Tag Archives: films

Baha'i related, Humour

Omid Djalili interview in The Independent

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Below is a link to an interview with Omid Djalili , star of 9th April comedy release “The Infidel” in which he plays a Muslim who discovers he is a Jew by birth.

“Omid Djalili is contemplating taking his clothes off. Well, not right now, as we’re sitting in a busy restaurant near his house in leafy East Sheen and that would be extreme behaviour, even by his standards. No, he’s talking about…” [read on:  Omid Djalili: ‘I’m cast as the Arab scumbag’ – Features, Films – The Independent.]


Omid Djalili, who had his own two-series comedy show on BBC1, can currently be seen on British television fronting adverts for moneysupermarket.com, which are reported to have brought the company great success.

Omid Djalili is also among a big line-up of comedians appearing at Channel 4’s Comedy Gala at the O2 in London on March 30th in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Baha'i related

Feature Film of Mona’s Story in the Making

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Jack Lenz is producing a feature film about the life of Mona Mahmudnizhad and her family. Mona was arrested at the age of sixteen for teaching children who had been expelled from school because of their religious beliefs. Mona and nine other Baha’i women were then executed after refusing to deny their religion and become Muslims.

Farkhundeh Mahmudnizhad

The latest news relating to the production can be found on the Mona’s Dream website. They are currently at the casting stage and Shohreh Aghdashloo, who starred in House of Sand and Fog and 24 (Day 4) has agreed to play Mona’s mother, Farkhundeh Mahmudnizhad.The web site includes short profiles of each of the ten women martyrs of Shiraz, including Mona and Shirin (my wife Ladan’s aunt) and includes several beautiful pieces of music written about their and Mona’s sacrifice. You can also view Doug Cameron’s video of “Mona and the Children” on the site.

Links:
Mona’s Dream
Hanged for Teaching “Sunday School”
A Dress for Mona
Persecution of the Baha’is in Iran

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007 Confusion

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The film’s an error, a continuity error.

I’ve always enjoyed the Bond series of movies but when Pierce Brosnan was swapped for Daniel Craig I started having my doubts over whether or not I wanted to see the next movie.

The problem I first had was that the new bond did not have the same cool, collected yet highly aware persona of the previous Bonds, but that concern was soon lessened by the revelation that Daniel Craig is playing in a prequel (Casino Royale) to the other James Bond films and therefore he can have a much rougher character.

Ofcourse, this makes Casino Royale a different kind of 007 movie from all the others, because we are watching a man still learning the ropes as a 00 agent, rather than Britain’s top ranking secret agent that James Bond has become for the rest of the movies.

I have watched the trailers get better at www.casinoroyalemovie.com, trying to convince myself that it could be a good film, perhaps a film that shows the mental torment that built Bond to be what he became, but watching the trailer has left me unconvinced and I have suffered having to see Daniel Craig come out of the sea in his swimming trunks several times (apparantly he’s already winning a gay following for the next Bond film).

But what most bothers me about the new bond film is that they haven’t made it easy to accept Daniel Craig as the new Bond because the decision to have a prequel – that might have justified having a different kind of Bond – throws up continuity errors before the film has even started. The most obvious of which is the role of Judi Dench as M, a character who was introduced as a new M in Goldeneye.

I hate spending good money on a film where the plot doesn’t hold up to scrutiny or a twist is made far too obvious early on, at least we’ve been pre-warned that this film is not going to have the same stunning visual effects and funny one-liners, and we know it doesn’t fit in properly with the series it is supposed to prequel… so can it possibly offer anything that should pull existing fans of the James Bond series into the cinemas?

If you can answer yes, please tell me why.

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Review: Blockbuster DVDs by Post

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It’s some years since Mailbox Movies started DVD rentals by post in the UK, now there are loads of companies offering the same kind of service and I have set out to review a couple of them.

DVD rentals by post work on a monthly fee basis. Once you have paid your fee you can rent an unlimited number of DVDs per month within the limits of your package. You are sent a number of DVDs in the post and once you have watched them you return them, there is no maximum duration for your rental. Once you have returned the DVDs some new ones are sent out to you. DVDs are chosen by creating a wish list of films to watch, the company then choose DVDs from your list and send them to you, it is often possible to state further priorities within the list. This wish-list system is probably the greatest down-side of all DVD by post monthly subscription services, can you think of 20 films you have a burning desire to watch right now?

With Blockbuster you get a one month free trial, this is twice the length of the trials that most companies offer and each DVD is sent out under separate cover so you can send back the first DVD you watch before watching all the others. Blockbuster boast over 18,000 titles in their catalogue, this sounds impressive but in reality there are a lot of films missing, particularly more artistic or foreign titles. When it comes to maintaining a wish list over a period of time you will soon have seen everything you had a burning desire to watch and the availability of less popular films that you are willing to take a chance on becomes quite important. Compared to some offerings this service does seem to be rather limited to very popular movies and may not satisfy the hungrier movie fanatic. Another drawback of Blockbuster’s service is the turn-around time for getting a new DVD. When you send a DVD back they almost always spend the day of their receipt “processing” your next DVD before sending it out the following, so it takes three to five days to swap a current DVD for your next one. Finally, the ability to specify priority requests in your wish list seems almost counter-productive with DVDs generally beinmg sent from quite far down the list.

Blockbuster are very good with their online accounting, opening and closing accounts is seemless. They have sleeve images for all their videos and user ratings out of 5 (which you can add to) to guide in your decision making process when choosing DVDs.

In summary Blockbuster’s DVD’s by post service is run by professionals and is very easy to use. The speed of processing DVDs could be improved and their library would benefit from being extended. If you want a subscription that will ensure you get to see every popular film at a steady pace and you like the idea of a known brand being in charge then this is a good service. If you want more artistic or foreign films, or a fast turnaround, then this may not be the service for you.

Link: Blockbuster UK DVDs by Post