entertainmentawardevent:academy awards

Leonard Bernstein : The Making of West Side Story | Medici

▻http://www.medici.tv

In 1985, Leonard Bernstein conducts and records his most popular work, the 1950’s musical West Side Story, for the first time! This multi-prizes winning video leads you behind the scenes during the whole rehearsal and recording process with the Maestro and such iconic singers as José Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa.

West Side Story is perhaps Leonard Bernstein’s best-known work, and one of the most popular musicals of the entire repertoire. The story is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, adapted to the post-war America, where ethnic conflicts grow stronger every day. The musical contains songs that have achieved enormous popularity throughout the world: the “Jet Song,” "America," “Tonight” and “I Feel Pretty.” While the 1985 recording of the score won one Grammy Award, the movie adaptation won no less than ten Academy Awards.

#music #west_side_story #bernstein

U.S. Arabs, Muslims concerned ’American Sniper’ provokes violent threats, hateful language
The film is a box office hit and has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture.
By Mark Guarino Jan. 26, 2015 | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.638814

REUTERS - An Arab-American civil rights organization has asked “American Sniper” director Clint Eastwood and actor Bradley Cooper to denounce hateful language directed at U.S. Arabs and Muslims after the release of the film about a Navy marksman.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) said in a letter to Eastwood and Cooper that its members had become targets of “violent threats” since early last week, before “American Sniper” went into general release. The letter said Eastwood and Cooper, the film’s producer and star, could bolster the ADC’s message of tolerance.

“It is our opinion that you could play a significant role in assisting us in alleviating the danger we are facing,” said the letter, dated Jan. 21. Reuters was provided a copy on Saturday.

The film is a box office hit and has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture.

The ADC said it was working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and police to assess the threats.

The film tells the story of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL sniper. His 160 kills in Iraq is considered the highest count in U.S. military history. Some critics have said the film glorifies war and sanitizes Kyle, who called Muslims “savages” in his memoir.

Kyle was killed by a disgruntled U.S. veteran at a Texas gun range in 2013.

ADC President Samer Khalaf said on Saturday that it did not make sense to call for a boycott given the film’s box office success.

“If we boycott it, it will only cause people to want to see it more,” he said.

The Washington-based ADC asked Arabs and Muslims to send them copies of threatening messages they had received. More than 100 have been collected, all from social media.

“Nice to see a movie where the Arabs are portrayed for who they really are - vermin scum intent on destroying us,” said one Twitter post collected by the ADC.

Jack Horner, a spokesman for Warner Bros., the studio releasing the film, said in a statement that the company, a unit of Time Warner Co, “denounces any violent, anti-Muslim rhetoric, including that which has been attributed to viewers” of the film.

He added, “Hate and bigotry have no place in the important dialogue that this picture has generated about the veteran experience.”

Spokesmen for Eastwood and Cooper had no immediate response to requests for comment.

5 Beautiful Films That Finally Give Middle Eastern Women the Voice They Deserve - PolicyMic
▻http://www.policymic.com/articles/71211/5-beautiful-films-that-finally-give-middle-eastern-women-the-voice-they-d

The 86th Annual Academy Awards could be a milestone for Middle Eastern cinema. The region has put out some incredible films recently, many of which have garnered international attention. Saudi Arabia has entered its first film ever for Oscar consideration: Wadjda. The directorial debut of Haifaa al-Mansour tells the story of a young girl named Wadjda who desperately wants a bicycle, but can’t because traditionally bike riding is a boys-only activity. The feisty, upbeat Wadjda is not so easily deterred and quickly looks for an alternative way to get the green bike she’s longing for.

1. ’Circumstance’ (2011) / Iranian-American director Maryam Keshavarz
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td-cYUVOg4Q

2. ’The Patience Stone’ (2012) / by Afghan writer and director Atiq Rahimi
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XywUr9zBOWU

3. ’Where Do We Go Now?’ (2011) / Lebanese comedy-drama, directed by and starring Nadine Labaki
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Te9c2jReOg

4. ’When I Saw You’ (2012) / Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1ZTtJQcUbo

5. ’Wajma, An Afghan Love Story’ (2013) / directed by Barmak Akram
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIDgiZJSp6U

#cinéma_Iran #cinéma_Afghanistan #cinéma_Liban #cinéma_Palestine #Annemarie_Jacir

Argo fuck yourself: Ben Affleck’s Iran hostage movie is the worst. - Slate Magazine
▻http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/01/down_with_argo_ben_affleck_s_iran_hostage_movie_is_the_worst.html?wpisrc=most

Perhaps my disgust wouldn’t be as intense if it weren’t for the potentially great film suggested by Argo’s opening sequence: a history of pre-revolutionary Iran told through eye-catching storyboards. The sequence gives a compelling (if sensationalized) account of how the CIA’s meddling with Iran’s government over three decades led to a corrupt and oppressive regime, eventually inciting the 1979 revolution. The sequence even humanizes the Iranian people as victims of these abuses. This opening may very well be the reason why critics have given the film credit for being insightful and progressive—because nothing that follows comes close, and the rest of the movie actually undoes what this opening achieves.

Instead of keeping its eye on the big picture of revolutionary Iran, the film settles into a retrograde “white Americans in peril” storyline. It recasts those oppressed Iranians as a raging, zombie-like horde, the same dark-faced demons from countless other movies— still a surefire dramatic device for instilling fear in an American audience. After the opening makes a big fuss about how Iranians were victimized for decades, the film marginalizes them from their own story, shunting them into the role of villains. Yet this irony is overshadowed by a larger one: The heroes of the film, the CIA, helped create this mess in the first place. And their triumph is executed through one more ruse at the expense of the ever-dupable Iranians to cap off three decades of deception and manipulation.