A Pirates Life For Me? Meh.

Watching the long extended trailer for 'Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' made me feel like it was going to be a mediocre Disney movie pushed out in order to make money from an extended franchise. Once again, another 3D scam. That's what I'll be calling them from now on; ''3D Scams'': Movies which are made into 3D for no reason but to get an extra 10-20 Dhs out of you.

The way the movie poster was made into 3D made people feel a bit exited at the fact that it was going to be in 3D. I took one look at the trailer and I knew it wasn't going to have much.

I felt the movie's script was a bit unplanned. For one, why was there a need to have the Spanish in the movie? Not only were they flat characters, they had little effect on the storyline for the screen time they had. It felt as if they were trying to push a Christian spiritual theme to the movie. From the king of England declaring how he "won't have a catholic king reach the fountain" to the priest on board trying to save the whole crew, and the Spanish making it all the way just to destroy the fountain saying "only god lives forever and allows such; Not pagan fountains" or something like that. I think the infamous 'Blackbeard' should've had a MUCH bigger role, it honestly felt like he wasn't very important to the story; come on! It's Blackbeard! But in fact none of the characters did. I missed the British Colonizer presence in the movie.

Notice how when Blackbeard was cutting into Jack's puppet he carved a trident symbol on his chest. I found it weird that I've seen that symbol in so many places including 'Planet Of The Apes' and the 'Quake' game series. Apparently it symbolizes 'The Devil's Pitchfork'. Was there a need for that in the movie?

It was a nice movie to watch and I would say was at least as funny as 'At World's End'. It deserves its 7.7 rating on IMDB.

Arab Stars

What a great example of a misleading title! The stars I'm talking about aren't the actors and actresses or the singers of the Arab world; they are the actual stars in the night sky that many of us Arabs tend to forget that many of them possess Arabic names! In fact, a lot of the sciences we learn today carry Arabic names. What? did you think the 'Al' behind Algebra, Alchemy, Algorithm, and Alcohol was all convention?

I decided to finally take that elusive Astronomy class at University this semester. It felt like a lot of knowledge that had been hidden in my brain from centuries long had just been burst out into a projector screen in front of me. Arab and Muslim society was on top of the world; something I had already known, but knowing it and seeing, learning, and wondering about it is a whole different thing.

I found out that there are over 1000 stars that have Arabic origin names, of course today scientists prefer to give them a Greek classification. One star in particular made me take a specific interest in it. 'Kappa Orionis', of the Orion constellation, carries the Arabic name 'Saiph' or 'Saiph Al Jabbar' which is in the position of The Hunter's sword. I felt very good about myself that my name was somewhere in the sky. What I also found out was that the whole constellation had Arabic names such as 'Mintaka', 'AlNilam'. 'Rigel', and 'Betelgeuse'. If you're interested in Harry Potter (which I'm not), Bellatrix is up there somewhere!

Here's some interesting Wikipedia links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arabic_star_names

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arabic_loanwords_in_English

UNICEF to the back please

Just read some news about the 'Qatar Foundation' getting its name on the new Barcelona FC kit. I thought they got rid of the UNICEF logo they were so proud of having until I realized it was only pushed to the back. Just on top of one's backside!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1388372/Barcelona-unveil-new-kits.html

Seems like even the mighty Barca can't hold back the temptations of sponsorship money. They're in debt I hear. Well when you're winning like Barca you don't really care about trivial things like that.

Speaking of sponsorships, Arsenal aren't quite happy with their own. The Emirates Stadium outfit are displeased with the amount they've been receiving from their sponsors, Emirates Airlines, demanding just as much as other sponsors would. Considering that Emirates don't even provide club holiday packages or football weekend trip offers (which upsets me), is reason enough to stop having them as sponsors. Etihad airways is doing all they can to push the Manchester City firm. Agreed; there are more reasons for an Abu Dhabi based airline to support an Abu Dhabi sheikh owned club than for a Dubai based to support a executive owned club.

