مجله کیانوش

Little Children

Little Children is a very good movie, a bit uncomfortable to watch, but for sure it is worth watching. I think it deserved much better than only being nominated for the Academy Awards. There were moments in the movie that I had to stand up and start walking around to contemplate what just had happened.

Star Wars Stamp

Since I have mentioned about the Super Heros stamp, it is not fair to skip this very interesting Star Wars souvenir:

By the way, the new chapter in Super Heros stamp is publiseh. This time it is dedicated to the Marvel Super Heros.

My Accent

I don't know how this happened! Perhaps because I used to work on my accent with Webster Online!

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Midland ("Midland" is not necessarily the same thing as "Midwest") The default, lowest-common-denominator American accent that newscasters try to imitate. Since it's a neutral accent, just because you have a Midland accent doesn't mean you're from the Midland.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Chingis Khan still rules!

At the climax of Disco music, in 1979, Germany's Eurovision contestants debuted a revival of the notorious Mongol warlord, Chingis Khan. The song, Dschinghis Khan, which was the band's name too, couldn't make it to better than the 4th place, but that was just the beginning. The band continued record making and made their mark in the history by Moskau, a classic example of Disco genre and de facto song of the 1980 Moscow Olympic games. Though in the midst of Cold War this song seemed more mocking than praising, today thousands of young Russians live their lives to the fullest with it!

We had a Beta-max copy of the English version of Moscow, and not to mention that the song was one of my pre-school favorites:

My other favorite song of theirs is Hadschi Halef Omar, or Hajji Caliph Omar, who is a fictitious character in German stories. The funny thing is that in the middle of the song they praise Muhammad, but apparently back then the world was a less radical place to incite an outrage by zealous Muslims!

It was a time of joy and nostalgia when few weeks ago I rediscovered them on YouTube, and it seems I am not the only one on YouTube with such feelings. In fact, YouTube has caused a new rise of the old band, reflected on the high demand for Dschinghis Khan's CD's on Amazon. So it may be true to say that Chingis Khan still rules!

Happy Norouz

!نوروز مبارک

The Last King of Scotland

I had read, here and there, few citations to Idi Amin, but never been really into his character. So it was not surprising that first I thought the Last King of Scotland had to be a movie like Braveheart. With this assumption, the teaser looked strange, but I didn't get it, at a glance. Then Forest Whitaker won a Golden Globe for his excellent acting, and boom! It was a movie about Idi Amin?!

The last King of Scotland may not be the best dramatization of 2006, but I love it! It has all the elements that my favorite movie should have. A mixture of fiction and historical reality, in 70s'. Adventurous playboyish mind, in one of the darkest spots of the history, tied up with a murderous buffoon. If Munich was my last year most favorite, the credit will go to the King for 2006.

Note: Idi Amin, the former despotic president of Uganda, claimed himself the king of Scotland!

DC Comics Super Heros

Recalling my childhood stamp-collecting mania, today I found a treasure in the post office!

Apocalypto

Apocalypto is the latest of Mel Gibson's history-inspired movies. When the previous two, Braveheart  and the Passion of the Christ  seem to be more faithful to the historical context, Apocalypto tends more toward fantasy, as if the director is Quentin Tarantino, and the movie is a Mayan-era version of Kill Bill!

The screenplay is not obliged to follow natural rules and historical events. The movie starts with this quote form Will Durant:

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

But when it is expected to see how the civilization is destroying itself, it is shown how that civilization is destroying uncivilized hunter-gatherers nearby. These hunters seem to live at one or two days walking distance from the Mayan capital, but ironically they have not heard anything about the Mayan city, made with stones and bricks, except in old legendary stories! Aparantly the hunters speak the same language as the Mayans, but they haven't heard anything about Mayan sacrificing ritual until the time of being sacrificed! Also, it could be useful to consult an expert about the duration of a total eclipse, which in this movie it was about only 5 minutes from the very beginning of the partial eclipse! Watching this part reminds me of a famous scene in one of Tin Tin's adventures, in Prisoners of the Sun; considering the popularity of Tin Tin stories among 30-40 years-old generation of Iranians, my speculation of the origin of this part becomes more valid when we notice that one of the writers, Frahad Safinia, has a Persian name. To be fair, I think as his first major work, he has done a good job, but only in thrilling. 

In general, Apocalypto is a thrilling movie and bold enough to show unveiled violence scenes. However it fails to express its intended message, I assume, the Durant's quote.

Blood Diamond

I haven't watched the Departed or Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, but Blood Diamond has been my best movie catch so far in 2006.  It is a thrilling movie, but since the filmmakers want to be responsible and informative, sometimes it seems lengthy. It has a high level of violence, but still it doesn't unveil it all, just mentioning the extremes, but not explicitly showing it; for example when Danny Archer (DiCaprio) tells Maddy Brown (Connelly) about his own tragedy that how his mother was raped and killed and his father was decapitated by Zimbabwean freedom fighters, in his land, Rhodesia.   

Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly have excellent performances in this movie, although Jennifer Connelly is way too beautiful to be a journalist traveling to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, or rebel-controlled Liberia, or Bosnia. I think her character in the story could be expanded more. Here, one of the weaknesses of the story is how suddenly Maddy Brown falls in love with Archer. 

The writers have assumed a high level of responsibility, to not sacrifice their message just for more thrilling. Sometimes the movie seems to be so direct-pointing as in a documentary about the blood diamonds.  I think this movie, however, has been effective enough that the next time when someone wants to buy a diamond ring to think twice and probably ask if it is not from Sierra Leon or Liberia.

the Fountain

What if a man lives forever, in his solitude, in the grief of his lost beloved one?

The Fountain is about love, eternity and death. It is a torture for the first one hour and more, but in its finale, the last 15 minutes, it becomes an amazing visual narrative for the conclusion of all abstract concepts and scattered lines shown before. For this reason, I highly recommend watching the movie in a theater if you are interested enough to follow its swirling plots to the end. Patience is the key to enjoy this movie, like the one to enjoy a piece of classical music. Otherwise, probably you would have the same idea as the guy on the back row, when in the end he said "what the f*** happened?!"

Am I interested in watching it again? Sure, but with the one whom I love. I need to hold her hand firmly and kiss as the movie goes on.