Tag Archives | cinema

2018 Box Office Results in Lebanon

By Rami on March 19, 2019 in Cinema, Lebanon, Movies, Social

I know we’re so over 2018 but I always find it interesting to see statistics of people’s behavior and preferences in Lebanon. Few weeks ago, Rania Ghanem from Business News published a piece on the top ten movies at the box office in Lebanon during last as well as the market share for each movie theater chain.

Teh result for the top ten movies came as follows:

It is interesting to know that five of the top performing movies were Lebanese. However, aside from Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum, almost all the Lebanese movies got mocked and criticized on social platforms for their mediocre storyline and level of acting. This comes to prove that opinions on social networks in general are very far from representing the masses, just as in the case with politics for example. We hate on all politicians online, yet they easily win the elections. We all support civil marriage online, but the populations in general is in fact against it.

The results also explain the increasing number of Lebanese movie every year. People in general seem to be enjoying them despite how mediocre they are, and Maguy Ghosn still has a lot to give!

On the other hand, market share was distributed among the movie theater chains as follows:

Grand Cinemas 38% (1.4 million visitors)
Empire Cinemas 31% (1.2 million visitors)
VOX Cinemas 15% (559,000 visitors)
Cinemall 10% (379,000 visitors)
Stargate 3% (112,000 visitors)
Planete 2% (89,000 visitors)

You can check the original article here.

Review – Avengers: Infinity War

By Rami on April 26, 2018 in Reviews

I don’t usually write movie posts but I’ll make an exception for Avengers: Infinity War. The movie is absolutely amazing and is my favorite among the Marvel films so far.

I actually attended the movie premiere at VOX two days ago and the event coincided with their 5th anniversary in Lebanon. Featuring most of the character from the Marvel universe, you would expect some to appear less special than the others, but the movie is 150 minutes long for a reason, and in my opinion each one of them got the deserved time to stand out.

The movie is of course everything you would expect from a Marvel movie plus a lot of humor and some emotional moments. This time, the avengers are uniting to face Thanos who’s on a quest to collect all of the 6 infinity stones to abolish half the universe. I won’t spoil rest but do yourself a favor and go watch it in theater. It now has a 9.2 rating on IMDB and I agree with Anis that the movie will definitely stand for years to come.

Avengers: Infinity War will be available in cinemas as of tomorrow.

Free Screening of The Oscars at VOX Cinemas Beirut

By Rami on March 1, 2018 in Events, Movies

Movie buffs are certainly excited for the Academy Award event this weekend but Lebanese people are also in general anticipating it because for the first time ever this year Lebanon is heading to the Oscars with the nomination of Ziad Doueiri’s “The Insult” for the best foreign film.

For the occasion, VOX Cinemas is parternering with OSN to screen the event at their theaters in City Centre Beirut free of charge for anyone who would like to attend.

The screening will be live on March 5th at 3AM Beirut Time and if you’re interested to watch it there then you can reserve your free seats here.

How Do Boycott Campaigns Work in Lebanon?

By Rami on May 30, 2017 in Movies, Politics

I remember at least two artists who were subject to online and offline boycott campaigns in Lebanon over the past few years due to their alleged support to Israel, Gad Elmaleh in 2009 and Lara Fabian in 2012. Gad Elmaleh was accused of serving in the Israeli Defense Forces (which wasn’t true) while Lara Fabian faced so much criticism for performing at an event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel, and civil society groups of course tried to keep the two artists from performing in Lebanon.

Fast forward to the present, Wonder Woman starring Gal Gadot is scheduled to start showing across Lebanese theaters on June 1st. However, Gal Gadot is an Israeli actress and model who first appeared as Wonder Woman in Batman VS Superman last year and her upcoming movie posters have been surprisingly all around the country for a while now! That’s not just any actress supporting Israel, that’s an Israeli actress who served as a combat trainer in the Israeli Defense Forces with her posters all around Lebanon.

I’m not writing this to call for the movie boycott. I personally love superhero movies and will definitely be watching Wonder woman. However, I’ve yet to hear about any call against screening it and in this case one can’t but wonder how do civil society activists choose which artists/projects to boycott or let pass. At one point you start doubting their campaigns could be sometimes fueled by business competition… International artists are all exposed to have a connection with Israel at some point during their career, which makes it easy for anyone to criticize them for the sole purpose of provoking those who are investing their money into getting such artists to perform in Lebanon.

Anyway, the movie is showing in two days so let’s see if any cyber activists will try to take a stance against it!

Update:

I just learned the Ministry of Economy and Trade demanded the General Security to withdraw the movie from Lebanese theaters. However, the questions I raised above still stand.

Are You Following M Media’s Growing Collection?

By Rami on May 20, 2017 in Movies, Television, Videos

I subscribed to M Media a few months ago for the sole purpose of watching Bennesbe Labokra Chou again, but soon after I did it I found it hard to cancel my subscription because of their growing collection with titles that never cease to impress me. (They’re soon adding Film Ameriki Tawil by the way)

I personally usually avoid watching Lebanese movies in theaters unless they’re REALLY good, but I still like to watch them in the comfort of my living room (yes even the likes of BéBé). However unlike western movies/series, Lebanese ones are much harder to find online, and M Media has been recently making some great effort adding titles that were produced over the last few years ranging from drama to comedy and documentaries, in addition to famous old plays from the 90s such as “3ammti Najibeh” and “3arisein midreh men wein” with all content being in very good quality. So I have lately been spending time watching stuff that I missed in theater over the last few years (and also learned that Carlos Azar always lands the Jagal roles in his movies).

