Movies Gossip

The second season of ABSENTIA is coming to Amazon Prime Video in June 2019. You can also catch all the ROCKY films, the first AUSTIN POWERS movie and all of the AIRPLANE movies.

June 3

• District 9 (2009)
• Jackass 3D (2010)

June 4

• Chasing Happiness – Amazon Original movie
• Creative Galaxy S3 – Amazon Original series

June 7

• Home Again (2017)

June 13

• No Strings Attached (2011)

June 14

• Absentia S2 – Amazon Original series
• Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

June 17

• Suits S8
• Yardie (2018) – Amazon Original movie

June 21

• Documental S3 – Amazon Original series
• Final Life S1 – Amazon Original series
• Tokyo Alice S1 – Amazon Original series

June 24

• Juliet, Naked (2018)

June 28

• The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)

June 29

• Moose (2015)
• True Grit (2010)

June 30

• 14 Women (2007)
• A Texas Funeral (1999)
• Abolition (2011)
• AIR: The Musical (2010)
• Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
• Airplane! (1980)
• All American Zombie Drugs (2010)
• An American Werewolf in London (1981)
• Apocalypse Kiss (2014)
• Appetite (1987)
• Arbitrage (2012)
• Attack of the Herbals (2011)
• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
• Ball in the House (2001)
• Bank Roll (2012)
• Bartleby (2001)
• Battle of the Bone (2008)
• Big Money Hustlas (2000)
• Bigfoot Wars (2014)
• Blind Heat (2002)
• Blood Moon Rising (2009)
• Blood of the Samurai (2001)
• Blood Reaper (2003)
• Blow (2001)
• Blue Dream (2013)
• Boricua (2004)
• Bullfighter (2000)
• Bumblefuck, USA (2011)
• Carne the Taco Maker (2014)
• Clean Guys of Comedy (2013)
• Complicity (2000)
• Curse of the Zodiac (2007)
• Dai wu ke (1979)
• Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
• Destination Vegas (1995)
• Dilemma (1997)
• Ding tian li di (1973)
• Dirt Merchant (1999)
• Dirty Pictures (2011)
• Dragon Blade (2015)
• Elephant (2003)
• Endless Love (2014)
• Exit to Hell (2013)
• Flipping (2010)
• Frankenstein Reborn (2005)
• Frozen Kiss (2009)
• Gene-Fusion (2010)
• Ghost Bride (2017)
• G-Men from Hell (2000)
• Good Luck Chuck (2007)
• Gunshy (2017)
• Hard Candy (2008)
• Hazard Jack (2014)
• Into the Blue (2005)
• Into the Fire (2005)
• Investigating Sex (2001)
• Jack in the Box (2009)
• Jezebeth (2011)
• Jingles the Clown (2009)
• Killing Ariel (2006)
• La casa sfuggita (2003)
• Lao shu la gui (1979)
• Lawless: Dead Evidence (2000)
• Lazarus: Apocalypse (2014)
• Legend of the Sandsquatch (2006)
• Little Red Devil (2008)
• Lovin’ Molly (1974)
• Malarek (1988)
• Man About Town (2006)
• Mansion of Blood (2015)
• Meeting Spencer (2010)
• Metamorphosis (2007)
• Minority Report (2002)
• Mission: Impossible III (2006)
• Model Behavior (2000)
• Mortem (2010)
• Moscow Heat (2004)
• Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005)
• Neshika Bametzach (1990)
• New Order (2012)
• Night Train (1998)
• Open Water (2004)
• Open Water 2: Adrift (2006)
• På fremmed mark (2000)
• Phil the Alien (2004)
• Pledge of Allegiance (2015)
• Poliwood (2009)
• Postmortem (1998)
• Prey for the Beast (2007)
• Private Lessons (1981)
• Pumpkin (2002)
• Red Is the Color of (2007)
• Redball (1999)
• Rocky (1976)
• Rocky II (1979)
• Rocky III (1982)
• Rocky IV (1985)
• Rocky V (1990)
• Romeo and Juliet (2013)
• Rules of Engagement (2000)
• Running Scared (2006)
• Rush Hour (1998)
• Rush Hour 3 (2007)
• Sample People (2000)
• Shanghai Surprise (1986)
• Silent Youth (2012)
• Silo Killer 2: The Wrath of Kyle (2009)
• Sleepy Hollow (1999)
• Slip & Fall (2011)
• Smoke n Lightnin (1995)
• Sounds of the Underground (2007)
• Spaceballs (1987)
• Species (1995)
• Species III (2004)
• Species: The Awakening (2007)
• Squeal (2008)
• Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
• Streets of Rage (1994)
• Stripperland (2011)
• Sugar Boxx (2009)
• Sunshine Cleaning (2009)
• Sweet Angel Mine (1996)
• Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
• The 28th Day: The Wrath of Steph (2013)
• The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans (2009)
• The Californians (2005)
• The First Wives Club (1996)
• The Last Samurai (2003)
• The Little Kidnappers (1990)
• The Rules of Attraction (2002)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• The Sum of All Fears (2002)
• The Telling (2009)
• The Women of Brewster Place (1989)
• The Wraith (1986)
• This Revolution (2005)
• Throwing Stars (2007)
• Tsareubiytsa (1991)
• Vampire Boys (2010)
• Vampire Boys 2: The New Brood (2013)
• Viking Quest (2015)
• When Justice Fails (1999)
• Where Truth Lies (2005)
• Wiseguy S1 – S6
• Xuan feng shi ba qi (1977)
• Yong zheng ming zhang Shao Lin men (1977)
• Zateryannyy v Sibiri (1991)
• Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington (2011)
• Zombiez (2005)

