The Expendables... Truly Expendable

Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be watching movies in the cinema at all. Just about a week ago, fellow Muslims and I celebrated 'Eid' which is a celebration of accomplishing your duties during the month of Ramadan. Like every year, the movie entertainment industry here likes to delay movie releases to this date in order to get the most profit out of movie goers. Every Eid people go to the movies, they sometimes watch two to three in one day. It's one of those things that make the nights feel special. One certain movie that was delayed this year was the movie 'The Expendables' by Sylvester Stallone. Seeing the cast alone was enough motivation to watch the movie; oh how wrong I was to think movies like that would be great to watch.



When I took a look at the poster and saw that almost everyone in the cast was a star, I felt amazed that such a cast would all agree to act in this one movie. The cast included: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Steve Austin, Bruce Willis and a bunch of guys I forget their names knowing they're famous enough for me to be in an ironic position since I'm commenting about this movie; maybe it's a side effect of 'THAT MOVIE SUCKS' syndrome. Rumors were that there were a number of actors who pulled out due to fear of losing face in this movie; one such rumored actor was Jean-Claude Van Damme. He pulled out because apparently Jet Li was going to beat him up in the movie. That didn't seem to bother Jet Li as he was categorically defeated at hand-to-hand combat by some less-acclaimed actor in the action genre. This is exactly why I regretted ever thinking that a huge action cast would make the movie better.

First of all, there's not enough room to make everyone into a hero, the two actors with most screen time were Stallone and Statham. Statham played his regular good-guy-that-can-beat-everyone role where as Stallone, well… I thought his acting was unbelievable; unbelievably nauseous, I got sick in the stomach every time I heard him talk. I thought maybe he'd wise up and try to act like someone other than Rambo. Bruce Willis, who was on the poster like he was going to have a pivotal role, only had one scene... THATS RIGHT! and guess who shows up in that same scene, THE TERMINATOR HIMSELF... Ja! Once again, only one black guy in a movie and what's worse is that they only gave him two lines in the whole movie. Haha! I like how he was used to toss a missile into a helicopter while Stallone machine gunned the missile with his hand gun. That's another thing, how the hell do you fire 10 rounds in 2 seconds using a handgun, I know there are some handguns that are capable of firing much more in a lesser time, but this wasn't the case, he was actually pulling the trigger 10 times in 2 seconds.

With all the cast that they gathered, why couldn't they get a more renowned female actor? I'm sure there were plenty of well known female actors who are capable of playing a South American role. Is it me? or did that dictatorate 'South American' country have an edit of the Palestinian flag as their coat of arms? It was shown in only two clips and was (to me at least) a clear brainwashing attempt to show that this is the way Palestinians are. Was there a reason to place a flag in the first place?

Once again I was suckered into watching another "Crap of Hollywood" movie. There's A LOT more I can write about this movie but people probably haven't even reached this part of this post after closing it from reading so much.

Jonah Hex? ...Or Jonah XXX?

It's been a while since I wrote about a movie. Nothing I've watched lately deserved a good rant about. I guess the wait caused an overflow at a flood gate and now they've crashed open because the Jonah Hex movie, one of many DC comic characters, was absolutely CRAP in my eyes. It's another example of "trailer-hyping".



If anyone watched the trailer, they would see 3 notable characters. Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin), Lilah (Megan Fox), and Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) and from what was shown, it seemed Jonah and Lilah were going to be heavily involved with each other fighting the bad guys and stuff. It was great news for Megan Fox fans and people in search of fan service... because that's exactly what Megan did the whole movie... fan service. Not only did she not have any influence on the story, every scene she was involved in was a huge chunk of debauchery in your face. The first scene she appears in shows her sorting her dress out (apparently from some bed rocking) while her John tries to persuade her to join him and live together. She denies obviously and takes some money. Yes she's a prostitute... Oh you already knew that? Well apparently she only cares for Jonah, she'll still sleep with others to make a living but Jonah gets it free. Another scene shows her whilst in a struggle being hit once,just once, landing on a bed, yes a bed, with her ass pointing towards the audience and then moaning. Those were two of the countable scenes she had in the movie. Doesn't she feel the slightest bit used? Oh wait, this is the girl in Jennifer's Body we're talking about. It makes me wonder if Megan Fox really IS like the roles she plays in the movies. She certainly enjoys playing them. Come on people, don't go for a movie just because she's in it.

