Persepolis! Tis a good movie, Tis truely tis!

Here’s a fantastic little movie done in comic-cartoon style. I wish I wasn’t so lazy, but I am. So, I have done the laziest thing ever and gone to Wikipedia, which has given me this:

Persepolis is a 2007 animated film based on Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. The film was written and directed by Satrapi with Vincent Paronnaud. The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, which goes horribly wrong with Islamic fundamentalists taking power and creating a new theocratic tyranny themselves; the story ends with Marjane as a 21-year-old expatriate. The title is a reference to the historic city of Persepolis.

The film won the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and was released in France and Belgium on June 27. In her acceptance speech, Satrapi said “Although this film is universal, I wish to dedicate the prize to all Iranians.” The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

I’m only a few minutes into it, and I don’t know if it’s good or bad yet, but it has got a lot of rave reviews from the independent movie type people. It’s in French! With English subs! I’m so done babbling now.

Go watch it HERE.



The Kite Runner (2007)

Here’s a fantastic movie called ‘The Kite Runner’. You can tell it’s fantastic straightaway because it’s banned somewhere. In this case, in Afghanistan where it was set and filmed. Apparantly, they didn’t like the movie showing real tensions that exist in the country. Welp, like they say, ignorance is bliss, and I guess the Afghans take that seriously. I dunno.

It was first released as a novel by Khaled Hosseini in 2003 before being adapted into a film of the same name.

Tis all very sad and touching and what not. I shalln’t ruin any of the plot of it for you, but basically it is about the rightings of wrongs from your past. It features some very talented young actors from Afghanistan that portray the characters flawlessly and realistically.

After the movie was released, the child actors got threatened and bullied of course, because a lot of people are crazy and narrow minded, while others can’t differentiate reality from a movie. Sadly, Zekeria Ebrahimi, the boy playing the lead, Amir, in the movie declared after receiving death threats, that he wished he had never made the movie. Don’t blame him of course, but it’s a sad situation all the same.

Zekeria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Mahmidzada (he plays child Hassan) were paid $17,500 each, and Ali Dinesh (Sohrab) $13,700; some argue that they were underpaid. No kidding. Especially when the job came with perks like death threats. Luckily, Paramount relocated all of them to Dubai, then the United Arab Emirates for safety purposes and also agreed to take full responsibility for the boys’ living expenses until adulthood, an estimated 500,000 dollars each.

No one ever mentions Elham Ehsas (the kid that plays the bad guy Assef) though. I mean surely he must have had a bit of a rough ride after the movie debuted? I mean just coz he was a jerk in the movie doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy in real life! Unless he is of course. Oh, he’s also supposed to be blonde and blue eyed mini Hitler in the book because his mother is German (which is why he is Aryan, not why he is a Nazi), but he isn’t blonde in the movie. Just thought I’ld mention that!

Wow, I just wrote a whole movie review without telling you a thing about the movie! Better see it for yourself.

GOOD MOVIE! Watch ‘THE KITE RUNNER’ here!