Lion's Still Roar...

Class assignment today was to make an analysis of the movie 'Lion Of The Desert'; the story of the freedom fighter 'Omar Al Mukhtar' during the Italian invasion of Libya. I wish they still made movies like these; well made movies with historical accuracy. Mohammad Akkad (Director) was truly an exceptional talent. His work on 'The Message' was also quite notable. The movie was incorporated into our syllabus prior to the events in Libya; impeccable timing.

It was very nostalgic in a media res sense. Hearing the words: 'Tripoli! Benghazi!' gave me goosebumps as I remembered that these were the same names of the cities being fought for today. Although the reasons different, it tells me that these same places are still strategically important. It also tells me that the spirit of Omar Al Mukhtar is still fresh in the hearts of Libyans. Seeing Anthony Quinn play Omar really made me feel like I was looking at Al Mukhtar himself. Seeing the scene with the 'Peace negotiations' sent more goosebumps as it showed that these were also very much like how the world works today; nothing has changed.

Technology changes, and maybe human appearance changes but human behavior does not. People feel so disconnected with themselves and believe that the world is a better place because of all the technology and medicine. I would agree that maybe the world is a 'funner' place to live in, but people are the same no matter what they're form of transport, communication, and living look like. Maybe we should take a look at a lot of the African countries and see how progressive we've become. We see the same in the Arab world, and this is why Lion's will continue to roar through the ages.

I don't mean to sound pessimistic and angry; its probably the affect of the movie. Its just amazing what people can do to each other; well intentions and otherwise.

Thorsday is Pay day

So just recently another Marvel Comics movie was released called 'Thor'. I've always known about Thor from my younger days but never really got to like him. Mainly because I wasn't a real Marvel fan, but also because I didn't think it was very original since he was based on the hammer wielding norse deity of Thunder, Fertility, Strength, and a number of other things. The film was made to be viewed, sadly, in 3D.



The movie was a good watch all be it with a rushed pace. I can't imagine how people can be so calm at discovering Norse deities and a huge walking war machine that was likened to one of Tony Stark's machines. It was funny a lot of the time and I have to say I enjoyed it overall. A good friend of mine and I decided to go to the front on the theater and watch the end credits up close. That was probably the most 3D we saw the whole movie. Just as I'm typing this my friend online was telling me he forgot it was in 3D.

Sometimes I feel like the theaters here are taking advantage of the whole 3D movie craze. On a Thursday (ironically) I decided to watch this film even though I hadn't intended to at first. I discovered that the movie was only available in 3D and began to think: "Crap, thats gonna bite through my wallet". Is it me? or is every hit blockbuster movie in 3D nowadays? Often do I feel like theres no need for the 3D in the movie.

Looking at it from the theater's perspective, making the movie only available in 3D means they can charge an extra 20 Dhs for the movie plus glasses(which are usually given back). ITS A RIPOFF! Movies are soon going to be only in 3D and if people get used to these prices then they're going to be paying 50 Dhs for a movie. That more than covers the costs that theaters wanted some time ago when they hiked the movie prices to 40 Dhs and blamed it on rents. Pirates of the Carribean 4 is coming soon and its going to be in 3D; seriously?.

Thanks for reading and hopefully more to come soon!

Change of Style.

It has been too long since I last posted anything on this blog (any blog for that matter) and now that I've bought a new laptop, I feel as though I should get back to writing again. I've made big changes in the past year and I see my future heading in a preferred direction. Keeping this blog going is something I believe will not only keep me entertained but also help prepare me for my future career.

I may not have any followers; This place probably hasn't had anyone reading. Nonetheless, I hope to keep this thing going and I especially hope I can keep things interesting.

I've decided to change the format of my blog and add whatever goes to mind instead of having different blogs for different topics. So without further due "Thorsday" COMING SOON

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.