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| I'm embarrassed to say that I have missed this. But then it seems, in a way, the whole world did. When the Iranian protests exploded back in June, the eye of the world was on Iran. It was on the news, and the internet was buzzing with information about it. It seemed interesting that suddenly the world was interested in the internal struggles of the Iranian people. But you think. Why? Is it that Iran's government has been the bad guy for so long, and in today's political warfare, the best way to make the government look bad is to make the PEOPLE under that government looked oppressed. The past tactics would be to villianize the whole country. Now, it seems actually that they figured it out it works better at home if you make the target's government look like the bad guys, not the people. So Iran got the attention, and Guinea? I missed it and only heard about it on the BBC a few days back due to a special report on it. In short, on 28th September, there was a protest against the military government, that came to power due to coup d'etat (so whats new in Africa, right?). Thousands were on the streets. Soldiers came. Opened fire. Estimates that more than hundred died, more than a thousand injured, and several women raped on the streets itself. "The exact number of women who were abused is not known. Because of the shame associated with sexual violence in this West African country, victims are reluctant to speak, and local doctors refuse to do so. Victims who told of the attacks would not provide their names because they were afraid of retribution.But the witnesses are adamant. "I affirm, in categorical fashion, that women were raped, not just one woman," said Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, 34, an opposition leader who said he had been severely beaten himself. "I saw many rapes."Three women who said they had been attacked described their ordeal this past weekend. "We didn't know the soldiers were going to harm us," said the middle-aged woman, who said she could not sleep at night. She spoke slowly in a darkened room, seated on a bed with two other women. They were in a villa in a district at the edge of the capital here."We heard gunfire," she said. "I tried to flee." With weapons going off, suddenly "it was like a henhouse."She ran, but a soldier barred the way."He hit me," she said. "And he tore my clothes off. He ripped my clothes off with his hands."Then, she said, "he put his hand inside me." The soldier hit her on the head with his rifle, requiring stitches, she said. She also had large welts on her backside from the beating."We are traumatized," she said slowly, looking down.Diallo said he saw at least 10 women raped at the stadium.Describing one such assault, he said: "I saw a woman who was stripped naked. They ripped off, they tore off her clothes. They surrounded her. They made her lie down. They lifted up her feet, and one of the soldiers advanced. They took turns."One woman interviewed at the suburban villa here described how a soldier had ripped her robe off with a knife. She had a large cut on her backside, where a soldier had stabbed her with his knife, and deep bruises on her shoulders.The third woman said she had been whipped by a soldier. "When I went out, I saw one of the soldiers lying on top of a woman," she said. "A lot of women were raped."
Source: Seattle Times
It is a dark world we live in. We kid ourselves with our pretense of civilization. This is not an African problem, it is a HUMAN problem. The difference is that the essence of the inner blackness inside these oppressor's hearts are more free to do as they please. The only difference between countries is that these internal beasts in humans are just better controlled.
I look at this, and I feel we don't really want to concern ourselves with it. | |
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|  Six Feet Under: Season 1-5 (Alan Ball, 2001-2005) IMDB Link“I know that if you think life's a vending machine where you put in virtue and take out happiness than you're going to be disappointed.”I wonder if it is okay if I call “Six Feet Under” a very good soap opera. I know the latter has negative connotations attached to it, but “Six Feet Under” does have many of the features of a soap opera show. It is about a bunch of people (a family, like most soap operas), it deals with life, death, and love, and plot lines include characters dying, characters getting married, and characters getting pregnant. But maybe I should just call it “dark drama”, since that sounds much cooler than “very good soap opera”. Whatever, let’s just move on the show. Nathaniel Fisher runs a funeral house with his son, David. Nathaniel passes away in the first episode and the rest of the family try to deal with it, deal with the business, and deal with life in general. The aforementioned David is played by Dexter Morgan in a non-psycho role. David’s brother Nate has been away from the family and due to the funeral, he gets pulled back into the family and the business. Other family members are Ruth, the mother, and Claire, the teenage daughter. I’m not going to use the term “dysfunctional family”, which American media loves to throw on almost every family in almost every show or movie. Almost every family has their issues, and one of the most repeated phrases is “My family is crazy!”. Everyone somehow thinks that there is something particularly special about their family. Claiming one has a crazy family is like claiming your baby is cute. Everyone says that. But shows like “Six Feet Under” work because we find certain things in their family lives that viewers can identify with. The Fisher family is not a dysfunctional family, they are a family. The show has its ups and downs, but the final ten minutes of the finale is probably the best final ten minutes of any show ever made. “Nathaniel Fisher: You hang on to your pain like it means something, like it's worth something. Well let me tell you, it's not worth shit. Let it go. Infinite possibilities and all he can do is whine.