Like all western movies, I always look out for any black guys. Half way through the movie, I was beginning to wonder if there were any, thinking maybe they didn't have any due to sensitive issues with slavery and the confederacy n stuff but oh! What do you know! There IS a black guy in the movie! He's the shady underground dealer that sells Jonah his weapons! How fitting for a black man's role! Yes he presented Jonah with dynamite launchers that he used along with other weapons that he only uses once. Like that idea for two machine guns placed on the sides of a horse, although it was cool to see, how the hell did he manage to hide them and whats even more mind boggling is how the horse was able to carry those two machine guns along with Jonah AND drag 3 corpses along with it. Horse pills? It was sad that we only got to see machine guns once in the entire movie, except maybe for the weapon of mass destruction that Quentin Turnbull built, which made no sense either.

Is it me? or am I wrong when I say that cannon balls don't explode?(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon) Apparently they do in this movie, at least that would be the logical explanation for firing 6 rounds of cannon fire before firing a final explosive ball. The WMD used in this movie was basically a "machine cannon" which fires cannon balls like firing a machine gun except at a relatively slower rate. He went through a lot of trouble to build that thing, wouldn't it have been easier to just hijack a warship with lots of cannons seeing as how he planted that machine on top of ship anyway?




One last thing, what the hell was that with the smoking Native Americans? These guys show up when Jonah goes through a near-death experience. 'Healing' you tell me? That didn't look like healing to me. They blew some weed in his face so that he started dreaming and stuff. That's called getting high on this planet. The scene seemed rather nostalgic but then I realized that this scene is just repeating the explanation of how he came to be with his powers but this time it happened again. It's how he actually survived his first near-death experience and now that it's happened again, the Indians decided to smoke some pot and blow it in his face again, I mean they made a frigging crow come out of his mouth. It was funny seeing him wake up in a scream and then suddenly strutting on his horse towards Turnbull.

I could write more but this post is getting too long. All in all this was an attempt to attract simple minds into watching another trash of Hollywood movie. Seriously, if you thought that this movie was a good movie then I can't accept you to be an intelligent individual. If you like Megan Fox in bed scenes and simple gun fights along with the occasional explosion then this is the movie for you, otherwise stay away from this example of Hollywood crap. Let me know what you think. COMMENT PLEASE.

The A-Team? ... Maybe ...

Another weekend, another movie. This time I went to watch 'The A-Team'. A movie remake of the old hit television series of the same title. I think it's fair to say that this movie was pretty fun to watch. I'm not saying it deserves an Oscar because it was far from it, but I liked the characters in the movie and the comedy that it had, except for the womanizer. Maybe I was laughing because others were laughing too...

The movie is based on a group of men who became a team and served the American army on various missions which were dubbed 'impossible to accomplish'. They were known as 'The Alpha Team' or 'The A-Team'. Now I never watched any of the old episodes nor knew anything about the series except for the fact that they had a nice theme song and the infamous Mr. T. I told myself before the movie that if I didn't hear the theme song or hear Baracus (Mr. T or Rampage Jackson for this movie ) say " I pity the fool " then I would call the movie a complete flop. Well, they did have the theme song (which I downloaded) but Baracus never once said " I pity the fool " so I guess it wasn't a complete flop. I think they didn't do a good job of portraying the old character that Baracus was.

Some other things I didn't like about the movie were for instance, the fact that Baracus said that he was discharged from the rangers, so what was he doing with the army again as part of the A-team? Also, what the hell was that about "The Arab''. Why does every terrorist HAVE to be Arab... what North Korea isn't dangerous? He couldn't be Iranian? Or part of the IRA? And for god's sake, If I were an Arab terrorist I would sure as hell not walk around Europe with a 'Ghitra' or 'Shimagh' on my head so as to let others know to shoot me like you were hunting for ducks. Propaganda is what it is; propaganda against everyone that wears a turban.

