Inception (2010)

I haven't done a 'movie review' in a while, basically because we've had quite a lot of rubbish recently. Well, either rubbish, or cliches. Gone are the day's of the 90's, with great movies that were actually intelligent, like Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Sixth Sense, and so on. Now all we seem to get is more of the same dumbed down movies, over and over again, and so on for the past decade (sure, there have been a few good movies here and there, but that's all they are, a 'few').

This year seems to have made a comeback, though; is this decade going to be a good one for movies? Shutter's Island at the beginning of the year with it's crazy multiple psychological twist, trailers for Salt showing a clever WTF plotline, and just yesterday, Inception.


Wow. It's not often I sit and watch a movie in the cinema gripping the edge of my seat, dreadfully anticipating the next few seconds. Not often that a movie ends and everyone in the cinema starts clapping.

So what is this Inception business? Well, to actually review the movie without spoilers is kinda tough, and even though it's kind of immune to spoilers (telling you the ending would not take away from the story, as it's the point of 'how they got there', and even if I tell you 'how they got there' it would probably make you more confused) so if you haven't watched it yet, read until the ---Spoilers--- tag below. The movie has a cast that basically drove it to perfection; Michael Caine, Joseph Gordon-Lewitt, Marion Cotillard, and stars the lovely Leonardo DiCaprio, who got famous from the cheesy "I'm the King of the World" scene in Titanic (well, that and getting it on with Kate Winslet in the back of a steamy car). Let's just say back then he was a little, what's the word, soft (Arabic word would be فرخ).


But over the years, he's gone from some young and pansy romantic actor into my top 10 list (along with Al Pacino, De Niro, Brad Pitt, etc), and again that's partly through his mind blowing performances in movies that again, blow your mind; from Gangs of New York, to The Departed, to the recent Shutter's Island, and now this? I must say, we're far off from that little kid back in Titanic.

Inception is basically about dreams, how you can actually enter someone's dreams (through a physical connection while you both sleep), and from there steal hidden ideas and thoughts from their subconscious. DiCaprio plays an expert thief at that game, and along the way is forced to take a pretty tough mission (details of which I can't discuss, see spoiler part below).


The acting was high quality, graphics amazing without making it seem over-done, and the plot-line way above anything you've seen in theatres over the past few years. This being said, it's not a movie most people won't get, but if you are a dumb viewer who can't grasp more than your typical straightforward storyline, don't bother watching this. I counted at least 8 people leaving the cinema half way through the movie. Many others would probably want to watch this a second time due to the complexity and number of levels this movie hits.

I've always had a fascination with dreams, and how the dream world works in comparison to the real world; dreams within dreams, the time aspect of it, controlling your own dreams, or even being aware that you're actually in a dream - I wrote about this a while back, read it here.


It does raise multiple questions about your life, dreams, what is real and what isn't. I would go as far as say that it brings about that same feeling you get when you first watched 'The Matrix'. Everything in the real world seems kind of blurry for a while. And this movie makes you think, oh yes it makes you think. I couldn't find much to fault with it, except that even though the whole thing lasts about two and a half hours, I felt a few parts were rushed, and probably needed a little more development, while others dragged on a little. Overall, this didn't deter much from the enjoyment, I give this a 9/10, a definite must watch and so far the best movie of the year!



-----SPOILERS BELOW------

Okay, now let's get down to the real business! The whole thing was genius; dreams within dreams are concepts that have been explored in movies and cartoons, but the technicalities of getting there, and getting out, such as the kick (feeling of falling) to wake you up, and actually getting someone to sleep in a dream to go into a deeper level of dream, are amazing details thrown in by Nolan. And then the concept of time; i'm sure most of us have realized that a period of time sleeping equals a longer period while dreaming, but the fact that it gets multiplied to years as you go down into a deeper level of dream alone just stopped me there in awe. Wow. The details about dreams in the movie, that Nolan took to a whole new level, were unbelievable.

