Paris, je t'aime (2006)

As of this writing, the recent terrorist attacks in Paris have claimed over 100 lives and left over 300 people injured. Pols and pundits have already come out of the woodwork to use this tragedy as an excuse to spread their own agendas, to spread otherization and hate. But as Martin Luther King famously said, “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” More to the point, by hating Muslims, we give ISIS exactly what they want. Like any person with an ounce of humanity, my heart goes out to the victims, their families, and the city of Paris (as well as the victims of the bombings in Beirut). In that spirit, let’s counter that hate with love, as embodied in the anthology film Paris, je t’aime.

76 Links of Muslims Denouncing Terrorism

Update: I’ve already had people respond with something to the effect of, “Only 73?! What about all the other billion plus Muslims?” Several of these include lists of other Muslims speaking out. But more to the point, I shouldn’t have to provide literally over a billion links to almost every single Muslim in the world to make you understand the wrongness of bigotry and why you don’t get to pay back tragedy with genocide.


Muslims hear it all the time.

“Why haven’t Muslims condemned these attacks?”
“Why have Muslims remained silent?”
“Why haven’t Muslim leaders said anything?”

For expediency, let’s ignore the bigoted undercurrents inherent in presuming over 1.5 billion people as guilty unless they actively denounce the actions of less than 100,000 others who claim to share their faith. Let’s also ignore that ISIS has killed mostly Muslims who don’t share their opinions. Let’s then also ignore that ISIS has explicitly stated that they do what they do in the west to turn westerners against Muslims in the hopes of driving up ISIS’s numbers. So to actually answer these questions…

Hidalgo (2004)

One of the most important Arab actors in history—and a personal hero of mine—died earlier this month. For decades, Omar Sharif defined Hollywood’s Middle Eastern man. His performances varied from the cunning to the credulous, from the sleazy to the debonair, but he always brought that mysterious, exotic charm that became associated with the better ethnic roles in Old Hollywood. I originally intended to write a eulogy, but The Guardian eulogized circles around anything I could have written. Instead, let’s celebrate Sharif’s life by talking about his work. I thought I’d start with his last high-profile film: Hidalgo, a mediocre movie buoyed by his warm, charismatic presence.

Escape Plan (2013)

As an Arab-American of Muslim upbringing, the last 14 years have made one thing painfully, ineluctably clear: although I identify as a pacifist and I’ve never even met a terrorist, my fellow countrymen have no qualms about sacrificing my liberty for their security.

I don’t even just mean hate crimes. At any time, any day, for any or no reason, I could suddenly get disappeared by authorities. The feds could immure and torture me in some black site in the heart of America, or I could face even worse treatment in Guantanamo Bay, or face even worse treatment in an unknown facility on the far side of the world, all with no evidence that I’d done anything wrong, at a site specifically chosen to deprive me of the use of a lawyer, with an arbitrary “enemy combatant” tag designed to make sure I can’t use the Sixth or Seventh Amendments. They could intentionally set a prohibitive fine; maybe they just wouldn’t tell anyone they had me in custody at all. They could convince my friends and loved ones that I’d done something to deserve this. (More of them would believe it than I want to admit.) I might never speak to my lawyer, family, or friends again. I might literally never see the light of day again. The staff at these prisons know they could torture, brutalize, starve, and possibly murder me with no provocation and no fear of punishment for decades, if ever. Whatever higher authorities would do to my torturers wouldn’t compare to what they’d do to anyone who’d try to stop it.

You might respond with blandishments about how, as a civic-minded film critic with a graduate-level education, I have nothing to worry about. But don’t waste your time or mine by claiming this has never happened to people who don’t deserve it. Only an idiot would believe that the government only punishes “bad people.”

So Escape Plan—a movie taking place inside “the Tomb,” a super-duper-max, ultra-secret, privately-owned, putatively “escape-proof” prison peopled with dissidents and Muslims—hits home for me.

The film centers on highly-paid escapologist Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) and his attempts to escape the Tomb with the help of curiously solicitous fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Breslin also faces the reptilian Warden Hobbes (James Caviezel) and his violent assistant (Vinnie Jones).

Front Row Central

Hi, everyone.

I apologize wholeheartedly for my absence for these past few months. I recently founded a film review site with some friends: Front Row Central. I feel tremendously proud of our work there, and I hope you all check it out! I absolutely plan to keep reviewing Arab movies and blogging about them here, but you’ll also see them on FRC too. I also started another column there dealing with American road movies: Inner State 5.

My day job has grown unusually demanding, so I haven't had the ability to review movies like I want to, but you haven’t seen the last of me, I promise!