To quote myself from a previous article, press releases are the most ghoulishly spurious form of modern communication. If there's one sliver of good to be taken from this downright vomitus medium, it's that they feature quotes from corporate executives so strained with fake enthusiasm over the dumb-dumb garbage they're promoting that you can almost hear the veins in their foreheads popping. The press release for the recently announced film adaptation of the Magic 8-Ball is no different.

Let's begin with a quote from Robbie Brenner of Mattel Films:

"Since the 1950s, Magic 8 Ball has inspired imagination, suspense and intrigue across generations."

That's a really lofty way to describe someone ruefully tossing aside a 20-sided die floating in black ink after they asked if they were ever going to find love and it replied "Ask Again Later."

"This iconic toy has a built-in connection with fans and untapped potential for storytelling."

He said the quiet part loud, then put it in the press release: The only reason they're making this is that you already know what a Magic 8-Ball is. They saw an opportunity to make a movie where they didn't have to waste 30 seconds of screen time explaining the central concept, and by Jove, they seized it.

Adobe Stock/Nikolai Sorokin"Will the Magic 8-Ball movie have a scene where the ball tells a person they're going to die?"

There is a scene in the first episode of new BBC drama series Informer that’s particularly refreshing for anyone sick of Muslim stereotypes on TV. The show’s protagonist, Raza Shar (Nabhaan Rizwan), is being interviewed by a hipster photographer for a flatshare when he notices something weird in a proudly displayed photograph of an east London council estate. On the left is an Asian kid smoking, and on the right a kufi-wearing Muslim man handing out leaflets. In disbelief, he notices that the kid smoking is him (“That’s me on a break!” he says). But why, he asks, is the photograph titled Young Radicals? “I called it Young Radicals because of the radicalising leaflets the man on the right is distributing,” explains the hipster. “That’s Tariq,” says Raza. “He’s handing out menus.” Rizwan believes the scene subverts the white media gaze that pigeonholes Muslims as terrorists – a gaze he’s experienced more than his fair share of in his life. “A lot of people are going to connect with that because they’re tired of the lazy stereotypes of Muslims,” he says.

Playing Raza is a superb TV debut for 21-year-old Rizwan, but it is also quite a responsibility to star in a drama that counters such anti-Islamic prejudices. “Growing up when I watched TV I never thought: ‘There’s a Muslim, I really identify with them.’”

This is because, until now, there have been few characters for someone like Rizwan to identify with. Take the jihadist baddies of US thrillers such as Homeland or 24, or the buffoonery of Asian life in Birmingham-set sitcom Citizen Khan. “For a long time, the Asian community have been the butt of their own jokes,” Rizwan says of Citizen Khan. “It’s like: ‘Oh there’s some Asian people, they speak funny and eat funny food.’ I feel like the Asian community were somewhat accepting of that. At least it’s representation. I understand that attitude but it’s damaging. It’s time for the conversation to move on.”

