I was fortunate enough to be able to spend some time during Ramadan in Egypt and had time to see only one of the many movies that had been released. After listening to several critiques it appeared that the general consensus was that ‘H-Daboor’ which stars Ahmed Mekky was a must see. But when I went to see it I was surprised, and it wasn’t a pleasant surprise.

It appears that for some reason the producers and writers decided to incorporate some very disturbing language without even warning viewers!Worse still was the fact that they introduced creative and catchy ways of presenting the insults so even the children in the movie were walking out saying them not understanding what these words meant.

The plot itself was not so interesting and a little to cliché and cheesy for my liking!

By Karim

Related:
- H Daboor Trailer [Video]
- Ked3an Tayebean Music Video [From H Daboor Soundtrack]

Last Saturday, we went on an adventure with Indiana Jones to the Temple of Doom in India.
It wasn't fun having to sit at a banquette of beatles, worms, eyeball soup and chilled monkey brains! I assure you!
This Saturday MBC 2 will be taking us on another adventure with Dr. Indy.
This time it's The Last Crusade, when Indy goes on a quest to find his father who is looking for the Holy Grail!
Harrison Ford and Sean Connery team up and head to the amazing rose city Petra for some of the most amazing scenes of the Indiana Jones Trilogy.
At that time (1989) the movie's budget was a whopping $36 million and the crew traveled the world! In addition to shooting scenes in Jordan, they did Spain, London, West Germany, Venice, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah over the course of six months.

On the occasion of the release of the latest installment of Indiana Jones: The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull on May 22nd, MBC 2 has decided to air the original Indiana Jones trilogy.
Last Saturday, we saw Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is the first Indy movie released in 1981.
This Saturday, MBC 2 will air the second Indy movie; The Temple of Doom, which was released back in 1984.

In The Temple of Doom, Dr. Indiana Jones is back as he teams up with a night club singer and a 12 year old named Short Round. They end up in an Indian village, where the people believe evil spirits have taken their children away after a sacred stone was stolen. Indiana agrees to try and retrieve the stone for the villagers.

I don’t know how many of you will have seen the trailer for the new Egyptian movie ‘Heena Maysara’ but it sure has sparked a huge controversy in nearly every part of the Arab world. For those of you who haven’t seen the trailer it includes quite a sexual scene between two women- Ghada Abdel Razek and Somaya El Khashab. This scene was all it took for the movie to go under heavy attack. The thing is homosexuality is present in the Arab world whether or not we like it or are willing to accept it, but should it be the subject of our movies? If you ask me then the answer is yes.

After seeing Ghada Adel’s new movie ‘Khaleeg Na3ma’ (Na3ma Bay) it has become apparent that this highly anticipated movie is yet another copy! Those of you who have seen the 1991 hit ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ will recognize that the plot, story and even some of the scenes from ‘Khaleeg Na3ma’ are exactly the same. The story of ‘Khaleeg Na3ma’ and ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ is that of a woman who is abused by her husband and decides to escape only to fall in love with her dream man later on in the movie.

These are snapshots from the Egyptian movies that are currently playing now.
Snapshots are from the following movies:

Shekemara

Juba

Hina Maysara

Khareg 3an El-Qanun

If you have already watched any of these movies, please let us know what you thought.

I've been hearing a lot about this Captain Abu Raed movie ... it's the 1st ever Jordanian movie.
Why is it important? Because it's the first experience and it stars famous people, like Jordanian tv host Rana Sultan and Jordanian/British actor Nadim Sawalha.
The movie is about an airport janitor, Abu Raed, who pretends he's a pilot to a group of poor kids and mesmerizes them with tales of his globe-trotting.
The $2million-movie was financed by setting up a private equity fund called Paper & Pen Films with donations from wealthy Jordanian businessmen.
The director is 31-year-old Amin Matalqa; a young Jordanian director who studied at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. This guy is really a creative dude! He's got a bunch of short films that are well made and funny! You can check them out here.
Back to Abu Raed, the movie made it's debut at the Dubai International Film Festival and will also make its US debut at the famous Sundance Festival! Ya! Kudos to ya Amin!
If you live in Jordan, then you can catch the movie at Zara, Galleria and Grand cinemas in Amman in February.

