2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Yesterday I booked my tickets for Oppenheimer so I could watch it when it’s released this Thursday. The film was shot in the IMAX format and so thats the recommended way of viewing it. The only cinema I found that will be showing Oppenheimer in the IMAX format in Kuwait is Cinescape at Al-Kout Mall. If you’re thinking but VOX are showing it in their MAX theater, well that’s not IMAX. MAX is just what VOX calls their large screens, but they’re not IMAX screens. I also asked Scientific Center if they’ll be showing Oppenheimer since they have the largest IMAX screen in Kuwait, but according to them they don’t have any plans to do so at the moment.

So if you want to watch Oppenheimer, the best theater is the IMAX one at Cinescape at Al Kout. Obviously make sure you book the IMAX theater and not the Standard or Eleven theater.

Contrary to rumors, Oppenheimer is not banned in Kuwait. Even though it’s not listed on the local cinema websites (as of this post), I just got confirmation that Oppenheimer is in-fact still launching this weekend.

If you want to book tickets for the first showings, according to Cinescape they will start selling tickets today before 3:30PM. So keep checking their website.

Update: Tickets are now on sale.

When I was a kid growing up in the 80s I got into the hobby of stamp collecting before eventually losing interest and moving on to videos games, music and the internet. Jasem on the other hand started collecting stamps when he was 10 and hasn’t stopped since.

I’ve know Jasem for nearly 20 years and although I knew he was into stamps, I didn’t realize how deep he was into this hobby until just a couple of weeks ago. Turns out he’s the largest stamp collector in Kuwait and one of the largest in the Middle East having over 400,000 stamps, and thats not counting duplicates!

When I first walked into his archive, a room with back to back shelves filled with stamp folders, my jaw dropped. The shelves were organized by country and in alphabetical order but there were also more focused folders revolving around themes like JFK, Oil & Gas, Chess, Flowers and more.

I had him pull out his Kuwait folders so I could go through some of Kuwait’s first stamps. One thing I discovered was that before Kuwait had their own stamps they used to overprint British and Indian stamps. Basically they were standard British and Indian stamps that they would overprint the word KUWAIT on them. Kuwait launched their own stamps in 1959 but used rupees until the Kuwaiti dinar was established as a currency in 1961. Jasem has all four kinds of those stamps, Indian and British overprints as well as the first Kuwait stamps in rupees and the first Kuwait stamps in dinars after. They’re incredibly interesting to see since they’re part of Kuwait’s history.

Thats one thing I love about stamps, a properly organized stamp collection is like a picture history book since every important part of a countries history would have been released as a stamp.

I asked Jasem what he was planning to do with his continuously growing collection but as of now he doesn’t have any plans. At the moment he’s just collecting while also trading and selling stamps he doesn’t need. Eventually I imagine he’s going to display them somehow for the public. When I was in Bahrain last year I passed by the Bahrain Post Museum and they had a small curated collection of rare stamps which were really interesting to go through. Hopefully he ends up setting something up like that, at least for the Kuwait stamps since I’m sure a lot of people who love to see them.

If you want to find out more about Jasem you can check out his website jasemali.com

Devil’s Advocate, Netflix’s third Kuwaiti Project (the other two being The Exchange and The Cage) was released this past weekend and is now available to stream on the platform. The 7 episode drama revolves around a football player accused of murdering his wife, and a determined defense lawyer who defies popular sentiment and takes on the case.

I haven’t watched the show yet but as of this post it’s rated pretty high on IMDB with a 7.7 rating and is currently ranked #1 in TV Shows Today on Netflix. The series in Arabic but has English subtitles.

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
One True Loves (5.4)

Other Movies Showing:
Elemental (6.8)
Fast X (6.2)
Guy Ritchie’s the Covenant (8.5)
Hidden Strike (5.8)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (6.9)
Insidious: The Red Door (6.3)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (8.2)
The Flash (7.3)
The Little Mermaid (7.2)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (7.4)
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (6.5)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Ocean’s Eleven (7.7)
Lady and the Tramp (7.3)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Back in February I drove down to Riyadh to watch the Jake Paul vs Tommy Fury fight and I had a blast. I thought I posted about my experience but seems like I didn’t for some reason. It was such a well put together event and I ended up getting really great VIP seats for not so much money. It also gave me access to the premium hospitality area where there was lots of food, a terrace to watch the fights from if I wanted to but it also allowed me to be up close to the fighters during their walkouts. The fights were great, the venue was great, everything about that trip was perfect.

A few days ago Tyson Fury, the world heavyweight champion announced that he will be boxing UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou this coming October in Riyadh. I’m assuming it’s going to be held in the same open air venue as the Jake Paul fight and I’m 100% going to try and get tickets for this fight once they go on sale.

If you want a great experience this October, as I said last time, Riyadh is just a short 6-hour drive down. My VIP ticket last time cost me 60KD and it was really really worth it but tickets last time started from just 15KD. Tickets aren’t on sale yet but I’ll repost once they are.

Not sure if anyone noticed but the LED mesh around the Kuwait Towers has been replaced with solid green and red colored lights now. Back in 2015 when they first installed the LED mesh I suggested they should be kept permanently since it gave a Blade Runner look. But I take that back now, I think I prefer it without the wraparound screens but I wish they go back to the way things were originally with just a simple neutral light instead of the red and green.

