafa. As an Arab, he was only offered parts portraying terrorists. While Omar was getting coffee, someone thought he had explosives in his bag and confronted him. Omar got angry and jokingly told him that he was going to blow up the place to scare him. However, the employee called the police and Omar was arrested for a few hours causing him to miss an audition for a non-terrorist part. This causes him to snap and later he takes his co-workers hostage and is eventually shot by a sniper. The movie was already struggling, but at this point it went completely over the cliff.
Then there was Murad, an angry anti-Jewish conspiracy theorist that cursed like a sailor. I suspect he was there to provide some comic relief, but he was simply annoying.
Every extra in the movie was a bigot that was irrationally afraid of Arabs. The people in the airport. The FBI agents. Omar’s racist co-workers. The newscasters. The customers in coffee shops. The people working in the coffee shops. Everyone. I understand that they wanted to make a point about the struggles of Muslim Arab-Americans, but you can’t make it so blatant that it takes away from the story. And most of all..it must be entertaining.
-Tariq Nelson is an activist that lives in the Washington, DC area. This post was taken from his blog: tariqnelson.com . You can find the blog post here: http://www.tariqnelson.com/2009/01/americaneast/
b) Not making the message overbearing
Do not continue if you do not want to be spoiled…
AmericanEast is an attempt at mainstreaming American Muslims and attempts to portray the struggles Muslims face in the United States. In my opinion, they overdid it and never established a coherent plot. And on top of that, I found that the characters had no depth and some were cartoonish caricatures.
The main character, Mustafa Marzoke, is an easy going immigrant from Egypt that owns a Middle Eastern restaurant in Los Angeles in a (fictional?) neighborhood called “Little Arabia”. He is an archetypal jolly “just happy to be in America” immigrant with a heart of gold. His character reminded me of the way Russian immigrants were portrayed in the early 1980’s.
Mustafa gets detained at the airport in the beginning of the movie while looking for his son Mohammed. One can understand being afraid of losing a child, but Mohammed was about 13 or 14 and Mustafa was screaming through the airport in search of him as if here a toddler. It just came off as a weird over reaction. But there was no reason for the police to jump and grab him either. The entire sequence was strange. By the way, Mustafa was picking up his cousin Sabir who’d come from Egypt to marry Mustafa’s sister Salwah in an arranged marriage.
Meanwhile, Mohammed, Mustafa’s young son was having some type of crisis of faith and explicitly told Mustafa that he no longer wanted to be Muslim. However, the movie never resolved that that angle was left.
Leila Marzouke, was Mustafa’s dope smoking/dawah giving daughter. She had a scene that was like an infomercial in which she is talking about Islam and Middle Eastern history with her friend while smoking marijuana. That seemed to be her only purpose in the movie. Came off as very forced and as if the movie was preaching to the audience.
Sam, was Mustafa’s Jewish partner in his business. They really wanted you to know that he was Jewish. He had an Israeli flag on his car, wore a Star of David ring and yarmulke.
Salwah Marzouke, Mustafa’s sister, was a nurse that styled hair in the back of her brother’s restaurant and was arranged to marry her cousin Sabir. However she did not like him and they did not get married. But the cousin was never informed (at least not on camera) and the story was dropped. Salwah was also interested in a doctor at her hospital who was not Muslim.
Omar Nasser was an aspiring actor that drove a cab owned by Mustafa. As an Arab, he was only offered parts portraying terrorists. While Omar was getting coffee, someone thought he had explosives in his bag and confronted him. Omar got angry and jokingly told him that he was going to blow up the place to scare him. However, the employee called the police and Omar was arrested for a few hours causing him to miss an audition for a non-terrorist part. This causes him to snap and later he takes his co-workers hostage and is eventually shot by a sniper. The movie was already struggling, but at this point it went completely over the cliff.
Then there was Murad, an angry anti-Jewish conspiracy theorist that cursed like a sailor. I suspect he was there to provide some comic relief, but he was simply annoying.
Every extra in the movie was a bigot that was irrationally afraid of Arabs. The people in the airport. The FBI agents. Omar’s racist co-workers. The newscasters. The customers in coffee shops. The people working in the coffee shops. Everyone. I understand that they wanted to make a point about the struggles of Muslim Arab-Americans, but you can’t make it so blatant that it takes away from the story. And most of all..it must be entertaining.
