Archive | Movies

2018 Box Office Results in Lebanon

By Rami on March 19, 2019 in Cinema, Lebanon, Movies, Social

I know we’re so over 2018 but I always find it interesting to see statistics of people’s behavior and preferences in Lebanon. Few weeks ago, Rania Ghanem from Business News published a piece on the top ten movies at the box office in Lebanon during last as well as the market share for each movie theater chain.

Teh result for the top ten movies came as follows:

It is interesting to know that five of the top performing movies were Lebanese. However, aside from Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum, almost all the Lebanese movies got mocked and criticized on social platforms for their mediocre storyline and level of acting. This comes to prove that opinions on social networks in general are very far from representing the masses, just as in the case with politics for example. We hate on all politicians online, yet they easily win the elections. We all support civil marriage online, but the populations in general is in fact against it.

The results also explain the increasing number of Lebanese movie every year. People in general seem to be enjoying them despite how mediocre they are, and Maguy Ghosn still has a lot to give!

On the other hand, market share was distributed among the movie theater chains as follows:

Grand Cinemas 38% (1.4 million visitors)
Empire Cinemas 31% (1.2 million visitors)
VOX Cinemas 15% (559,000 visitors)
Cinemall 10% (379,000 visitors)
Stargate 3% (112,000 visitors)
Planete 2% (89,000 visitors)

You can check the original article here.

Susan Sarandon and Ben Stiller Are in Beirut!

By Rami on March 4, 2019 in Cinema, Documentaries, Movies

I just stumbled upon a post by Beirut Digital District showing Susan Sarandon and Ben Stiller along with Nadine Labaki attending a private screening of the documentary film Soufra at BDD.

The film follows the story of a Palestinian refugee, Mariam Shaar, from Bourj Al Barajneh camp as she establishes a catering business with the help of other women from her community and succeeds to expand it into a food truck business with the funding and support of Alfanar venture philanthropy.

Soufra follows the unlikely and wildly inspirational story of intrepid social entrepreneur, Mariam Shaar – a generational refugee who has spent her entire life in the Burj El Barajneh refugee camp just south of Beirut, Lebanon. The film follows Mariam as she sets out against all odds to change her fate by launching a successful catering company, “Soufra,” and then expand it into a food truck business with a diverse team of fellow refugee woman who now share this camp as their home. Together, they heal the wounds of war through the unifying power of food while taking their future into their own hands through an unrelenting belief in Mariam, and in each other. In the process, Mariam is breaking barriers, pulling together Syrian, Iraqi, Palestinian and Lebanese women to work side by side and form beautiful friendships while running this thriving business.

Soufra will shine a new and revealing light on people inside of the largest refugee crisis in human history, but ultimately this film is about hope, grit, passion and the common bonds created by bringing people together around food as a bridge to overcome all barriers. Though Mariam is officially considered “stateless” she is a beacon of hope and home for thousands upon thousands of women in the most unlikely of places. Mariam and her team will be just that for thousands more once her story is told through Soufra. Source

Susan Sarandon is in fact the executive producer for Soufra and she decided to contribute into this documentary after learning about Mariam Shaar’s inspiring story.

Free Screening of The Oscars at VOX Cinemas Beirut

By Rami on March 1, 2018 in Events, Movies

Movie buffs are certainly excited for the Academy Award event this weekend but Lebanese people are also in general anticipating it because for the first time ever this year Lebanon is heading to the Oscars with the nomination of Ziad Doueiri’s “The Insult” for the best foreign film.

For the occasion, VOX Cinemas is parternering with OSN to screen the event at their theaters in City Centre Beirut free of charge for anyone who would like to attend.

The screening will be live on March 5th at 3AM Beirut Time and if you’re interested to watch it there then you can reserve your free seats here.