David Fisher: Well, what am I supposed to do?
Nathaniel Fisher: What do you think? You can do anything, you lucky bastard, you're alive. What's a little pain compared to that?
David Fisher: It can't be so simple.
Nathaniel Fisher: What if it is?”4/5 | |
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|  Ong bak 2 (Tony Jaa, 2008) IMDB LinkI’m a big supporter of Tony Jaa. I like to talk about him, whenever people discuss Jackie Chan and Jet Li. I go, pff, they are old, the new hip martial arts guy is Tony Jaa, people. Forget those grandpas. I was already a big fan of “Ong Bak” and “Tom yum goong” and took my friends with me to watch “Ong Bak 2” on the big screen. They need a bit of insisting on my side, since they did not want to watch a silly Thai movie. I told them not to expect a good story, but the action would kick their ass. They did not expect a good story, nor got it, and the action did not kick their ass, nor did it kick my ass. “Ong Bak 2” was a big disappointment compared to his two previous major features. It should not even be called “Ong Bak 2” as it has nothing to do with the first one. “Tom yum goong” and “Ong Bak” are more alike, then the supposed sequel. While the first one is set in present times, the sequel is set sometime in the past. Not sure the exact era, but they live in jungles and don’t have TV, WAY PAST. The story in Tony Jaa’s movies has never been things to look out for, but at least, it had a small set-up, and it got out of the way quickly enough. This time around, the film-makers think they are making some great martial arts epic, and they take their plot very seriously, meaning that in between fights, you get completely boring fillers. And worst of all, it does not even end. Like “Kill Bill”, this film is a two-parter, with the second (or third, depending on how you want to look it) one to be released after this and to continue the story. I guess, it is time someone from Hollywood gets him to America and makes him star in a movie where he joins forces with a black guy or runs for president or takes care of spoilt children. 2/5
 Halloween II (Zombie, 2009)IMDB LinkRob Zombie did a pretty good job with the remake of “Halloween”. I like horror remakes more than any other remakes. It seems to be one genre that a remake can present an old product with a new fresh look. No matter how classic they are, horror films are still not “Godfather”, so I don’t mind a remake. Although, I’m not sure why Zombie did a sequel to it. Even John Carpenter did not direct the original sequel himself. He had made a great horror film, and moved on. Rob Zombie proved naysayers wrong by making an above average remake of the first film, so why did he not just move on? With “The Devil’s Rejects”, he had already proven that he could handle making a great horror film, so why does he have to rely on sequel remakes? Zombie’s “Halloween 2” is decent, but not where I want Zombie’s filmmaking path to take him. I give him props for paving his own way with this film and not trying to retrace the original’s footsteps. No reason to make a remake, if you don’t have the balls to shake things up a bit. And I like the brutal feel of the whole thing. But Zombie had the initial momentum, and felt like he could be a major, consistent horror director. I hope he has gotten the “Halloween” franchise out of his system, and goes back on track. 3/5
 The Midnight Meat Train (Kitamura, 2008)IMDB LinkIt is strange. Movies based on novels usually don’t work because the film medium cannot contain all the details of a book. But at the same time, it seems movies based on SHORT STORIES work even less. By trying to stretch the short story to fit a feature film, these movies seem to almost never succeed. “The Midnight Meat Train” is based on a short story by Clive Barker. The story was a quick read, with a weird ending, and it all worked, BECAUSE it was SHORT. Someone is killing people on a train and it is up to a photographer to find out what is going on. A few gore here and there, and you get the explanation in the end. In the story, it is an interesting finish to a short story, but in the film, it is out of place, because it does not match the tone, feel, and content of the film prior to the ending. You could say the story did not have enough…meat. Oh, and the film is another shitty horror film directed by a non-American director that was brought in to Hollywood and given a crappy film to direct and the director probably shat his pants in excitement, knowing that he finally arrived in U. S. A. Nine years before this film, the director was in Japan and made “Versus”, a ridiculously fun movie. 2/5