Remember my post about American Military Propaganda in movies? Well this is another movie like that, but in this case it specifically aimed at getting fighter pilots, the whole movie was practically in the air. The truck that they trusted so much in the series was taken out at the start of the movie and hence they almost never traveled on land. Was this intentional?

Well there you have it; another rant. I've been having trouble finding some real controversial stuff in movies lately, it seems to me that all that the UAE cinemas are bringing are the usual Hollywood bullshit. I watched this movie ... god i forgot what it was called... that's probably how bad it was. Give us some good movies please? I'd like to see your comments on this (I'm not asking you to Follow! lol ) even if just to correct something I've written, it would be really appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

Saif,

Prince Of Persia... Or Assasins Creed? Either Way It Was 'Sacred'

Last night, me and some friends watched one of the most 'sacred' movies of the year; probably in movie history. It was SO 'sacred'; I mean REALLY 'sacred'; SO 'sacred' that we laughed at how 'sacred' it was.

Stepping into the mall and heading to the cinema, we found out that the movie wasn't in 3D, for a Disney movie with visuals, I think we all assumed it was going to be in 3D. Something I think we kind of got accustomed to since most movies were going 3D now. Especially since the arrival of 3D TV. But the movie didn't have as much as the trailer suggested.

I used to say "Never watch a movie about a game". I take back my words. Now I say "Never watch a movie about a game UNLESS it's by Disney". It was a good movie for Hollywood standards. I think it does justice for fans of the game while at the same time entertains the people who are not. It was a good movie overall but we couldn't help get the feeling that we were watching the famed 'Assasins Creed' for the first 40 minutes of the movie. It becomes apparent during the first scene (before the title of the movie) when the boy 'Dastan' saves his friend 'Bis' from the guards and begins to run across the rooftops, not in Prince of Persia style, but in Assasins Creed's 'Altair' style. Was that intentional? the scene that probably proved this idea was when 'Dastan' made a 'Leap Of Faith'. Everything about that scene was 'AC'.

The movie was extremely predictable in my view, as soon as it came to the scene where the plot begins, I had the movie all mapped out. Except for the last scene, which I thought would've been more interesting if both the people who travelled back in time knew what was going on, but it was just the Prince. Notice in the previous paragraphs that I named two characters in the movie. The main protagonist 'Dastan' and 'Bis'. Of course since 'Dastan' is the Prince you're probably going to see him alot in the movie, and since 'Bis' is his trusted friend he's probably going to be around him wherever he goes... NO. 'Bis' has absolutely no influence over what goes on in the movie, infact they introduced him so that he could die in the first half hour of the movie. What was the point of giving him a name?!

Another annoying fact was that the movie was very 'sacred'. Everything in the movie was 'sacred'. In fact, you couldn't go 15 minutes without seeing something that was 'sacred'... and someone mentioning that fact. " The dagger! It's sacred! " " The sacred sand! " " Nothing is more sacred than Persian gold!" Sacred Sacred Sacred... We ended up laughing every time they said it!! We should've played one of those games where if you hear the word we cry out something!

It was also funny how one minute the Prince was travelling in Sudan under the hot sun bumps into some Arabs who care for nothing but gold and then suddenly they're in the Snow in the Himalayas. Persia was a huge empire back then, but that was long ago, the Arabs didn't live in Sudan at that time, there were no such thing as Hasassins at that time, and where the hell were the romans? Unless this was at the time Alexander The Great was just gathering his peeps.

A controversial point, which was pointed out by a good friend of mine, was the fact that the Dagger had Arabic writing on it. Two things to talk about here: One, Arabs had no influence on Persian language at that time so there couldn't have been ANYTHING in Arabic writing in those times. For those of you who don't yet get it, Persian does not = Arab. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7rlFpUhziE. The second is the idea that the Dagger was brought down by the gods. In a way this is kind of a similar idea to what we Muslims believe in that the Quran was revealed or 'brought down' to the Prophet in Arabic. Maybe no one noticed this idea and thats why it got through the sensors. Alot of movies have been taking a swipe at Arabs in general. The media has been doing that since god knows when. But it's not just Arabs.