At $5/month I guess it’s a good deal, and while I know the people at M are doing their best to get more productions onto their platform, I wish they also add old movies from the 70s and 80s such as the ones by the late Maroun Baghdadi for example, I always read he made some great movies during that era but I rarely had access to them. I also don’t think anyone would mind watching Ahmad El-Zein and Mohamad El-Mawla all over again in those cool action movies from the early civil war days!

Film Ameriki Tawil is Coming Out in October

By Rami on September 5, 2016 in Cinema, Theater

film ameriki tawil

When Bennesbe Labokra Shou started showing earlier this year, M Media promised that Film Ameriki Tawil will hit the theater next, and they just released their trailer for it both on their website and on Facebook announcing that it is coming out in October.

Judging from the trailer and the footage they released earlier, the image quality seems to be significantly better and more stable than that of Bennesbe Labokra Shou.

I personally never get bored of listening to Film Ameriki Tawil on the radio and can’t wait for the release date. Let’s hope Shi Feshil is next on the list for M Media as I guess we are all eager to know how tiny was that gypsum waterfall in the play!

The trailer is available here and here.

A Very Subjective Opinion on “Bennesbeh Labokra Chou?” The Movie

By Rami on January 26, 2016 in Reviews

bennesbeh labokra chou

I finally managed to watch “Bennesbeh Labokra Chou?” in cinema a couple of days ago and was so delighted to finally see the original acting instead of imagining the scenes in my head!

The work that M Media has done is definitely remarkable since the movie is actually made out of several amateur recordings of the play that were carefully reconstructed and arranged to make a relatively smooth movie. But as much as I enjoyed watching the whole thing, I couldn’t stop thinking the whole time that “Bennesbeh Labokra Chou?” is so perfect it deserved a way better video quality.

The videos are basically all grainy, out of focus at times and shaky at others. I don’t mean there was anything that could have been done better… Retaking a shot is absolutely not an option in our case and the producers were obliged to work with anything Ziad was providing. However, the end result was unfortunately a movie that I don’t feel like watching again unlike the audio plays that I never get bored of. Ziad El-Rahbani is probably the only one to blame for not taking the shooting seriously back then.

“Film Ameriki Tawil” will soon be also showing in cinemas, and I just hope it is recorded in a more professional way. Ziad’s play are timeless and deserve to be treated the same way some Egyptian classics like “Madraset Al Moushaghibin” and “El Wad Sayyed El Shaghal” are still being aired on TV sometimes.

Anyway, what I’ve wrote should never keep you from watching “Bennesbeh Labokra Chou?” on the big screen. And despite the bad quality of the video, I guarantee you will still enjoy finally seeing the original acting, especially the part where Joseph Sakr sings “3a Hadir El Bosta” with everyone around him dancing to it.

Some Lebanese Movies Are Available for Streaming

By Rami on January 19, 2016 in Lebanon

mmedia

Everytime I landed on M Media’s website I never went beyond watching the trailer they have of Bennesbeh Labokra Chou, but I recently browsed their film section and was surprised that they actually made several Lebanese films available for streaming.

Among the titles you will see Blind Intersection, One Man Village, Cash Flow and many others, in addition to some foreign movies as well such as “A Separation”.

Playback is available in HD, and if your connection doesn’t help then you can avoid buffering problems by using some browser extension to download the movies and watch them later.

You can check M Media’s film section by clicking here.

Annoying Moviegoers !

By Rony on January 7, 2015 in Lebanon

Smartphone theaters

Movie theaters usually ask you to silence you phone before the movie starts in order to perfectly enjoy the screening and avoid any disturbance to the experience. Most moviegoers usually abide by this which is good. However, another problem that really annoys me and is starting to become more and more recurrent, is people that cannot get off social media and keep using their smartphones while cranking up the brightness to maximum. These people do RUIN the movie experience. Have you lately came across such people at the cinemas?

On a somewhat related level, Old Trafford (Manchester United’s stadium for those of you who are not football fans) introduced some changes to its policy last year, one of which was banning the use of large devices (mainly tablets) during matches in order not to ruin the experience for people who just want to enjoy watching the game.

So don’t you think that theaters should ask viewers not only to silence their phones, but also to reduce their brightness to minimum?

The Wolf of Wall Street no longer censored in Lebanon

By Rami on January 9, 2014 in Lebanon

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You probably already know that The Wolf of Wall Street has been censored in Lebanon since whoever imported it thought we will not have the attention span for a three hours movie, and therefore it was cut down to two hours and thirty minutes!

However, it was announced on Radio One Lebanon this morning that the movie will no longer be censored and the full version will start showing as of today. I really hope this will be true because I was preferring to wait for the DVD release to watch the full movie!

For more about The wolf of Wall Street, you can read Anis Tabet’s review about it here.

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