Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 08-22-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV
Watch Evan Ross, Nia Long, Danny Glover, Roger Guenveur Smith, Summer Bishil & Dorian Missick in a groundbreaking new film about a an African-American Muslim boy who comes of age against a politically charged 9/11 backdrop, with deep personal and familial traumas to overcome, and a search for identity that must reconcile his own difficult history with his new changed reality.
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Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 07-27-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Comedy
Watch Beauty and the East TV’s NEW Original Episode- a funny interview with comedians Max Amini, Tehran Ghasri and beat boxer Stevie Soul -hosted by the lovely Mariam Wardak. Learn about Tehran’s half African-American/half Iranian background, Stevie’s disability, and Max’s thoughts about “no Persians in Prince of Persia”.
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Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 07-21-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Music, Comedy
Beauty and the East TV’s coverage of comedian Max Amini’s backstage rap with performers Ne Means, Stevie Soul, and Tehran Ghasri
Tags: Max Amini, Ne Means, Stevie Soul, Tehran Ghasri, Exotic Imports, Beauty and the East TV, Mariam Wardak, Samira Atash, Alina Atash
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Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 07-20-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV
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Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 07-09-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV
An afternoon surprise forces two friends to make the best of a bad situation. Afghan is an award-winning short film about hate crimes, humour and friendship, starring Pardis Parker (Halifax Comedy Festival) and Mark Little (Picnicface).
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Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 06-25-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Music
The theme song to the 2010’s World Cup is performed by a skinny Somali singer in baggy pants and a fedora, the voice of the biggest global marketing campaign ever undertaken by the world’s most iconic brand, Coca-Cola. The singer in the Coke ads is K’Naan, a former refugee from one of the poorest, most violent cities on earth. And all across the globe, people are humming the irresistible chorus to his official World Cup song, “Wavin’ Flag”. The road to global stardom has had many twists and turns, a hip-hop fairytale even Hollywood would shy away from. K’Naan has lived through civil war, seen friends shot dead before his eyes, spent months in jail, been beaten up by bouncers in a Swedish nightclub. And now he’s travelling the world in Coca-Cola’s World Cup jet, singing about unity and celebration.
So why did a multinational soft drinks conglomerate choose a third-world rebel icon to front its campaign? A practising Muslim who lived the horror of war as a boy and who raps against injustice and oppression?
The answer lies in Africa, the world’s last emerging market, where music and soccer have huge grassroots appeal—and massive marketing potential. Coke wanted a developing-world star, a modern-day Bob Marley with street cred. They found him in K’Naan.
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Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 06-11-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Music
Eastern Arts dancer Jamie Sours dances “Afghan stop style”, a traditional dance from the Logar province:
Tags: jamie sours, eastern arts, afghan logari dance
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Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 06-10-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV
A film about the life of U.S. President, Barack Obama, growing up in Indonesia is due to be released in Indonesia later this month. The young Obama is played by Hasan Faruq Ali who says, “The movie is not really particular for any ages. But it’s kind of like general audiences movie, and it teaches kids to follow their dream. The mother (Obama’s mother) always shows him (Obama) that if you really want to, you can follow your dream.”
Tags: barack obama, indonesian film
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Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 06-07-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV
Tariq Jalil began his career working for creative affairs at Disney. After a brief stint at Carsey/Werner he became a story analyst for various companies before producing on his own. His first feature film “A Galaxy Far Far Away” won several awards and was released nationwide. It included stars Joe Pesci, Andy Garcia and Meatloaf. He then worked for NBC and Telemundo in Los Angeles for six years. He has won an Emmy and several Golden Mike Awards. Jalil created the production/management company “Intrigue” and produced the American version of the British show “Spaced” from the makers of “Shaun of the Dead” with director McG for Warner Brothers and Fox Broadcasting Company. He executive produces the reality show “Operation Repo” for TruTV. He also produced a grand mini-series based on the best-selling novel “Shogun” by James Clavell, the feature film “The Book of Leo” for Universal with Sean William Scott attached to star, and the live action “Dilbert” movie (based on the comic strip) at Warner Brothers with Chris Columbus (director Harry Potter, Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire).
Jalil’s latest projects is Fox’s just released “Marmaduke” project:
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Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 06-01-2010 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV
Wahajat Ali writes in Salon: I’m a heterosexual, Muslim dude who until recently thought pleated khakis and loafers were “hip” and mistook Bergdorf Goodman for an expensive Swiss chocolate. So it is not surprising that 40 minutes into “Sex and the City 2,” a 150-minute cotton candy fantasy accessorized with materialism and fashion porn, I was comatose with boredom. But I was defibrillated by the film’s detour into Abu Dhabi (really Morocco and studio sets) and what can only be described as an Orientalist’s wet dream. After discovering they will visit the Middle East, the ladies whip out hall-of-fame Ali Baba clichés: References to “magic carpet” (a double entendre, naturally), Scheherazade and Jasmine from “Aladdin” come in rapid succession. Upon hearing a stewardess give routine flight instructions in Arabic, Samantha behaves like a wild-eyed child hearing a foreign language for the first time. “I wonder what she’s saying. It sounds so exotic!”