 Love Happens (Camp, 2009)IMDB Link“Funerals are important rituals. They're not only recognition that a person has died; they're recognition that a person has lived.”Yes, I watched “Love Happens”, starring Jennifer Aniston, and a synopsis that says, “About a widower whose book about coping with loss turns him into a best-selling self-help guru. On a business trip to Seattle, he falls for a woman who attends one of his seminars, only to learn that he hasn't yet truly confronted his wife's passing”, a poster with the two characters leaning towards each other, smiling, and a tagline that says, “Sometimes when you least expect it…” This is not my kind of film at all. But movies, like life, sometimes occurs irregardless of your desires. Thankfully, the film did not make me want to slice my throat with my car keys. Obviously, it wasn’t good (how could it have been?), but it was just barely tolerable. It has most of the crappy, re-used scenes you have seen a million times before, such as an ending where the character says something, and the audience is silent, and then one person starts clapping, and then another person starts clapping, and soon everyone starts clapping. But at least it did not end with one of the couple leaving the other because of a conflict, going to the airport, and then other person running after them trying to make it on time. It did not have that, but I almost feel someone in the filmmaking crew wanted to put it in. 2/5 | |
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| Does the Team Think.... (BBC, 2007-2008)Format. Hosted by Vic Reeves with four guests each episode. Members of the audience asks the team a question (I do not know if questions are scripted, but if they are not, most likely pre-approved by the producers) and they discuss a few minutes discussing it. Questions are general questions that are a spring board for the guests, all comedians, to try to be funny. This kind of improvisation can be hit and miss and while it is not great hits, there are no high frequency of misses for it to make the show dull. I like the second seasons better, because the host Vic Reeves chills a bit. In the first season, he had the annoying habit of trying to overshadow his guests. If you think you are so funny, then don’t bring on guests, especially comedians. When there are going to be comedian guests, then it is annoying if the comedian is trying to set up a joke and taking a few second extra, and Vic Reeves keeps jumping in and trying to be funnier. In the second season, Reeves cools down a bit and allows the guests more space to be funny themselves. Still, the format of the show does not allow for that many funny responses, and not all the comedians on the show seem to be really that funny thinking on their feet. And when you combine five comedians together in thirty minutes, then you have a lot of them trying to jump in the other’s story spouting out punch lines. 3/5
 The Museum of Curiosity (BBC, 2008-2009)Even with British humor it is rare, but I have a thing for mixing comedy with deeper subjects. I do not mean making it high-brow comedy necessary, but just being able to discuss various educating subjects while having a laugh about it. You get away from it learning something, like Stephen Fry’s show “QI”. “Museum of Curiosity” is almost like a radio show of that. Not similar in programming but similar in making you laugh and think at the same time. The show is hosted by John Lloyd for both seasons, with Bill Bailey co-hosting the first and Sean Lock hosting the second. Each episode there is three guests. The first half of the show is focused on introducing the guests and chatting with them. This is the weak portion of the show usually and the second half is about each guest “donating” an item to the fictional museum. The items can be anything and can be conceptual. Examples of the donations are “Silence”, “the urge to press red buttons you know you shouldn’t press”, “A chimpanzee rain dance”, and so on, and they spend a few minutes talking about their choices. This is the best part because as some guests have interesting and funny things to say about the items. As the guests are not necessarily comedians, it makes for some interesting topics. My favorite donation is “Nothing”, donated by particle physicist, Frank Close. I could not find the transcript for that, but here is the one about “Privacy” from Ben Elton. “Er, Orwell's nightmare vision of the future, set out in 1984, has as its central and terrifying oppressive feature the concept of being continually observed, not only in the streets, but in the home. In fact, Winston Smith, the hero, briefly believes he's found a place in which to be private, only to discover a hidden television camera in the room. And it's the most shocking moment in the book, and triggers the end of Smith's dream of any kind of individual life or self-expression. Now, I think today, Orwell would perhaps not be surprised to learn that his vision has come entirely to pass. What would shock him utterly is that this hellish idea has not been imposed by some fascistic oligarch or government, erm, but, in fact, we've brought it on ourselves. We've not only embraced it, we've welcomed it, from the CCTV in the streets, to the webcams in our bedroom, we have become our own Big Brother. Privacy isn't dead; er, well, if it's not dead, it's terminally ill, and we're certainly hastening its demise. What I'm saying is the idea of exposing yourself has become not just, sort of, something that, you know, people are encouraged to do, but people want to do. I mean, more and more people are stripping naked on TV. I mean, it doesn't matter what your body's like: You strip off and you tell people how crap your sex life is. I mean, it's extraordinary, isn't it? I mean, those two horrendous old harridan . . . bully, oh, I don't know . . . Skinny and Tranny or whatever their bloody names are . . .