Ok I think that's about enough talk from me, let me know what you guys think, I really appreciate feedback on what I write, whether it's good or bad. So just remember to keep you're eyes open for things that people usually don't see, and tell people about it. Be aware of what you are ACTUALLY watching.

Thanks for your time,

Saif,

Clash Of The Titans... Or God Bashing?

I don't mean to make you guys read all this and you don't have to if you don't want to I just felt it was important for me to say something about this.

Last night, a very interesting night, I went out to watch one of the most anticipated movies of the year. 'Clash Of The Titans' ,which was delayed on a number of occasions here possibly due to marketing reasons, was finally out and we all decided we were finally going to watch it. I'm writing this note to give my 'two cents' about it.




I'd like to begin with the overall impression I had on the movie. It was ok. As a cinematic piece, it was pretty well done graphically and the actors did their part. Interestingly, I couldn't help make fun of some of the scenes, which I didn't do alone, because of the amount of corny-ness (is that a word? corn-ification maybe? corn-ography?).



Now like I said as a movie it was pretty fun to watch but I couldn't help feel disgusted at the way divinity was being portrayed. It was also another example of those movies where the trailer was showing you a different movie from the one you're going to watch.

Anyway, Is it me? or should this movie be called 'God Bashing' or 'Religion Flame' instead? Clearly this movie wasn't just portraying a fun action packed film. It was also showing how either people of old were stupid or how people of NOW are stupid. According to Greek mythology, the world had multiple gods as well as Demi-gods with Zeus being the 'King of the Gods'. These ''gods'' have similar attributes with man, such as having the images of human beings, eat, drink, and have sex. Yes, have sex and not just with other gods but with humans as well. The movie clearly shows that not only was Zeus the king of the gods but he was also a 'playa'. He made many bastard sons including the protagonist 'Perseus' (is that how it's spelt?). Oh and don't forget Hercules... but he doesn't show up in the movie.

I don't think I'm getting myself through to you guys at the moment, you could probably call this a rant. I'm upset at the fact that people are comparing these religions of old to the Abraham Religions of today.
Saying that people today are exactly the same, believing in fairy-tales and fiction, is not fair. Although I truely believe that soon it will infact be the case.

The fact that the Abraham Religions are Monotheistic is enough reason to believe that human beings still have some logic in them. That just as the movie shows, you can't have more than one god, the world would be in chaos. For people who are interested in this fact, just look up what god says in the Quran about multiple gods just look up verse 91 of Surah Al Mo'minoon. As a muslim that would be the reference i would use, I wouldn't know what the Bible and Torah say about it although i would like to know. It may not be a good source for those who don't believe in god but I don't think I need to argue with them about multiple gods or not.

What I'm trying to say is that for those of us who still believe in God, we shouldn't have enjoyed this movie, it made divinity look stupid and challenge-able. Now don't get me wrong, if you're interested in Greek Mythology and want to learn more about old beliefs then go ahead be my guest, it's a good thing to know about history, but we shouldn't forget why people study history, it's to learn from peoples mistakes or achievements, but we should also not forget about our own beliefs and what it means when someone makes fun of it or portrays it differently to others.

Oh and what the hell was that about the ancient/Arab/scorpion riding/mummy thing blowing himself up? Stereotype much? what are they trying to say? It's in our Arab blood to blow ourselves up since ancient times? Are we that depressed about sand and camels? I didn't notice it at all but some of my friends were telling me that the mummy dudes were speaking Arabic. I dunno I couldn't hear it. But then my bro confirmed it but apparently it was with a weird accent. (Good ear Tarik)

Thanks for your time,

Saif,

Iron Man 2 ? ... Or Army Men...

Has he lost his mind? Can he see or is he blind? Can he walk at all? Or if he moves will he fall? ...

Love that song.

