TravelChick

Alexander - best worst movie ever?

Last night Mike, Stephanie, and I went to see Alexander. The only reason I wanted to see it (and I can't stress this enough) is that one of my friends from London, a guy I met at LSE, is in it (or so he told me. He was, and I quote, 'someone's gay lover'). I'm not sure if his scene was:

1) cut from the movie originally
2) cut by the Syrian censors
or 3) never happened

but I didn't see him in the movie. He's a rosy cheeked, wickedly cute guy, the sort that one notices, so I like to think I didn't just blink and miss him.

The thing about seeing movies in Damascus is that you aren't spoiled for choice. I think there's a total of one movie showing here, and Alexander is it. It's been playing for about three weeks; it's rather amazing that a horrible movie could be so popular that it's worth keeping in the movie theatre that long.

Walking out the movie theatre, Mike and I tried to determine whether or not Alexander is the worst movie we've ever seen or whether it's just in the top ten. It was just so bad in so many ways: the accents that were from all over, the stereotyping of Persians, the acting, the production, the way the movie was shot, the fact that Rosario Dawson played a Persian - the list is really quite long. Stephanie, however, loved it. Rather, I think she loved that it was so bad and played up the idea of the evilness of empire. This, combined with the fact that Fahrenheit 9/11 is the only other movie she's seen in Damascus, has convinced her that movies about how bad empire is play well here.

In other news, I'm sick. Boo.

posted by Travel Chick @ 9:56 AM