Well tonight I was supposed to post a review of the movie Sherlock Holmes since I went to see it but due to an unforeseen event I had to leave the theater before the movie finished. I had watched around an hour or more of the movie before I left and it was scoring a 3.5 out of 5 with me. There wasn’t much going on and when there was it wasn’t anything as exciting as in the trailers. But, Nat who stayed and watched the movie till the end told me it actually picked up and got a lot more exciting after I left. So I guess I have to finish watching it some other time…
Last night I went and watched Avatar in 3D at the movies here in Lebanon. I’ve been trying to watch it the past few nights but it’s always sold out except for yesterday when I managed to find two seats empty.. first row on the left. Horrible location but I figured if it was really bad I could just walk out and come back another time.
It was the first time I watch a movie in 3D, actually the second time since the first was JAWS when it was released in Cinema Salmiya back in the early 80s. I wasn’t looking forward to wearing 3D glasses and actually wanted to watch Avatar in 2D because of the stupid glasses but it was only showing in 3D so I didn’t have a choice. That turned out to be a good thing.
I loved the movie and I loved the 3D. 3D theater technology has come a long way since JAWS that’s for sure. Even though I was sitting on the first row and to the side I still managed to enjoy the movie and the 3D effects. I had a major neck cramp by the end of the movie and I really wished I was sitting in a better location but that still didn’t change the fact that this movie is EPIC. I wasn’t expecting to be impressed since from the trailers the movie looked normal but honestly the trailer doesn’t do it any justice. You need to watch the movie on a big screen and you NEED to watch it in 3D.
I heard that Cinescape is having technical problems with Avatar in 3D and so they’re only playing the 2D version for now. I think I read on Gizmodo that a lot of theaters worldwide are having similar technical issues so its really not their fault. I personally think you should wait until they fix their problem and then watch it in 3D. It would be a shame to watch it in 2D especially if you haven’t watched any 3D movie before because this would be the perfect one to start with.
I didn’t have any problems with the movie, nothing to complain about. The story was great, the length was perfect and passed by quickly, the movie was just perfect. The final score is a 5 out of 5. Keep in mind I watched this movie from the worse location possible so everyone else should have a much better experience. [YouTube]
Here is the calendar for Cinemagic’s rooftop movie nights for December:
Thursday, December 3rd at 7:00 PM BRODRE, DENMARK 2004
Director: Susan Bier
Genre: Drama | 146 min | English Subtitle
Saturday, December 5th at 7:00 PM COUSCOUS, TUNISIA 2007
Director: Abdellatif Kecheiche
Genre: Drama | 148 min | English Subtitle
Thursday, December 10th at 7:00 PM DEATH NOTE – THE LAST NAME, JAPAN 2007
Director: Shusuke Kaneko
Genre: Adventure | Mystery | 141 min | English Subtitle
Saturday, December 19th at 7:00 pm UN CONTE DE NOEL, FRANCE 2008
Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Genre: Drama | 150 min | English Subtitle
Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. Attendance is free of charge and snacks and refreshments will be served.
Stephen King is writing a sequel to The Shining and it will be based 40 years later and focus around Danny (the young boy from the original). I haven’t read the original book but loved the movie so not sure how I feel about a sequel since the first question that pops up into my mind is who would direct it if it ever got turned into a movie? The original was directed by Stanley Kubrick who passed away back in 1999. [Link]
I got the following email today with a link to the trailer above:
I’m one of the people who are working on a Kuwaiti film, and we would love to post the trailer on your blog so we can get feedback from the viewers before we move to the next step of production. We are a group of Kuwaiti youth who are interested in Film-making and cinema. We are trying to make serious Kuwaiti films, but since we are doing it ourselves and without any form of support, we need all the help that we can get.
I really like the fact that more and more people in Kuwait are getting interested in film and it’s great these guys took the time to work on this movie. But, I am going to give my opinion now on this trailer and I will try not to be too harsh. I just watched the trailer and found it too long and unexciting. There also is a ton of cheap special effects and the whole thing looks like a B-rated Ramadan TV series. Now I know they didn’t have any form of support and I am guessing no budget but why think of an epic movie that would need a budget and cast equal to Lord of the Rings? They should have gone with a movie that focused more on the story and characters instead of the special effects and large battle scenes. The film Sharq for example focused around a handful of characters, no special effects and no expensive hard to shoot locations.
Now that I’m done giving my opinion whats yours? [YouTube]
Cinemagic’s rooftop movie nights are starting again now that the weather is getting cooler. Here is their schedule of upcoming movies:
Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 07:00 p.m THE BANISHMENT, RUSSIA 2007
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Genre: Drama | 146 min | English Subtitle
Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 07:00 p.m LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, SWEDEN 2008
Director: Thomas Alfredson
Genre: Drama | 115 min | English Subtitle
Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 07:00 p.m
SURPRISE FILM
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 07:00 p.m DEATH NOTE 1, JAPAN 2006
Director: Shusuke Kaneko
Genre: Adventure | Mystery | 126 min | English Subtitle
Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. Attendance is free of charge and snacks and refreshments will be served.
Just found out about this movie called Mr. Sadman and I can’t wait to watch it. Here is the synopsis:
In 1990, before the First Gulf War, Mounir, an impressionable and sheltered Saddam Hussein body-double, loses his job and moves to Los Angeles in search of a new start. But once the real Saddam invades Kuwait and makes international headlines, Mounir learns the truth about the Iraqi dictator and vows to shed his Saddam persona forever. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know how to be anyone else.
Here is the link to the Mr. Sadman website where you can buy and download the movie for just $8! [Link]
Abdulaziz from Jukebox Society emailed me to tell me that the short film SHARQ is now available to watch online via Vimeo. I never got the chance to watch it so it’s pretty cool I can see it online now.
Most of you know Cinemagic from their weekly rooftop movie nights but it turns out they’ve also got a small movie theater that they rent out. They originally called me because they wanted to participate in the giveaways last month but since I didn’t have any more space left I told them I would post about them anyway because their theater sounded interesting. They’re located near my house so I went to check the place out and was pretty impressed at how cool their set up was. They’re using the $100,000 Sony SRX-R110 4K cinema projector which is very cool, they had a movie playing when I was there and it looked amazing.
The theater has 12 comfortable reclining leather seats and they provide you with free drinks and munchies . You can rent the theater to watch live television so if there is a football match or a UFC fight you could watch it there. You could also rent out the theater to play xbox or PS3 games, they have both consoles just bring your own game. Finally they have both an HD-DVD and Blu-ray player with hundreds of Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies for you to choose from.
They have two rental prices, non peak and peak prices. Non peak price is KD96 for 3 hours while the peak price is KD144 for 3 hours. So if you are 12 guys thats KD8 per person during non peak hours and KD12 per person during peak hours. If you’re interested visit their website [Here].
For those of you who don’t know about their rooftop screenings you could also visit their website for more information on that.