The Insult – First Lebanese Movie to Get An Academy Award Nomination

By Rami on January 23, 2018 in Movies

Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri just earned today an academy award nomination for his movie “The Insult” in the Foreign Language Film category! This is big news for us because it is the first movie to ever get an official Oscar nomination since Lebanon started submitting films to the Academy Awards in 1978, and will compete with four other submissions from Russia, Chile, Hungary and Sweden.

Ziad Doueiri stirred much controversy a while ago by the way when he filmed a previous movie, The Attack, in Israel. However, I noticed that almost everybody seemed to agree on praising “The Insult” regardless of their stance on Doueiri and his political views, so I really hope it manages to clinch the trophy!

The Oscars will air on Sunday March 4th on ABC Network and Jimmy Kimmel is once again hosting the event this year. You can check the full list of nominees for all categories here.

Hollywood Made a Bad Movie About Beirut – So What?!

By Rami on January 16, 2018 in Movies

Everyone and their mother seems to be upset about Jon Hamm’s new movie, titled “Beirut”, because of its bad portrayal of our Beirut city and all the stereotypes that appeared in the trailer.

The movie is written by Tony Gilroy (author first four films of the Bourne series) and tells the story of Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm a former U.S. diplomat who is called back into service to save a colleague from a terrorist group that was responsible for the death of his own family 10 years earlier.

As the trailer shows, the movie is gonna give quite a gloomy picture of Beirut, and with everything bad going around us in the region right now,western people will unconsciously associate us with terrorism after watching it. But then again, you can’t just blame this movie for the bad publicity we have abroad… We have been ruining our country for over 40 years now and have made enough headlines so far for the whole world to judge us without the need to watch any movie about Lebanon!

And what are you expecting from Hollywood in the first place? A promotional tourism movie about Lebanon? In a world where everyone has a different point of view, why can’t we take their side for a second? We treat them as invaders but they simply regard themselves as our white saviors… Ever knew about the 1985 TWA Flight 847 that was hijacked by Lebanese people and rerouted to Beirut with 85 American passengers on-board? How about the 1983 barracks bombings in Beirut? Regardless what your political views might be, these are acts of terrorism to them and the average American had every reason to think of us as terrorists back then…

Even worse, back to our side, how do you label 15 years of civil war? We butchered each other, mass killings were nothing unusual over that period, and minors did join militias back then. Go read or watch some Lebanese war documentary to learn all about it… Do you only feel butthurt because an American is mentioning it now?

Instead of whining about the movie, just let it be and move on, if it’s really bad then it will eventually be a box office flop. If anything, you can probably brighten the country’s image by simply replacing the warlords that have been ruling the country since the civil war era and are the ones responsible for Beirut’s bad publicity everywhere!

Marvel Movies Free Screenings in Beirut

By Rami on December 30, 2017 in Movies

If you’re a fan of Marvel or superhero movies in general, then here’s your chance to re-watch or catch up on the Marvel Cinematic Universe films for free. The people at a production company called “Monkey Business Dreams” are planning host screenings for 18 Marvel movies each Tuesday at 7PM starting January 2nd 2018 until “Avengers: Infinity War” is released on May 4th 2018. Each screening will be followed by a discussion and a Q&A on plot and production.

If you’re interested to attend, you can find the screening location coordinates here and below is their schedule:

Jan 2: Iron Man
Jan 9: The Incredible Hulk
Jan 16: Iron Man 2
Jan 23: Thor
Jan 30: Captain America – The First Avenger
Feb 6: The Avengers
Feb 13: Iron Man 3
Feb 20: Thor – The Dark World
Feb 27: Captain America – The Winter Soldier
Mar 6: Guardians Of The Galaxy
Mar 13: The Avengers – Age Of Ultron
Mar 20: Ant-Man
Mar 27: Captain America – Civil War
Apr 3: Doctor Strange
Apr 10: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2
Apr 17: Spider-Man Homecoming
Apr 24: Thor – Ragnarok
May 1: Black Panther

No snacks or drinks are sold on location by the way, so feel free to bring your own stuff.

Why is Lebanon Acting Schizophrenic About Gal Gadot?