The details of the scenes was beyond magnificent. Everything to put you in a dream state, from checkered floors (think Alice in Wonderland?), to the Chinese fortress scene, Serbian winter-storm, to the final crumbling city on the beach scene and so on, were perfect to build that whole dream feel.

The architecture of the dreams was unreal. To actually know you can do anything with dreams is one thing, but to go ahead put ideas and labels on that; the hotel scene without gravity, because the higher level of dream was in a falling car, that was genius (I keep using this word, but I have to say, it's the perfect word for this), and then how the music (pre-kick) goes through all the dream levels, and then finally how it goes back and forth between the dream levels, showing you how much time has passed between one, and then between the next. And after going down three dream levels and the shock of saying, let's go down another level? And then another? I really can keep going on and on.

Oh, and on another level (pun?) I loved the quote: "We need to buy all the first class seats" "Oh, okay, I bought the whole airline". Hilarious stuff.

Nolan has created a masterpiece here. Let's just say this is probably the smartest movie to come out of Hollywood for a while now, and with all it's complexities, let's hope to see more of the same. Can this decade bring a new fresh wave of movies back into the cinema? I sure hope so.

Weird World Cup

Well, I must say, it's been a pretty unexpected one this year. Now i'm not really much of a football fan generally, and I don't follow all those English/Spanish/Whatever leagues that everyone else seems to be into. But then again, once every 4 years, the game captures my attention (and seemingly everyone else in the world), including the USA who actually think football is a game you play with your hands (weirdos).

The games didn't start off really great this year though; standards didn't seem very high and the first few matches were pretty uninteresting. And then the heat started, and things started to take off, and something weird started happening. The big teams; the ones you'd expect to see play around the final matches, started being eliminated. Italy, out. France, out. England (ok, objectionable :p), out. And today; BRAZIL. Out. And we're still in quarter finals.

I'm not really a big supporter of the big regular teams that always win. They're predictable, they're kinda boring. I prefer the underdogs. With this year, S. Africa being the host, I wished they would get somewhere, but again they played like crap. The hope for Africa, however, was Ghana, who seemed to do better and better each game. I was rooting for them for a while now, and they've made their way up, even kicking the US out.

The game with Uruguay today was pretty intense, and sadly they lost at the last minute on penalties. Penalties! And there goes the hopes of Africa to win the cup.. Sigh.. For me they represented a nation that's been beaten down time and time again, and a win would have brought the whole continent joy, and maybe even hope. I'm still heartbroken.



Anyway, moving on.. The last few games are on, and with a few more days, who knows who the cup will go to? This year, things don't seem to be what you'd expect. A few more days left till the fever is over, let's watch and see...

City of Life

It's sad to see the state of Arab film production in general; Egypt caters for a lot of it, and unfortunately almost every movie that comes out of there is a comedy that speaks absolutely no message. Gulf movies, on the other hand, if any, come out with deep dramas that are basically extended version of the TV episodes we see in the Gulf; they all seem to deal with loss of morals, divorces, rising property prices, and someone always seems to die in the end. Coupled with a ton of crying & fake make-up.

Over the past two years or so, while working on whatever projects i've been involved in, i've been working more and more on video productions. As a kid i've always been into filming stuff, I was the guy who walked around with the video camera in our family, and I even managed to film a short movie (no real script, and not exactly a high budget feature film, but it existed) when I was 10 or so. It's always been my area of interest, and slowly, i've been putting more thought into producing videos/films that take whatever local topics we have in the Middle East and pushing them out with a globalized edge. It's almost hopeless expecting anybody else to do it, until City of Life came along.

I managed to hear about this movie a little under a year ago from a friend of mine who lives in Dubai. He mentioned his friend who "produced" City of Life. Didn't really pay much attention to it since we were involved in a much more heated discussion about something else, but eventually more and more was being said about it.