But, er, you know! I mean, seriously, what an extraordinary way to run a tele-- . . . I mean, get someone, strip 'em naked, and then say, you know, "How crap are you?" "Well, I'm really awful, I've got no confidence, my husband hates me, my kids laugh at me. " "Well, you need a new bra! Put the new bra on. How do you feel?" "Oh, I feel empowered. I've been made over. I'm a new woman." We've given . . . We've given up on any sense of ourselves, and yet, we try to expose ourselves at all times.
I mean, this idea that we all need to hear everything about everybody's dysfunctionalism--we need to see and know everything about everybody--is deeply worrying. And with Facebook, and MySpace, we've got to the a point where young people who watch Big Brother and watch people wandering around, aimlessly talking about themselves all the time, and are introduced to the astonishing fiction that talking about yourself is somehow empowering--indeed, noble; in some way, enriching, just talking about yourself the whole time--and this becomes translated into the Facebook generation where you show everything. And frankly, the idea that we all share the details of every embarrassing piss-up with everybody we've ever met, and all their friends, all the time, I think, is a real problem for society, and I think the idea that we've given up on the idea that you might want to keep things private is a massive problem. I think we'd all rediscover a bit of self-respect: respect for yourself, respect for the other people’s right not to be interested in you . . . Shut up, keep your agony, your heartbreak, your learning journey, your personal growth, and your fabulous new breasts that have allowed you to be the you you want yourself to be . . . private.”4/5 | |
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|  Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire (BBC, 2009)IMDB LinkStrangely, we do not have that many comedy-parody fantasy shows. After the huge success of “Lord of the Rings”, you’d assume we’d at least have some shows parodying the sword and sorcery genre. Well, good news to those of you that have been waiting eagerly for me to bring you good tidings of such a show. “Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire” is such a show. Krod (Sean Maguire) leads a small group of freedom fighters. He is the hero, with the flaming sword and the prophecy that claims he is the Golden One. He’s brave and his heart is in the right place, but he’s a bit clumsy, smashing into things, not very smart, and sometimes forgetting his sword. By his side is his pagan girlfriend, Aneka (India de Beaufort). Much to Krod’s constant heartbreak, Aneka is very open about her sexuality due to her being a pagan and has sex with random strangers. The other members of his group consists of a slave (which is a bit of a PR nightmare for Krod, considering he fights for freedom), a black warlock (who never seems to do any magick), and…a gay guy. The group is faced with the evil Chancellor Dongalor (Matt Lucas), probably the funniest character on the show. The show, being British, is only six episodes per season. This is good for certain shows and helps keep the material strong and fresh. But for silly comedy shows like this, it would have been better if it was longer. Six episodes of almost twenty minutes each is only two hours. That’s hardly a series. It’s just a slightly long American movie or a really short Bollywood film. 3/5 | |
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| I'm in lebanon for two week training course in the American University of Lebanon. It sounds more exciting that it is, when the excitment of being in a foriegn country is replaced with a realization of being at a daily course from 9am to 5pm and realizing that there isn't realy much to do after 5 everyday.
I feel homesick, and I paid for wifi in my room only to realize that its a bit pointless. I don't have an access to a phone and I feel like it doesn't matter since there isn't anyone that probably feels my absence in a sigbificient manner, aside from my parents, which is a given.
Same with my blackberry and email. There really aren't any indication that I'm gone. in a way, it was good, because it has removed my homesickness.