By Rami on December 11, 2017 in Movies

People at the censorship bureau don’t seem to be able to make up their mind about Gal Godot. Few years ago they had no problem with her appearing in movies like Fast & Furious, Batman v Superman, and Keeping up with the Joneses, until they suddenly decided to ban Wonder Woman back in May because she had the lead role in it.

Fast forward to nowadays, just as several magazines chose Godot to be on their cover for their December issues, the much anticipated “Justice League” also got banned two weeks ago because she was among its cast. I took the above photo for example at Librarie Antoine a few days ago and it’s obvious the authorities did not find anything wrong with a magazine having Gal Gadot as its main subject, so why not allow a movie starring her as well?

DVD rips of banned movies eventually end up flooding the market and it isn’t like superhero movie fans are going to miss seeing them, so it’s definitely about time the censorship bureau reconsider their role and the decisions they take.

How Do Boycott Campaigns Work in Lebanon?

By Rami on May 30, 2017 in Movies, Politics

I remember at least two artists who were subject to online and offline boycott campaigns in Lebanon over the past few years due to their alleged support to Israel, Gad Elmaleh in 2009 and Lara Fabian in 2012. Gad Elmaleh was accused of serving in the Israeli Defense Forces (which wasn’t true) while Lara Fabian faced so much criticism for performing at an event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel, and civil society groups of course tried to keep the two artists from performing in Lebanon.

Fast forward to the present, Wonder Woman starring Gal Gadot is scheduled to start showing across Lebanese theaters on June 1st. However, Gal Gadot is an Israeli actress and model who first appeared as Wonder Woman in Batman VS Superman last year and her upcoming movie posters have been surprisingly all around the country for a while now! That’s not just any actress supporting Israel, that’s an Israeli actress who served as a combat trainer in the Israeli Defense Forces with her posters all around Lebanon.

I’m not writing this to call for the movie boycott. I personally love superhero movies and will definitely be watching Wonder woman. However, I’ve yet to hear about any call against screening it and in this case one can’t but wonder how do civil society activists choose which artists/projects to boycott or let pass. At one point you start doubting their campaigns could be sometimes fueled by business competition… International artists are all exposed to have a connection with Israel at some point during their career, which makes it easy for anyone to criticize them for the sole purpose of provoking those who are investing their money into getting such artists to perform in Lebanon.

Anyway, the movie is showing in two days so let’s see if any cyber activists will try to take a stance against it!

Update:

I just learned the Ministry of Economy and Trade demanded the General Security to withdraw the movie from Lebanese theaters. However, the questions I raised above still stand.

Are You Following M Media’s Growing Collection?

By Rami on May 20, 2017 in Movies, Television, Videos

I subscribed to M Media a few months ago for the sole purpose of watching Bennesbe Labokra Chou again, but soon after I did it I found it hard to cancel my subscription because of their growing collection with titles that never cease to impress me. (They’re soon adding Film Ameriki Tawil by the way)

I personally usually avoid watching Lebanese movies in theaters unless they’re REALLY good, but I still like to watch them in the comfort of my living room (yes even the likes of BéBé). However unlike western movies/series, Lebanese ones are much harder to find online, and M Media has been recently making some great effort adding titles that were produced over the last few years ranging from drama to comedy and documentaries, in addition to famous old plays from the 90s such as “3ammti Najibeh” and “3arisein midreh men wein” with all content being in very good quality. So I have lately been spending time watching stuff that I missed in theater over the last few years (and also learned that Carlos Azar always lands the Jagal roles in his movies).

At $5/month I guess it’s a good deal, and while I know the people at M are doing their best to get more productions onto their platform, I wish they also add old movies from the 70s and 80s such as the ones by the late Maroun Baghdadi for example, I always read he made some great movies during that era but I rarely had access to them. I also don’t think anyone would mind watching Ahmad El-Zein and Mohamad El-Mawla all over again in those cool action movies from the early civil war days!