Happy Birthday War

A funny song by Mitch Benn for Iraq war’s fourth anniversary. It is part of BBC’s hilarious weekly comedy, “The Now Show”.

I think I love my wife

I think I love my wife is a romantic comedy, played, directed and written by famous black comedian, Chris rock, about a successful investor in Manhattan who lives with her gorgeous wife and their two lovely kids in their dreamy house but to the contrary to this perfect picture, his life is not perfect at all because he’s seriously bored with his job and his life and he’s hardly sleeping with his wife anymore so when his old and super sexy femme-fatale friend, Nikki, walks into his office and tries to seduce him, he should try really hard to remain faithful…

Well, although the plot deosn’t look like to be refreshing at all, the movie really is. It is quite satirical, rather bitter and impressively stylish. The jokes about sexual tensions and the married life are almost as funny as the racial jokes he’s famous for and like in his stand ups, while he’s concerned about the problems of the black community, he doesn’t shy away from blaming a good part of it on them.

Unlike what I expected from a stand up comedian, the movie is surprisingly good when it comes to the visuals. He absolutely hasn’t only relied on the dialogues and has relatively utilized the full capacity of the media to convey he’s jokes.

The portrayal of Manhattan is also really unique and notable. He has chosen the shots so carefully and related to the mood of the moment that it almost reminded me of Woody Allen (and anyone who’s aware of my love affair with Woody’s films would realize what a compliment it is from me to give to someone!).

Surly, the movie is not all that amazing. For one thing, Chris Rock is not as good an actor as he’s a stand up comedian. In fact, he’s not a good actor at all. The plot is too predictable and it really doesn’t have any surprise at all, whatsoever and the last but not least, unlike the satirical, bitter and realistic start, movie ends up so rosy, idealistic and happy that you almost forget the impressive beginning but all the problems aside, it’s still considerably better than the majority of the romantic comedies you would see in the theaters these days and drastically better than what you would expect from a stand up comedian-made movie!

Finally, if you consider yourself too sophisticated to watch a romantic comedy made by Chris Rock, well don’t be. It’s not a masterpiece but it most definitively worth watching.

This guy really rocks! an interview with Bill Maher

A sonata for a good man!

First of all I have to say, only an academy who gives the best picture to How Green was my Valley in the presence of Citizen Kane and considers Rocky better Taxi Driver and two decades later, sacrifices United 93 in the foot of The Departed, just to redeem that ridiculous mistake, could possibly conclude The lives of others realistically has any chance of being better than Pan’s Labyrinth in any possible way! And I would never have forgiven them if they hadn’t given 3 awards to this breath-taking masterpiece and also for being brave enough to choose Annie Hall over Star Wars, years ago.

Anyway, as much as it is a critic for Oscar’s selection procedure, it is not for this great movie, since in fact, every single movie of 2006 was inferior to Pan’s labyrinth!

The Lives of others or Das Leben der Anderen, by Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, is a beautifully depicted tale about living in a police-state dictatorship in East-Germany, GDR, ironically (but I absolutely don’t think accidentally) in the year 1984!

The story follows the gentle metamorphosis of a Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler from a cold-hearted agent to a wonderful human being, while being assigned to monitor a loyal yet suspicious famous playwright Georg Dreymann and his elegant, charming girlfriend who is also a well-known actress.

The movie is honest, subtle and noticeably realistic. There is absolutely no intention to demonize anybody or make a political statement, whatsoever. Instead, it more deals with exposing the realities of living under an ideologist, controlling, totalitarian regime and its relentless yet pathetic efforts to tame people’s hearts and minds while people (including even party officials and secret service agents) on the other side of the isle, are struggling in such an environment to create the delicate, elaborate and sometimes, seemingly impossible balance between their natural, personal interests and their rapidly diminishing consciences.

And where I’m sure the Canadian audiences as well as their American counterparts could only sympathize with the characters in the movie from far far away, I, alongside with everybody who has a first-hand experience of such condition, lived every moment of this film while dealing with a weird, nauseating sense of nostalgia, almost like being masochistically satisfied of having a sip of that experience, in the first place while dramatically rejoiced that it’s all over!

Near the end of the movie, when the former minister Hempf, grimly reminds Georg (who has stopped writing since the unification) the intellectual stimulation for artistic creativities that the little republic’s dictatorship and censorship was providing for them and grins at the fact that in this new world, they have nothing to believe in and nothing to rebel against hence nothing to write about, Georg’s silence, silently approves the remarks but soon he finds something well worth writing about. A sonata for a good man!