Akbar Radi

I first go to theater as a serious watcher in high school times. Then most of groups play foreign acts. Lately , thanks to one of my friends, we discovered Iranian writers and find a good group directed by Hadi Marzban and saw 3 or 4 plays written by Radi. I like them very much due to his cultural and national point of view.
Anyway we lost him recently in sadness.
I enclose here the news from TehranTimes

TEHRAN -- Iranian playwright Akbar Radi died of cancer on December 26 at Tehran’s Pars Hospital. He was 68.

Akbar Radi was born on October 2, 1939 in Rasht, Gilan Province. His family moved to Tehran when he was still a child and he continued his studies in the Iranian capital.

In 1955, he became familiar with the works of author Sadeq Hedayat and began to write. His first story, “Dead Mouse”, was published in the Tehran daily Kayhan and he later became interested in playwriting.

In 1959 he participated in a story writing competition held by the Tehran daily Ettela’at and won first prize for his story “Rain”.

But his love for playwriting was still within him and he penned his first play “Blue Hole” in 1960.

Around that time he met poet Ahmad Shamlu, who liked “Blue Hole”.

From the beginning of his career in the field, his skill in playwriting and his power with words drew the attention of the giants of Iranian theater. His works were compared with the plays of Anton Chekhov and Henrik Ibsen.

Radi himself even believed that in some of his plays the track of Chekhov’s style of writing could be observed.

Radi regarded his birthplace Gilan as his permanent domicile and had a nostalgic feeling about the province. He had great interest in the memories of his childhood and depicted them in his plays with scenes and sets like big houses with several rooms, wood ceilings, carpets from Kashan, gardens with lots of flowers, and even foggy weather and rain.

His play “Melody of Rainy City” is about his beloved Gilan Province. His feeling for the place is so strong that he named one of the main characters in the play after the province.

“Melody of Rainy City”, “The Descent”, “The Fishermen”, “Death in the Autumn”, and “Slowly with the Rose” are some of his plays.

His plays the “Glorious Smile of Mr. Gil” and “Beneath the Passage of Saqqakhaneh” were recently staged by director Hadi Marzban.

He was last seen in public early this year at Tehran’s City Theater Complex during the closing ceremony of the play “Glorious Smile of Mr. Gil”.

Inside Man

In this 2006 movie, we see a hostage situation in which you see a detective (Washington) tries to persuade the bank robber (Owen) to release the hostages, and a powerful woman (Foster) about to keep a secret unfold.

Although in this movie you hear the name of "Dog Day Afternoon", it is far too different. In that the bank robber do not know what to do next but in this the bank robber do as scheduled and know what he wants.

Lately when you saw a film and the characters wanted to refer to something they mentioned a book but in these days they mention a movie. In other words, written literature is gradually replaced by a literature based on movies and TV shows.

Any way I can call this movie a "who's the boss game". Every main character in the movie is going to show "I am the boss." The Captain, the bank robber, the detective, the old banker, the mayor and the powerful woman all tries to prove that the situation is under control by him/her, even the Albanian women entered as a translator shows it by smoking a cigarette.

Spike Lee always refers to race problem in his movie. I think the turban scenes are good examples of how different the people react to a piece of clothing.

The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is a powerful modern movie. It projects the view that achieving rational values is possible if one thinks and acts -- even when trapped in a corrupt, brutal environment.
I like to say just some words about it.
being patient,
thinking rational ,
developing hobby,
developing goals,
making good friendship,
get rid of problems,
benefiting the consequences,
enjoying music,
having always hope, and
get busy dying or get busy living

Babel

I would not believe that it is a Hollywood movie if its director was American.

You are faced with a simple story divided into three sub stories happening in three different countries. It is so wisely mixed up that you can not find the chronology until you reach the ending scenes. Then you notice that the story first begins in an Arab country then in Japan and last in USA-Mexico region.

The first scene catching my eye was the strange look on the tourists face when entering the village, a place that no tourist bothers himself to step in. It is a remarkable shot contrasting the east and west people.

Also, the next point that had my attention was that about more than half hour of crying. Every character in the story cries but each cry is so different and strange. It was the best composition that you can imagine yourself in place of other people with different cultures and trying to feel the same.

I like Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel a lot and one of the reasons is that it is not a single-culture story.

Practise mobile manners

We've all seen - and, worse, heard - the people who offend against this.

Probably most of us have been guilty of it ourselves - although maybe not to the extent shown here.

But the etiquette of using a mobile is pretty simple, really - just think of it as the opposite of great sex.

Keep it quiet.

And keep it short.

A Qoute

Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man
David Hume

SE7EN

I saw se7ev for the third time translated in Persian and transmitted by the Iranian TV. I expected to see a full cut version of it and fully changed dialogues in some scenes. However, I enjoyed the move for the third time and saved the remaining four time slots for the future.

Seeing this mo I for the first time was very shocking. As story goes on, you cannot guess what will be happen. Although after a couple of killing it reveals the most important motive of the killer but the story and also the movie do not want the audience to guess in advance what is going on.

When I saw it shortly afterward for the second time I considered the dialogues more carefully to get the idea better. It worked out some story puzzle made in my mind. Clearly, the joy was not the same as the first but it was different.

If a movie left you thinking after the The-End sign, I consider it a good movie. I can say after a decade and for the third time that it is still a good movie.

This time a frame of the most important scene, the killer pointing gun to the young detective’s head in the rain, caught my eye. This part satisfies all the things the director was after: No clue to recognize the face of the killer, showing the power of killer, and in my point of view, the influence of the killer to choose the story line.

There was also another point regarding to the titling of the movie. At the end you saw Kevin Spacy’s name not in the beginning. This is another director trick to hide the killer.

Anyway, there is always some stories and believes about the numbers. The number Seven is believed to be a holly number. As it is sporadically used in almost all cultures such as Seven Sins, Seven days of a week, seven trays (haft sin in Nowrooz ceremonies in Iran and Persian-oriented region), seven seas, and so forth, the movie showed seven killing in seven days according to seven sins. [And this is my seven paragraph too ;)]