It is now common knowledge that Adel Imam is planning to make a movie where he plays the role of a priest. However, before he plays such a controversial part and presents the topic of religious terrorism in Egypt he must receive permission from religious authorities. There were speculations recently about whether or not Pope Shenouda III would actually give Adel the go ahead especially that the movie has Christian terrorists.

Recently when I was visiting Egypt I couldn’t help but notice the numerous Pepsi adverts with ‘Bahr El Nujoom’ all over them and I had no idea what they were for! Well it seems Pepsi is producing a movie titled ‘Bahr El Nujoom’ which will star the famous ‘Nujoom Pepsi’ which include Carole Samaha and Hayfa. Good news is this project is very much underway as Carole Samaha began shooting her scenes from the movie this Monday. I for one do not know the actually story of the movie but with the sheer number of loved and famous singers in it I am sure it will do great.

Recently a Board of artists that included directors ,such as Sameer Seif, actors such as Layla Elwi, and writers such as Mohammed Salmawi was put together to choose a film that it so represent Egypt at the Oscars. After viewing around 40 movies, ‘Shaket Masr El Gedeeda’ (In the Heliopolis Flat) was chosen by this board to compete in the ‘Best Foreign Movie’ category at this years Oscars. ‘Shaket Masr El Gedeeda’ which stars Khaled Abu EL Naga, Ghada Adel and Ahmed Rateb is mainly about the search of love and its meaning.

Nearly all Egyptian residents will have heard of radio presenter Osama Moneer also known as the ‘Midnight presenter’ well he is suing the producers of ‘Amr W Salmah’ which stars Tamer Hosny. Those who have seen the movie will have realized that Osama’s voice is used in the movie and his name even appears in the credits, however, according to Osama he did not give permission for his voice to be used and so he is suing the producers for 2 million E.P. Osama’s voice seems to be a fad this Summer as his voice appeared in Adel Emam’s ‘Morgan Ahmed Morgan’ and Ahmed Helmy’s ‘Keda Reda’.

Recently Nicole Saba finished filming her new and upcoming movie ‘Ameleyat Khasa’ (Special Operations) in which she plays Wimia, an Egyptian CIA official! Nicole is joined in this movie by Ameer Kararah, Nabeel Isa, Tamer Hagras, Khaled Seleem and the prominent Egyptian actor Hussein Fahmy. This is also the first time that Khaled Seleem appears in a movie as only an actor and not a singer so this may well be a challenge for him.

Recently there was a series titled ‘El Cinderella’ that told the story of Soad Hosny’s life and now an unknown writer has decided to make a movie not about her life but about her death! This movie will come to the public in the form of a police action production and will require quite a large budget especially that it will be filmed in London in the same apartment where Soad Hosny allegedly threw herself from the porch! The writer of this movie which is titled ‘Ser El Shorfa’ (Secret of the Balcony) says that due to the controversial topic he has found no one to finance this movie but he is willing to pay for it with money from his own pocket.

Ayman El Halawani a manager at Rotana Cinema Production Company told reporters that this summer Rotana is entering the cinema competition with ‘Andaleeb El Doky’! This movie stars Mohammed Henedy, Dawood Hussein Amr Abdel Jaleel and Syrian actress Heba Noor. ‘Andaleeb El Doky’ will be airing in cinemas next Tuesday and Rotana claims to have provided every facility possible to ensure that audiences worldwide will be blown away. Ayman El Halawani said that Rotana stopped at nothing and filmed most of the movie in Dubai and using a brand new type of camera that has never been used before in the Arab World.