Tag Archives | theater

“W Ma Tallet Colette” – A Big Middle Finger in The Face of The Authorities

By Rami on December 27, 2018 in Reviews, Theater

On November 23rd 2017, Ziad Itani was arrested and accused of collaborating with an Israeli Mossad agent to plot the assassination of minister Nohad Machnouk and former minister Abdel Rahim Mrad, and it wasn’t until March 2018 that we learnt he was in fact a victim of false evidences. The whole thing turned out to have been arranged by the former head of the cybercrime bureau simply because he dared taking a screenshot of a tweet she liked.

A year later, and instead of emerging as a broken man, Ziad Itani collaborated with Khaled Soubeih to illustrate what he has gone through in a new play titled “W Ma Tallit Colette” that started showing last month at Metro Al Madina. I watched it on Tuesday and totally loved Itani’s performance in it.

Everyone knows the story, Ziad made several TV appearances to tell what really happened, and all the media outlets that originally bashed him for “being a traitor” have also later spoken about the truth. Still, watching the development of events on stage was captivating the whole time. You will be amazed at how a worthless and stupid evidence can lead the interrogators to extort a confession from Itani over something he never did, and the process will make you loathe the authorities.

Throughout the play, Ziad expresses everything he felt during detention, and he will make you understand how vulnerable can anyone get in a similar situation. One scene will even seriously stress you as Ziad tell about the thoughts that were going through his mind in his solitary confinement. Still, the play absolutely qualifies as a comedy and the cast will make you laugh during the whole two hours. The best of all though is that you will leave feeling that Ziad Itani emerged from this case as strong as he can be, an gave one big middle finger to the corrupt authorities and those who unlawfully wanted to put him behind bars.

Needless to say, I recommend you go watch it. You can check the showtimes on MetroMadina.com and book your tickets from AntoineTicketing.com.

Review – Avengers: Infinity War

By Rami on April 26, 2018 in Reviews

I don’t usually write movie posts but I’ll make an exception for Avengers: Infinity War. The movie is absolutely amazing and is my favorite among the Marvel films so far.

I actually attended the movie premiere at VOX two days ago and the event coincided with their 5th anniversary in Lebanon. Featuring most of the character from the Marvel universe, you would expect some to appear less special than the others, but the movie is 150 minutes long for a reason, and in my opinion each one of them got the deserved time to stand out.

The movie is of course everything you would expect from a Marvel movie plus a lot of humor and some emotional moments. This time, the avengers are uniting to face Thanos who’s on a quest to collect all of the 6 infinity stones to abolish half the universe. I won’t spoil rest but do yourself a favor and go watch it in theater. It now has a 9.2 rating on IMDB and I agree with Anis that the movie will definitely stand for years to come.

Avengers: Infinity War will be available in cinemas as of tomorrow.

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.

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!

Film Ameriki Tawil is Coming Out in October

By Rami on September 5, 2016 in Cinema, Theater

film ameriki tawil

When Bennesbe Labokra Shou started showing earlier this year, M Media promised that Film Ameriki Tawil will hit the theater next, and they just released their trailer for it both on their website and on Facebook announcing that it is coming out in October.

Judging from the trailer and the footage they released earlier, the image quality seems to be significantly better and more stable than that of Bennesbe Labokra Shou.

I personally never get bored of listening to Film Ameriki Tawil on the radio and can’t wait for the release date. Let’s hope Shi Feshil is next on the list for M Media as I guess we are all eager to know how tiny was that gypsum waterfall in the play!

The trailer is available here and here.

Review – Beirut Fawq Al Shajara بيروت فوق الشجرة

By Rami on April 21, 2016 in Art, Reviews

I recently watched “Beirut Fawq Al Shajara” written by Yehya Jaber and starring Ziad Itani, the same duo who brought us “Beirut Tarik Jdideh” a couple of years ago. And while the latter featured stories inspired from the day to day lives of people living in Tarik Jdideh, the new play focused on events that took place around other areas in Beirut. It might sound redundant at first, but trust me it isn’t. Ziad Itani delivered once again a solid performance without feeling fake on stage, and never failed to crack the audience up at the stories he was illustrating.

Beirut Fawk al Shajara follows the story of Fouad, a Beiruti influenced by his Turkish grandmother as a child, who manages to engage into relationships with many women of different nationalities as he ages while working as tailor. With each relationship we get introduced to some event that took place at a certain time in Beirut’s recent history in a humorous way.

What makes it all interesting is that despite the whole story being fictitious, the events Ziad Itani tells are all pretty accurate. So you’ll be laughing your heart our over the play duration but still learn a good deal from the recent history of the city. You are also guaranteed to be leaving the theater and for some reason humming “Oh lali 3ala Oh lala”!