Fatcap is a new restaurant that opened in Kuwait City and is focused on char-grilled food. They currently have two cheeseburgers available, the Fatcap Burger with a marrownaise sauce, and an OG burger with mustard, ketchup, and pickles. There are also various sides to choose from including farm fries, cajun fries, sweet potato fries, and onion rings. Finally, they also have a nostalgic chocolate cake for dessert.



I hadn’t tried a new burger place in such a long time so I was pretty excited to try Fatcap. A friend at work had been telling me about their burgers for some time because of their killer marrownaise sauce. He wasn’t wrong, I tried both their burgers and it was hard to pick a favorite. 



The restaurant is located in Sharq, right next to Bao and Lavan (Google Maps). It’s a cute place with around 7 tables and plenty of parking. Because they’re focusing on quality they don’t have delivery only dine-in and pick-up. They’re open daily from noon till 11:30PM. Closed on Sundays.


Check them out @eatfatcap

Theres now a new dining seating area in the Kuwait Airway terminal T4. It opened on the ground floor across from Shake Shack and is meant to serve everyone and not a specific restaurant.

One thing I’d love to see at T4 is an automated bag drop off station. It’s super easy to print out boarding passes from the various machines around the airport but if you’re carrying any sort of luggage that you need to check in, you still end up having to wait in a long line with people who haven’t checked in.

Last night I finished watching the last episode of The Idol on HBO and I loved it. It stars Johnny Depp’s daughter Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn and The Weeknd as Tedros, both of which are the main characters on the show. The Idol is also created and directed by Sam Levinson who was behind the other great (and controversial) HBO series Euphoria. He’s the reason why I watched this show since I was a huge fan of Euphoria and wanted to see more of his work.

The Idol is a drama series about Jocelyn, a pop star aiming to reclaim her fame after a breakdown. Her life takes a turn when she meets Tedros, a nightclub owner with a dark past. The show explores her journey in the music industry and personal life.

The Idol is disturbing. It isn’t a show you binge watch since you want time between the episodes to just recharge. The Weeknd’s character “Tedros” is also the worst, a lot of people have said he’s a bad actor but I don’t think thats true, I think they just really really hate his character and it’s The Weeknd’s acting that brings it to life. And I’m not saying that because I’m a fan of his or anything, I actually didn’t care much for him before this show and I even only realized now while writing this post that it’s actually written The Weeknd and not The Weekend.

If you check the shows rating on IMDB it actually has a 5 out of 10 rating which is pretty terrible. But that’s understandable, so ignore it. The show isn’t for everyone and going through the reviews you can easily spot that. If you have the stomach for it and are willing to plow through the shows 5 episodes, I think you’re in for something really different and great.

MrBeast Burger is a burger concept by the super popular internet personality MrBeast. If you haven’t heard of him, he has over 165 million subscribers on YouTube and is mostly known for his extravagant stunts and challenges videos.

MrBeast Burger is popping up in Kuwait tomorrow (July 7) and for one day only. Talabat will be hosting MrBeast Burger and they’ll be going live around 11AM. Delivery will be to most of Kuwait except for Mangaf, Sabahiya and Jahra.

The burger reviews online are pretty mixed, but based on MrBeasts popularity, I’d assume Talabat are going to be pretty busy tomorrow.

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
Hidden Strike (N/A)
Insidious: The Red Door (6.3)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (N/A)

Other Movies Showing:

Elemental (6.8)
Fast X (6.2)
Guy Ritchie’s the Covenant (8.5)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (6.9)
Kandahar (6.2)
Master Gardener (6.2)
Snatch a Bullet (5.9)
The Flash (7.3)
The Little Mermaid (7.2)
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (6.5)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Ocean’s Eleven (7.7)
The Rock (7.4)
Lady and the Tramp (7.3)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

I’m in love with this photo taken by Ian Caldwell of a random phone box on the side of a dirt road somewhere in the north of Kuwait. He took this photo sometime in the last 60s early 70s and if you look carefully you can see a couple of bedouin tents in the background.

The old abandoned buildings on Fahad Al Salem Street near Salhiya are finally getting demolished (everything highlighted in yellow on the map). They’ve been abandoned for years and they were making the downtown area look really gritty so I’m glad things are moving forward.

I was always hoping they’d get refurbished since when you look at old photos of the street the buildings actually looked great when new. But that wasn’t going to happen and keeping the buildings as is wasn’t going to work either.

I’m not sure if that strip is as sentimental to other people as it is to me. After the 1990 invasion there weren’t that many electronic shops open but there were a bunch on that strip that were. I still remember the night my dad took me there to get my very first sound system with a CD player and then later at various points in the 90s I got a second sound system and a couple of Walkmans.

The buildings on that strip have been around since the 60s and were considered really modern back when they were built. So I went through my archives and dug up my favorite photos of the street to celebrate what was at one point in time, a bustling commercial and cultural hub for the country.

Onus is a glass installation by Kuwaiti visual artist Monira Al Qadiri. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw the pictures and read the story behind it.

During the Gulf War, dead birds, fish, and animals regularly lined the coastline and deserts because of the massive toxic clouds fed by hundreds of torched oil wells. When images of these oil-drenched animals were shared in the news, many people thought they were fake and just propaganda. Monira learned of this misconception while she was studying at university in Japan and so Onus is her way of breathing life back into her memories by recreating these oil-drenched birds as glass objects.

If you’re in Berlin, Monira’s work is currently on display at the Koenig Galerie. If you want to see more of her work online, check out her Instagram @moniraism or website moniraalqadiri.com