-Tariq Nelson is an activist that lives in the Washington, DC area. This post was taken from his blog: tariqnelson.com . You can find the blog post here: http://www.tariqnelson.com/2009/01/americaneast/
Monday, February 16, 2009
Movie Review: Iron Man
“Iron Man” tells the story of weapons magnate Tony Stark, who goes from misanthropic merchant of death to philanthropic superhero. (Spoilers below.) He constructs a metallic robotic suit that enables him to fly, break down walls, and shoot various weapons. He fights terrorists in Afghanistan and an executive from his own company named Obadiah Stane who tries to wrest control from Stark. For a detailed plot summary go to the relevant Wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
My high school English teacher, Mrs. Carpenter, used to say that meaning-making begins with title. So let’s start with the title – “Iron Man.”
I turned to http://www.dictionary.com for some assistance. It gives three definitions for “iron man:”
| 1. | a person, as a worker or athlete, of great physical endurance who can be depended upon to perform a given task or job tirelessly. |
| 2. | a machine that performs a job formerly done by hand; robot. |
| 3. | Slang. a dollar bill or a silver dollar. |
The first definition expresses the heroic nature of Iron Man. He does have incredible endurance as he proves early in the film when he is imprisoned by terrorists. Obadiah Stane, the disloyal Stark Industries executive, describes Tony Stark as a man who is always working.
The second definition, a machine or robot, captures another aspect of Iron Man. He represents a merging of robot and machine.
The third definition also has some relevance to the movie. Tony Stark is amazingly wealthy, being the second generation CEO of a multinational defense corporation. Stark is defined by his money. His virtues and his vices both flow from his immense wealth. His wealth enables him to build the suit that turns him into Iron Man. But his tendencies to drink, to gamble, and to philander are also products of his wealth.
Iron Man is a different kind of hero from someone like say, Superman. Superman was raised as Clark Kent, a Kansas farm boy. Iron Man grew up as the son of Howard Stark, a brilliant industrialist. In a flashback, the film reveals that Tony was a boy genius, graduating summa cum laude from M.I.T. at age seventeen. Blessed with wealth and genius, Stark is used to getting whatever he wants at an instant. One could say that he is addicted to instant gratification.
Does Iron Man represent America? Let’s look at the evidence. Today America is the world’s only superpower. Though it trails many other countries in the quality of its education, infrastructure and health care, it leads the world in military might. From time to time, it has taken on the role of international policeman, trying to mediate conflicts around the world.
Iron Man represents the paragon of military technology. He has agility and power. When he learns about a conflict going on in Afghanistan, he immediately flies over to intervene. He may not be a paragon of morality, but no one surpasses his military strength.
That is, no one except Obadiah Stane. Stane uses the resources of Stark Industries to build his own robotic exoskeleton to become Iron Monger. The name “Obadiah Stane” is quite telling. Obadiah is the name of a prophet and a book of the Old Testament. The book focuses on the topic of retribution. Obadiah feels betrayed by Stark when he decides to end his company’s defense business. Stane becomes Iron Monger to exact his revenge. And the surname “Stane” reminds us of how rage stains the heart.
The heart as metaphor recurs throughout the film. The explosion in Afghanistan at the movie’s beginning causes shrapnel to get stuck in Stark’s chest. Another prisoner, Yinsen, implants an electromagnet in his body to prevent the shrapnel from ripping his heart open. Stark replaces the device when he gets back to the U.S. His assistant, Pepper, helps him do the operation. He tells her to incinerate it, but she decides to keep it.
The explosion that leads to Stark being injured by one of his own weapons totally changes his worldview. Before the explosion, he thought his company was helping America stay safe and free. Afterwards, he realizes that his weapons are being misused by warlords to create misery around the world. One could say that he has a drastic change of heart. When he trusts Pepper to help in his operation, in a sense, he is giving his heart to her. When she keeps it, she encases it in glass with the message, “Proof That Tony Stark Has a Heart” next to it.