All in all, and as a side note, I’m really satisfied about the plays Lebanese artists have performed over the last few years such as Venus, Ka3eb 3aleh, and Injazat 7ayat to name a few that do not speak to the audience in a dumb way the same way Lebanese movies and drama series mostly do.

Beirut Fawq Al Shajara is showing at Teatro Verdun (Dunes Center) on Mondays and Thursdays, with tickets selling for 35,000L.L. Needless to say, I highly recommend you go watch it!

A Very Subjective Opinion on “Bennesbeh Labokra Chou?” The Movie

By Rami on January 26, 2016 in Reviews

bennesbeh labokra chou

I finally managed to watch “Bennesbeh Labokra Chou?” in cinema a couple of days ago and was so delighted to finally see the original acting instead of imagining the scenes in my head!

The work that M Media has done is definitely remarkable since the movie is actually made out of several amateur recordings of the play that were carefully reconstructed and arranged to make a relatively smooth movie. But as much as I enjoyed watching the whole thing, I couldn’t stop thinking the whole time that “Bennesbeh Labokra Chou?” is so perfect it deserved a way better video quality.

The videos are basically all grainy, out of focus at times and shaky at others. I don’t mean there was anything that could have been done better… Retaking a shot is absolutely not an option in our case and the producers were obliged to work with anything Ziad was providing. However, the end result was unfortunately a movie that I don’t feel like watching again unlike the audio plays that I never get bored of. Ziad El-Rahbani is probably the only one to blame for not taking the shooting seriously back then.

“Film Ameriki Tawil” will soon be also showing in cinemas, and I just hope it is recorded in a more professional way. Ziad’s play are timeless and deserve to be treated the same way some Egyptian classics like “Madraset Al Moushaghibin” and “El Wad Sayyed El Shaghal” are still being aired on TV sometimes.

Anyway, what I’ve wrote should never keep you from watching “Bennesbeh Labokra Chou?” on the big screen. And despite the bad quality of the video, I guarantee you will still enjoy finally seeing the original acting, especially the part where Joseph Sakr sings “3a Hadir El Bosta” with everyone around him dancing to it.

3 Reasons to Avoid The Early Screenings of Bennesbeh Labokra Chou

By Rami on January 14, 2016 in Lebanon

Don’t get me wrong, just as you guys probably felt, I was also super excited to learn that Ziad is finally releasing Bennesbeh Labokra Chou in cinemas and I’m already planning to go see it but I personally really prefer to skip to the first few screenings for these reasons.

Ziad fanatics

We all have that one annoying friend who literally worships Ziad Rahbani and takes every possible opportunity to quote a line from his plays. Some even take it a bit further and imitate the way Ziad speaks. These guys have definitely already booked their tickets and will be all present at the early screenings. Chances are no one wants to be present wherever these people gather and start talking to each other… at least I dont!
The joke spoilers

Some people can recite the play like the alphabet since they know it by heart. To prove their skills, they will be spoiling every single joke before the actors even start with it. These ones will also be there for the early shows and you probably don’t want to be with them in the same theater!
We all know the ending anyway

There’s no way for someone to ruin the play for you since we’ve almost all heard it a thousand times and know how it ends. I personally want to go see it because it’s a privilege seeing Ziad Rahbani and Joseph Sakr performing together after 35 years of hearing them on the radio, so waiting a little until the craze cools down a little bit won’t hurt.

Review – Beirut… Tarik el Jdideh

By Rami on February 21, 2014 in Reviews

Last weekend I watched the comedy play “Beirut… Tarik el Jdideh” by Lebanese poet Yehia Jaber, and it’s by far one of the funniest plays I’ve watched.

Unlike other comedy plays, Tarik el Jdideh doesn’t make fun or disrespect the inhabitants of that area but rather uses black comedy to tell their stories since the beginning of the 20th century till today, while shedding light on the sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia.

Throughout two hours, actor Ziad Itani (who performs alone by the way) gets you to know the people of Tarik el Jdideh by portraying their weddings, celebrations, funerals, and eid rituals, in addition to telling about real events that took place such as some incidents that happened during the Lebanese civil war and when the Syrians came later on. A significant part of the play also describes the clashes that used to happen between Al Ansar fans and those of Al Nejmeh and how it all started.

Tarik el Jdideh is highly recommended not just for being super entertaining, but also for the strong message it delivers at the end.

It’s currently showing at Metro Al Madina and will last till the end of March as their events schedule show. Tickets are for 25,000L.L and you may reserve by calling 76-309363.

Below are some short parts of the play as well as interviews with its writer Yehia Jaber and actor Ziad Itani by Now Lebanon.

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Tag Archives | theater

Ziad fanatics

The joke spoilers

We all know the ending anyway