Because homesick from WHAT home? | |
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| I tried to join the community, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) bb_messenger , only to have my request to join the community denied. Curious, and slightly surprised, I wondered what the reasons were. The reason was, "Because after looking at your profile and your blog (which is after all a blog and not a proper LiveJournal), I didn't feel you would be a good fit with the community."I have no real issue with being denied access to a Livejournal Community, but it sparked a train of thought. The reasons seemed initially strange, claiming that my LJ was a blog and not a proper Livejournal, considering that Livejournal IS a blog. But I guess the underlining reason is not the terminology but basically saying, "You are not like us majority users". This makes more sense, because I suppose my journal is not. And that I think plays a role in my feeling slightly unhappy all the time. I'm never really part of things. Even when I try to get involved in groups or whatever, I always feel like I'm slightly at the edge of it, not really mixing well with the feel of the group. Group thinking makes me uncomfortable and while I believed that I thrived on that in my teenage years, I feel less attracted to it now, but feel it is something difficult to break free from. This does not mean, I'm an anti-social freak. I can be very social when I need to be, and I do surround myself with people, whether they are friends, family, or colleagues. Its not about not having friends, but about having friends that you feel like you have nothing in common with. Sometimes, one might be under the illusion that this is celebrated in the west, or at least more common, but I feel like there is nothing furthur from the truth. You can just browse the internet and realize how much people, specially people from the west, enjoy being part of similiar thinking communities. Anti-social freaks with no friends can brag about being anti-social freaks with no friends, but they do it in online communities where anti-social freaks with no friends hang out. Without the tribal communities that exist in the middle east, people from other, less tribal communities make their OWN tribes. I feel unattracted to both of them. Even when I try to get involved, with either family groups or groups based on interest, I feel slightly being pushed away, as if by some kind of anti-majority magnet. I try, and feel like its working at first, but soon something switches off in my head, and feel less desire to be part of IT. Unfortunately, this means that I feel bouts of loneliness. Like sometimes I feel like going out with some company, and look through my address book names one by one, scrolling down, and feeling like I don't want to hang out with any of them. Or I go on AIM or MSN messenger with the intention of talking to someone, but staring at the many names, and feeling like I don't want to talk to any of them. Through the last few years, I have done by best to be a Respectable Member of Society, and while I think I have done a decent job at it, I still feel, underneat my attempts at having Blackberry Messenger Names, birthday parties, social get togethers, career plan, etc, I still desire the world to be engulfed in The Stand-like plague, and wander the empty streets of the world, shooting children and raping their mothers. | |
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|  Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino, 2009)IMDB LinkTowards the end of the movie, the top official Nazis are attending a premiere of “National Pride” in occupied Paris, a film within in a film about a German sniper that was responsible for killing hundreds of the enemy soldiers. He has become a celebrity in German and a film was made on him. The scenes of the film we see are nothing more than the sniper shooting the enemies with the German audience cheering and loving it. Go back to the beginning. Hans, a German official that specializes in locating Jews, is sitting with a French farmer equating German’s feelings towards Jews being the same as man’s feelings towards rats. He mentions that he does not mean the Jews are rats in the negative, propaganda manner, but that German’s dislike Jews to some instinctive, almost irrational feeling and want it to be destroyed. It does not need to be logical. If you are supposed to dislike something, then you can find yourself cheering violence against it, even when you might be a violent person. Okay, now time to talk about the secret group of Jewish-Americans in France hunting down Nazis and brutally killing them, the Inglorious Bastards. They are cruel, vicious, brutal, and have no remorse. The audience members, watching this film and viewing the scalping and the murder of prisoners of war, cheers and loves it. 3/5 | |
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| Man, I have such shitty times with sleep. I never sleep well at all, sleeping really late and either going to work late or waking up with a kind of intense effort. A few days back I was so sleepy that when in the showers, I put shampoo on my toothbrush instead of toothpaste, and was blinking at it for a few seconds, wondering why it looked different than usual.
I was so tired that, while playing Soduko on my blackberry in bed at 10pm, I started feeling sleepy, so I slept. Good so far, except I woke up at 1am, and have been awake up to now,and its 4:30 am now. This is awful, because I have to wake up at 6:30.
Life is a nightmare. | |
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