Watched bits of "Captain Phillips" today. Not very politically correct: a bunch of starved, barefoot, stupid-as-hell Somali pirates overcome Tom Hanks (the epitome of the good white American). White criminals in American films are so sexy, so brilliant, so clever and so relatable. But Somali pirates are the worst caricatures of white impressions of Africa. Why would we want to see innocent white folks being tortured by bad African gangs? Is that the only story that can come out of that side of the world? Really? Somalia is a very complex story of the failure of the nation state and that's the movie they make? How Somali pirates affect white captains? It really shows the limits of mainstream Hollywood.
I also watched “Arrival” by chance. I was browsing in the aisles of Video Con at F-10 Markaz and picked it up absent mindedly. It’s a fantastic sci-fi movie, extremely philosophical, which is the true soul of sci-fi films. I think “Arrival" is in the same class of “Sphere” and “Contact,” extremely amazing films imagining first contact with alien civilisations.
On that note, I hope the Academy Awards have decided to award the Best Film to “I am not your Negro” for God’s sake already. Need a strong, political film for the most prestigious award: not some fluffy movie or not another epic within the usual unimaginative epic parameters.
I haven’t seen “La la land” . It looks really stupid. Even from the trailer, you can’t understand how the heck it is in the runnings for a prestigious film award.
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