Turns out City of Life is a full feature movie filmed right out of Dubai, with an Emirati director/producer. Great. Then I saw the trailer, and I must say, very few trailers I see would actually make me stare in awe. See for yourselves:



Yes, it seems we've finally managed to put out something that could easily be pushed to cinemas around the world. This is a paradigm shift right here, and it has just moved the standards of film making in this region to another level. The movie was released in UAE about 2 months ago, and is out in Bahrain, Oman & Qatar starting on the 24th of June, make sure to catch it, and support Arab talent. For more details on release in Bahrain, as well as links and more info about the the movie, click here.

Filming You N' Eye

Whew what a week; in between rushing for a Social Media conference in Dubai, launching the June issue of the magazine, and a bunch of other projects, i've been working on filming and editing a music video for a hiphop artist out of Kuwait.

Remember Army of One, the first artist group out of the Middle East who actually had the first professional non-conventional music video aired on TV? This video was basically filmed with one of the members (Dub G), although pretty much the whole crew was somewhere or the other in the video. I drove to Kuwait with a few ppl to do the shoot, and they all ended up being in the video.

Anyway, the video was pretty much filmed on no budget, so considering that, take a look at let me know what you think. Most of the scenes were pretty straightforward except the pitbull scene; almost got severely bitten a few times but the actual shot was worth it :p There are a bunch of other 'ammaro Productions' video projects coming up very very soon though, so keep your eyes open!



(Video is embedded here in a compressed size, if you're looking for a better quality version click it and go directly to YouTube, and for even higher quality see the 480p version)

A Cheesy Situation

(Warning; the following post is very superficial, and probably a waste of a good five minutes you could use to do something useful like save the dolphins, finish up some useful work, or randomly browse YouTube)
Subway's always been a great place to get a sandwich. Turkey subs, grilled chicken, roast beef, etc etc, all in a healthy light package (assuming you don't fill the whole thing up with a load of mayonnaise of course).

The one thing that ticks me off about Subway though, (Second Warning: If you're a regular reader of ammaro.com and you're used to my intelligent, witty and clever analysis of major global issues, you probably want to skip this post) is how they lay their cheese down on the sandwich. Subway cheese is, to put it very simply, cut into triangles. Laying triangles opposite each other means that you can literally cover the whole body of the sandwich in cheese, without leaving empty spaces.

Does Subway do that? Noooo. They place all the triangles facing the same way, meaning you get some areas doused in extra cheese, while some are depressingly left without any cheese on at all. (If you have no idea what i'm talking about, keep reading for explanation below. Or stop reading, because this post really is a waste of time). Total Subway #Fail.


I thought I was alone in this depressing realization, but sigh as I may, nothing was to change. I did some online research about why Subway would do such a horrendous thing, and what could be done to persuade the dark corporation that serves healthy meals to change their policy, and I managed to come across this cartoon that made me feel like I, well, belong (and explains very well the situation I was in):


Oh wow, what a day! It turns out that there was actually a group of people who shared the same concerns, and that the Subway cheese problem was actually a global epidemic. Further research came up with conspiracy theories about Subway doing this to get you to spend more...


And even t-shirts that commanded the attention of the situation:


It always feels great to belong.. But.. The situation with Subway didn't change, and as the days, weeks, and months passed, our cause was slowly forgotten.

Until yesterday, when I went into Subway to order a sandwich and I saw this:


:o

It was happening! There was some sort of paradigm shift in the universe, that has caused this Subway to put the cheese on the right way around! :o

What was happening? Are aliens taking over? Was judgment day close and this was a sign of the end? What's the deal???

I decided to quickly do some research to find out, and I came across a bit of fresh air; Yes! Subway have finally submitted, and decided to fix up their sandwich making process, to put the cheese around the right way!! Hurray!!


Life is now much better, things are a lot happier, and I see rainbows again. Thank you to all those who protested the subject and helped make this a reality. On to the next cause, and why KFC doesn't fill their coleslaw containers to the top.

(If you've managed to make it this far, congratulations. Those 5 minutes you could have spent saving the dolphins or whatever are long lost in the midst of time, and you can never, ever have them back. I warned you. Twice.)