The film does not carry a strong pro-war or pro-peace message. At one point, a soldier poses for a picture with Stark and makes a peace sign with his fingers. Stark says, “No gang signs please. Just kidding, go ahead, I love peace.” The movie does question the extent to which better weapons actually make us safer. Any weapon can fall into the wrong hands so hoping that the latest weapon will end war is rather naïve. Yet it does allude to the nuclear bomb which has considerably helped to prevent a world war in the past sixty years. But we cannot forget the hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians who died because of that bomb.
Ultimately the film is about redemption. Like many heroes (including Shane, Umar ibn al-Khattab (R), and Malcolm X), Iron Man breaks with an immoral past to try to bring about a brighter future.
-Asad Jaleel is a graduate student of the University of Illinois at Chicago who lives and teaches in Naperville, Illinois.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Movie Review: "Le Grande Voyage"
If you've never seen Ismael Ferroukhi's independent film, "Le Grand Voyage,” this is one you don't want to miss. Le Grand Voyage is one of those movies that I felt really related to our everyday lives as Muslims living in the west. In today's world, you hear key phrases like "clash of civilizations" in reference to immigrants and their lives in the west. This independent film gives us a story of two people going through that “clash of civilizations”. Ferroukhi does an amazing job in showing the complex relationship grow between the father and son, a father that was a good religious man and a son that is at heart, a good person, but in his own world – or really living in the “dunya”.
The film depicts a Moroccan immigrant who takes his French-born son with him to the annual pilgrimage to Makkah, or the Hajj. While the pilgrimage itself is a spiritual journey, the trip that the father and son take together is a spiritual journey in itself and shows the immense generation gap between them. Hamza Yusuf once said that a long time ago the trials and tribulations used to be on the trip to hajj and it was a relief to arrive; now the trials and tribulations begin when we arrive at hajj. Yusuf’s quote is a reflection on how the father says how he wants the trip with his son to purify him before reaching Makkah. Once the father and son arrive in Makkah, the atmosphere of the movie is calm with the images of millions of pilgrims walking towards the Kaabah.
It’s clear, from the moment that the son, Reda, who is in his 20s, gets in the car with his father, driving through several countries to get to Makkah, Saudi Arabia; this may be the first time in his life that they really share any father son time. While the father is a depicted as a pious man, he seems to have never taught his son anything about his religion, Islam. Throughout the movie, the father speaks in Arabic and the son in French, giving an example how people may not know how to integrate the cultures of the west and east. As a result, a clear generation gap occurs.
The movie captures your attention with the twists and turns of the father and son’s relationship and how they learn from each other – though it’s mostly the son learning from the father. More than anything, this movie is a reminder to the younger generation, the duty we have towards respecting our elders and understanding our religion in order to comprehend and be proud of who we are.
-ScreenRighter
The film depicts a Moroccan immigrant who takes his French-born son with him to the annual pilgrimage to Makkah, or the Hajj. While the pilgrimage itself is a spiritual journey, the trip that the father and son take together is a spiritual journey in itself and shows the immense generation gap between them. Hamza Yusuf once said that a long time ago the trials and tribulations used to be on the trip to hajj and it was a relief to arrive; now the trials and tribulations begin when we arrive at hajj. Yusuf’s quote is a reflection on how the father says how he wants the trip with his son to purify him before reaching Makkah. Once the father and son arrive in Makkah, the atmosphere of the movie is calm with the images of millions of pilgrims walking towards the Kaabah.
It’s clear, from the moment that the son, Reda, who is in his 20s, gets in the car with his father, driving through several countries to get to Makkah, Saudi Arabia; this may be the first time in his life that they really share any father son time. While the father is a depicted as a pious man, he seems to have never taught his son anything about his religion, Islam. Throughout the movie, the father speaks in Arabic and the son in French, giving an example how people may not know how to integrate the cultures of the west and east. As a result, a clear generation gap occurs.
The movie captures your attention with the twists and turns of the father and son’s relationship and how they learn from each other – though it’s mostly the son learning from the father. More than anything, this movie is a reminder to the younger generation, the duty we have towards respecting our elders and understanding our religion in order to comprehend and be proud of who we are.
-ScreenRighter
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