The Devil's Advocate, A (somewhat late) review

Well... after 8 long years, I have finally watched this film and...

Let's get this out the door first... IT'S AWESOME!

I won't go into much detail here... I will just mention the main points:

1. The Devil in this movie is possibly the best depiction of "The Devil" that was ever made in a movie; the way he works, the way he denies it all at the end, everything!

2. Al Pacino (who is always great) plays that depiction with such mastery and vigor that would have not been possible otherwise (given the excellence of the depiction itself)

3. Keanu Reaves was a perfect candidate, since he is always the choice for lead characters that basically get thrown into a "wonderland" without the faintest clue of what he is up into (as was evident later when he was cast as Neo in ThE MaTriX)

4. Charlese Therone (an academy winner) played the deranged wife role amazingly... no one could have done it better! (and I was surprised to discover that her appearance opposite Keanu in Sweet November wasn't the first one)

5. The twisted manner with which everything happens is just unprecedented.

So there it is... you guys let me know what you think!

Freedom Voice

This forum was intended to be a place for people to exchange opinions freely about politics and religion. I happily joined it since the other place with lots of Arabs that I hung out in banned such discussions.

I must say though, originally I didn't have much hope. Considering that the first forum I was in had 20,000 (supposedly Arabs) registered yet only a few hundred joined FDV and very few are actually active.

However, already some very intense discussions are taking place. Especially between Arabs and Israelis. The best thing though is that people continue to discuss the matters (mostly) in a polite and open-minded fashion (something we don't usually experience on TV lol).

Anyways, I am really hoping that it will open minds to new ideas and allow better communication between the different cultures involed... check it out!

The Arab World

Today marks the beginning of my writing about "important" issues here on blogspot. Some of you may have read some of my stuff on arabfiles or Freedom Voice (as TheOne). Be as it may, I have always been pissed off about the way things happen in this world. Specially when it comes to Politics and/or Religion.

So I finally decided to vent my frustration (or sometimes, express my joy) at things that happen in the Arab/Islamic world. Which is why am here!

While I try to form something more coherent, I will take the time to talk about some other related blogs. I will start off with 2 and then add more as I go...

First and foremost, FROM CAIRO WITH LOVE comes as one of my fav reads any day! Mohammed surely knows how to tell us about Egypt in a way that continues to seem personal and entertaining (while in reality very factual and observant!). I would not be surprised if the posts there got published one day as a book!

Of course, another reason why I like it so much is because it revolves about my motherland, Egypt! Which I intend to write about later as well!

On another note, bitter-sarcasm that is, comes another favourite: The legends of SYRIA EXPOSED. A blog driven by the bitter reality of how things are in the real-life Syria. Many of the posts are written in the very funny "MYTH #X" style, and discuss various issues of the Syrian society, as viewed from the perspective of "Karfan" (Arabic for "disgusted").

I am truly impressed with the writing styles I found by some of the Arabs on the blogger community. It is really refreshing to see such mature, well-educated mentalities out there. It comes as no surprise that the Arabworld is experiencing a new wave of intellect and "revolution" these days. I truly hope that the future is going to be brighter, thanks to individuals like those.

Enjoy... and cheers to you guys!