Michael Patrick King’s exquisitely tone-deaf movie is cinematic Viagra for Western cultural imperialists who still ignorantly and inaccurately paint the entire Middle East (and Iran) as a Kubla Khan in desperate need of liberation from ignorant, backward natives. Historian Bernard Lewis, the 93-year-old Hall of Fame Orientalist and author of such nuanced gems as “The Arabs in History” and “Islam and the West,” would probably die of priapism if he saw this movie. It’s like the cinematic progeny of “Not Without My Daughter” and “Arabian Nights” with a makeover by Valentino. Forget the oppressed women of Abu Dhabi. Let’s buy more bling for the burqa!
Our four female cultural avatars, like imperialistic Barbies, milk Abu Dhabi for leisure and hedonism without making any discernible, concrete efforts to learn about her people and their daily lives. An exception is Miranda, whose IQ drops about 100 points as she dilutes the vast complexities of a diverse culture into sound bites like this: “‘Hanh Gee’ means ‘yes’ in Arabic!” Only it doesn’t—it’s Punjabi, which is spoken by South Asians. She also incorrectly tells the audience that all women in the Middle East have to cover themselves. And, yes, nearly every single Middle Eastern female character in “SATC 2’s” imaginative rendition of “Abu Dhabi,” is veiled, silent or subdued by aggressive men. Like curious visitors staring at an exotic animal in the zoo with equal doses of horror and fascination, the four “girls” observe a niqabi female eating French fries by carefully lifting her veil for each consumed fry. After witnessing this “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” event, Samantha declares, “It’s like they don’t want [women] to have a voice.”
If our cultural ambassadors truly cared about saving Muslim women, they surely would try to help them during the film’s interminable two and half hour running time, no? Sadly, instead, these incredibly shallow mock-feminists can’t even bother to have one decent conversation with a Muslim woman, because they’re too immersed in picnics on the desert and singing Arab disco karaoke renditions of “I Am Woman.” In fact, Abu Dhabi is just peachy when it’s a fantasy land where they ride around in limos and get comped an extravagantly vulgar $22,000 hotel suite. However, only when that materialism is taken away do they worry, in only the most superficial way, about sexual hypocrisy and women’s oppression.
Meanwhile, the perpetually self-absorbed Carrie finds enlightenment in the simple, wise words of her Indian manservant Gaurav, who functions as the movie’s life-changing, magical minority. And Samantha, our “Western” avatar of freedom and liberation, offers a juxtaposition to the silent, oppressed Muslim women by making immature puns like “Lawrence of my Labia” and performing fellatio on a sheesha pipe in public.
The movie uses only two broad colors to paint the Middle East: One depicting an opulent Eden for our blissfully ignorant protagonists to selfishly use as a temporary escape, and the other showing an oppressive dungeon populated by intolerant men that cannot comprehend cleavage or bare shoulders. Consider the film’s painful climax, in which Samantha, now wearing shorts and a low-cut top, spills dozens of condoms from her purse in the middle of a crowded market. Right before the condom explosion, the Islamic call to prayer, the Adhan, is conveniently heard for no discernible reason. The angry, hairy men, overwhelmed by anger and shock, decide to abandon their daily activities and busy life to encircle Samantha and condemn her as a harlot and slut, but not before Samantha proudly holds the condoms up high and dry humps the air telling the men she uses them to have sex. Because they cannot tolerate a sassy, back-talking, condom-using female baring her legs, they decide en masse to spontaneously chase all four women. Appearing like an oasis in the desert, two mysterious women in a burqa silently nod to the four girls, who subsequently follow the women into a secret room revealing the existence of a secret book club attended by a dozen niqabi women, who disrobe to reveal their hidden designer clothes, fashionable shoes and makeup.
OK, a bubble gum approach to reality is to be expected from “SATC2.” And one could imagine a scenario in which the frothy light comedy could be used to erase mutual misunderstandings. After all, Muslim women around the world, who religiously watched the show, would love a strong, empowered Muslim female “SATC” character who could enlighten Western audiences about the complex, and at times oppressive, reality of Middle Eastern women while simultaneously rocking Ferragamos. Instead, the film exists in a wacky cultural vacuum blissfully unaware of its own arrogance and prejudices.
Apparently, we’re meant to believe Muslim women in the Middle East are equally self-absorbed, vain and materialistic. After completely dissing the Middle East, its people, its religion and its culture, it’s “Sex and the City” that truly insults the Muslim women, by silencing them entirely.
Tags: sex in the city 2, muslim cliches, stereotypes, wahajat ali
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