Why we need an American-Muslim Tyler Perry

Hands down, Tyler Perry is cool.

The first Tyler Perry movie I saw was Diary of a Mad Black Woman. While I watched the making of the movie, I realized that this was Perrys’ first film ever. And in my opinion, his best one yet. It was a combination of a drama, comedy, love story and family movie all in one. At the same time, he promoted the idea of the ideal Black Christian family.

Perry's movies make it clear that he knows what he wants as far as portraying the ideal Black Christian community – and using his movies to give people that positive image of what to attain. Besides his TV sitcoms, I have yet to see a Tyler Perry movie without a church scene in it – which is usually the same scene where the family’s troubles all unravel and fix themselves – all because they had trust in God.

No matter what the problem is, in the end, the church is where their problems are solved.

So basically Perry is legit because he's proud of who he is and he is using movies to affirm his identity, and that is something that we, as American Muslims can learn from. This is so we don’t not push away our identity, but to embrace it.

-ScreenRighter with help from FilmMaqam

After Oz - Love Story

One of the best short film love stories I've seen on Youtube so far:

After OZ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1lkEgKzix4

Anyone that can depict a life/love story in a couple minutes or less, using tin people and no words is cool.

Each scene is well thought out and brings several messages to twist and make life of a typical and common everyday story.

Without giving away the short, its ironic that the characters are made of tin - who are not supposed to have any hearts, but in this case, they do, to further emphasize the message.

Go Vancouver Film school :-)

Shane Acker's "9"

I watched Shane Acker's "9" short film on youtube.com and thought it was genius. They are now making the short into a feature length movie with Tim Burton - more on that here.

In an interview with Shane Acker on AnimationTrip.com, if you scroll half way down -Acker starts talking the symbolism that is used in the short film.

The part that stuck out to me when he was talking about why he chose the number 9 as the main character:
"But my basic philosophy or idea behind the numbers was 9 was about as close as you can get to perfection. You know, let’s say perfection is 10. So I think that we can never achieve that perfection. We’re always flawed – every one of us. And I think 9 represents as close as you can ever possibly get to that perfection. And so that’s what 9 is."

I think that concept can be compared to the human state - one can always try to strive for perfection, but we always will have flaws. Regardless, what matters is that we are constantly striving, inshaAllah.

The coolest part about the movie is the concept of knowledge overpowering force (watch the movie to see what this is all about)

Overall, this "9" has a lot of thought put into it - not just another mindnumbing movie, but one that is interactive with the audience and keeps you on your toes. I look forward to watching the feature length movie in September, inshaAllah!