Ajami

Ajami is an amazing film. The range of emotions I felt truly ran the gamut. When will America make films that have matter and make you feel? Films, movies, cinema is not just about substance, it is about creating dynamic and broad cinematic images and storytelling that inform and entertain all at once.

Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film 2009, Ajami, is the story of families, clans, gangsters, policemen and friendships on the West Bank's Jaffa neighborhood. After their uncle shoots an important clan member, 13-year-old Nasri (Fouad Habash) and his older brother, Omar (Shahir Kabaha), finds their entire family and lives in danger. While members of the community struggle to negotiate a peace agreement Omar employs the assistance of his friend Malek (Ibrahim Frege) and takes things into his own hands.

Ajami is an important film from the region, as it is modern. It unfolds and tells of the social issues, family bonds and day to day struggle in a world which seems to only know the international turmoils when at the end of the day there are real people living on the West Bank. The West Back is a mixture of cultures and diverse views from Muslins, Jews and Christians.

Afterall Ajami is a neighborhood - a vibrant international community you can visit thanks to filmmakers Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti.

The Kids Are All Right

"The Kids Are All Right" is a Lisa Cholodenko film. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are Nic and Jules, are a lesbian couple with two kids. The teens share a biological father via an anonymous sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo). Their family life is unexotic, unglamorous and totally routine like most American families until daughter Joni (Mia Wasikowska), having turned 18, gets in touch with their biological father. And there begins a hollywood film with smart dialogue and great acting.

It's a movie about basic things, about the meaning of family and the vulnerability of families. I wish it was about the complexity of relationships. The evolution of family not basic things. I wanted to be taken for a ride. I wanted to see something other than a movie. It is a good movie. But in the end it was like any other accept some people were acting gay.

35 Shots or Rum

Silent waters run deep in Claire Denis' serene drama 35 Shots of Rum. 35 Shots focuses on four inhabitants of a French apartment building centering most on Lionel (Alex Descas). The stoic Lionel, a train engineer, shares his apartment with his daughter Jo (Mati Diop). The two other characters and potential mates are their neighbors Gabrielle (Nicole Dogué), a taxi, and mysterious and sexy Noé (Grégoire Colin).

The characters build boxes around themselves, mistaking their private shelter for safety. Breaking out relies on finding a balance between old and new, and in having the guts to knock down the walls and really change.

See just how many shots it takes to get out on your own or coupled. Great film.

The Watermelon Woman

Cheryl Dunye's debut feature film The Watermelon Woman is so entertaining. It is so original, so smart, so funny and so indie.

The Watermelon Woman is the story of a budding young Black lesbian filmmaker, Cheryl, in Philadelphia struggling to make a documentary about Fae Richards, a beautiful and elusive 1930s black film actress known as "The Watermelon Woman."

While uncovering the untold history of the fictional Fae Richards, Cheryl's personal life is subject to the comic yet biting criticism of her best friend, Tamara, when Cheryl meets and engages in a relationship with a white lesbian.

Get yourself a slice and cool out with The Watermelon Woman.

Brother Outsider - The Life of Bayard Rustin

If you know Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr or Malcolm X then you should know who Bayard Rustin is. Bayard Rustin was an advisor to Dr. King. Rustin was not only an organizer of the historic Civil Rights March on Washington, DC, Rustin was the architect of the legendary march and the place where Dr.King delivered one of the most celebrated speeches in the history of spoken language.

Brother Outsider - The Life of Bayard Rustin is an amazing documentary of another invisible man - an openly Black gay American man who championed the civil rights movement for all of us. This documentary outlines and unfolds the life of a man who truly was ahead of his time and a real visionary. Long before Dr. King and Rosa Parks, Bayard Rustin sat down on a bus and refused to abandon his principles and morals in order to allow a white person to sit.

Bayard Rustin's invisible presence is what continues to set us all back as a nation by selecting not to recognized the truth. The truth is Bayard Rustin is an unsung American hero we have selected to forget, chose not to remember or honor mostly because he was not heterosexual. Times are changing. Today we can examine outsiders' input to shaping a better nation and world.

Bayard Rustin is definitely someone to know and Brother Outsider - The Life of Bayard Rustin is the perfect introduction.

Arranged

Just watched an amazing film - Arranged. What a delight! How did Arranged not garner tons of indie press and awards? The acting alone was stellar. Arranged is about two first-year teachers in the classroom in Brooklyn, NY. One is Orthodox Jewish and the other is Muslim.

When a kid in their classroom question whether a Jew and a Muslim can be friends, the two women are thrust into a new friendship. A friendship with more in common than not. The bond builds as they are both in the process of arranged marriages right in Brooklyn.

Future stars, Zoe Lister-Jones and Francis Benhamou, shine as young first generation Americans balancing culture, ethnicity, self-identity, family, gender and career with the more Americanized idea of diversity. Definitely a film Hollywood will remake with bigger names and less genuine.

I love this film and so will you - arrange to see it.

Women Without Men

For me, summer is always the worst time to enjoy the movie going experience. With tentpoles and blockbusters, it's like finding depth in Jerry Bruckheimer creation, direction in a Michael Mann vehicle or vision in a Ron Howard piece.

Imagine my delighted to find Women Without Men. Women WIthout Men is an Iranian film directed by Iranian woman (Shirin Neshat) following the lives of several women in 1950s Iran during the 1953 American CIA coup of the democratically elected government of Iran, based on the novel of the same name from Shahrnush Parsipur.

The women without men are four (4) women whose story interconnect through their treatment by Iran men, family, society and their journeys and retreat to an orchard, accessed by a broad and empty road, with a magical garden without men.

One women is Zarin, a young prostitute. Zarin runs away from a brothel and is later seen furiously rubbing her body raw in a public bath. She speaks not a single word in the whole movie, and that is the most effective condemnation of the society in which she lives and thus creates a powerful presence.

It is a very beautiful movie and shot wondrously. There are a few scenes where I was in awe of the cinematography. The acting is superb. The casting is right. The storytelling unfolds gradually and without condemnation.

Although I wonder what life and the world would be like with: MEN WITHOUT OIL AND WOMEN and perhaps ego.