Last night I watched another anticipated movie of the year, ' Iron Man 2 '. Visually it was astounding... I'm a sucker for mechanical transformation ( loved transformers ) where THIS movie, although it wasn't full of it, defined what a 'Suit Case' SHOULD be like. I'm a big fan of Robert Downing Jr. , he never ceases to amaze me with the different roles he's played. I loved his cocky attitude in the movie, but I started to get sick of it, If I had to guess I would think the movie had a good 40 mins at the start of outright cocky-ness. Nobody minds laughing at how cocky people can be, but this was just too much.

So now although visually and acting-wise the movie was pretty good, if you've read my previous note on 'Clash Of The Titans', you'd probably guess that I'm not writing this note to review the movie. So to stay true to my intentions, here comes my rant. ( lol )

For the third time, the visuals and acting were fun to watch but one thing that got me really thinking about the intentions of this movie was the plot. For those who have not yet watched this movie, please just skip to the part where I start talking about propaganda. Was this movie just a blockbuster hit that everyone's been waiting for? was it the sequel that the producer wanted to make? was it really worth making a second movie for a plot like this one? Were people REALLY anxious to watch Iron Man 2 ? Did they REALLY need another Iron Man fix? Or were they still in the hangover from the first one.

Victor Vankev (can't remember the spelling) was the son of the man that worked with Howard Stark, Tony Stark's father. Now Vicky here is the main antagonist in the movie, the others being Mr. Hammer of Hammer Corp. Now at the beginning of the movie we see Vicky watching his father pass away and then make the ugliest cry I've ever seen. I've never seen and can't imagine someone crying like that when their father passes away. Anyway, throughout the whole movie it was clear that Vicky was mad at Stark, now it may just be me, but I could NOT figure out why the guy was so mad. He went after Tony at Monaco got owned and then daringly stated to Tony " You Lose ". So I thought " Ok , theres a bigger plan here. " But that plan never actually showed up. I mean SURE Hammer busted him out of prison to build stuff, but did he REALLY plan that? And even when he DID manage to build stuff, they GOT OWNED... Just like that. What was the whole point of Tony learning the secret of the universe when he didn't need it to finish up Vicky... AGAIN... where vicky daringly stated AGAIN... " You lose... " I just cracked up when I heard that. Maybe the point was to put a new shiny shape on his chest, a triangle. The point HERE is the plot sucked. But that's not what I wanted to point out.

What I wanted to point out to people was the intention behind the scene where Major Rhodes took one of the Iron Man suits to the US army. The whole scene did not include much footage of the suit itself but mostly the US soldiers, trucks, weaponry, and aircraft. It was as if to show the might of the US army even though the Iron Man suit had arrived. As if it was just a simple addition to their arsenal. Shortly after that scene Mr.Hammer had arrived to see the suit and offer some guns. In my opinion both these scenes were not necessary in the movie and it was simply a method for PROPAGANDA.

I've recently noticed a certain pattern in Hollywood movies that have been released since the 'War On Terror' started. Every movie that was bound to have teenagers or young adults watching them had military boast scenes. Is it me or is this just another method to brainwash people into thinking joining the military was cool. If you don't believe me what the hell was the point of releasing Transformers 2 ? Sure it was visually fun to watch but it was FULL of American Military scenes. The same goes for G.I. Joe and the Iron Man movies.

During the World Wars, America as well as other nations used Media propaganda to promote donations to the military as well as recruitment. It was in the bugs bunny cartoons, the Disney cartoons, and adverts in the movies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqMVpcbhpqw This link is also a good example on how America was pushing for the illegal income tax, but that's another story.

This may mean nothing to some people and I'll probably get alot of " you're reading too much into it, " or " You're a conspiracy theorist " or " who gives a fudge " But that's the problem, NO ONE GIVES A FUDGE.

This kind of thing may not affect people like us living in the Middle East, but it does affect brothers and sisters in the US, instead of forcing people to join the army and have another Mohammed Ali fiasco, why not just get them to like the idea of joining the army by making it look cool in the movies we watch?

Anyway I've written too much as it is and I'd like to end this by saying: Don't be a fool to what is around you, the world is turning into a very dangerous place where the divide of rich and poor is growing and the rich grow ever more powerful. Don't be ignorant to what is happening, don't be distracted by so many things that pleasure you in life, there are more important things to think about.

Thanks for your time,

Saif,