So how can the TV industry improve? One way of regulating these stereotypes is through dramas passing the Riz test – a system that the actor Riz Ahmed set out in a House of Commons speech last year. It’s similar to the Bechdel test (which requires that a film features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man) in that not many things pass it. If the film or show stars at least one character who is identifiably Muslim (by ethnicity, language or clothing), is the character: 1) Talking about, the victim of, or the perpetrator of Islamist terrorism? 2) Presented as irrationally angry? 3) Presented as superstitious, culturally backwards or anti-modern? 4) Presented as a threat to a western way of life? 5) If the character is male, is he presented as misogynistic?; or if female, is she presented as oppressed by her male counterparts?

If the answer for any of the above is “yes”, then the film/TV show fails the test.

It is likely, however, that Four Lions, Chris Morris’s scabrous 2010 satire on witless Brit jihadists – in which Ahmed starred as a Sheffield suicide bomber planning to detonate himself at a charity fun run – would fail on at least points one to four. But there are very few creations featuring Muslim characters that would pass the test.

Consider Fox’s 24: Legacy. It’s story of a stereotypically capable cadre of foreign jihadis slaughtering US citizens; a plot that gave support to Trump’s Muslim travel ban, ignoring – as the president did – the truth that recent fatal terror attacks in the US and Europe have been perpetrated overwhelmingly by local individuals acting without help from an external group. The New York Times called it a “one-hour Super Bowl ad for Islamophobia”.

Or Britain’s biggest TV drama in a decade, Bodyguard, which started with Anjli Mohindra playing a hijab-wearing woman hiding in the toilet of a train who’s about to detonate a bomb-packed vest. Her narrative, from victim rescued by Richard Madden’s eponymous hero to jihadist (by the end of the series), seemed like a massive Riz Test fail. The show’s writer, Jed Mercurio, rejected claims of Islamophobia, telling the Radio Times that “if the show were set in the recent British past, the attackers might be Irish republicans”. Of course, he forgets to consider that when levels of anti-Muslim hate crime are soaring, TV could do with more narratives that bring a better understanding of Muslims, as journalist Tasnim Nazeer recently stated. “What would it take for a film-maker to consult diverse writers … and change the narrative?” she asked in the Guardian. Alternatively, we could have white people doing “brown face” to learn what it’s like to be a Muslim in Britain, as on Channel 4’s My Week As a Muslim last year. Or, you know, not.

Ramzi Kassem, law professor at the City University of New York says that those working in mainstream cultural production “need to know that the discourse they shape actually carries real-world consequences”. He was hired as a consultant for Homeland’s sixth season in 2017 after Showtime’s spy thriller series became such a byword for Islamophobia that three graffiti artists, who were enlisted to spray a fictional Syrian refugee camp while the show was being filmed, wrote messages such as “Homeland is racist” in Arabic, which went unnoticed by producers. His input changed the show’s bias: at one point, CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) yells at an FBI agent that their client was “just another Muslim kid you entrapped” by using an informant who posed as a friend. It was a scene scarcely conceivable in previous seasons. “I felt I had a social responsibility to try to do what I could to make the show more realistic,” Kassem told Public Radio International, “to make it less negative in its portrayal of Muslims and more critical in its portrayal of the government’s role in counterterrorism.”

Meanwhile, John Krasinski, the star of Amazon’s series Jack Ryan, recently argued that – despite the main plot of terrorism – the show steers clear from the “archetypal, moustache-twirling terrorist representation” of Muslims through a complex depiction of the main terrorist’s family. Although, even in the absence of moustache twirling, the series fails the Riz test on many points. The family dynamic of a wife alienated from her psychopathic jihadi husband and protected by a white American hero is hardly breakthrough material. In short, if you want to find TV that passes the Riz test, don’t follow the money.

So, does Informer move the conversation on? Rizwan thinks so. “Raza lives a regular life and has a menial job. It’s quite accurate,” he says. “It’s not the stereotypical Muslim family you normally see on telly: his dad drinks and his mum doesn’t wear a headscarf, plus she’s the breadwinner of the family. Growing up in Ilford, lots of my friends who were Muslim had families where the mum was the breadwinner.”

In this more realistic depiction, Informer nods to what Barack Obama recently said about stereotypical Islamic portrayals in the media. “Our television shows should have some Muslim characters that are unrelated to national security,” he told the Islamic Society of Baltimore.

Obama doesn’t watch EastEnders, but perhaps he should. A scene in the British soap from three years ago was gently subversive: just after the terrorist mass murders in Paris, the character of Tamwar Masood (Himesh Patel) explained his religion to girlfriend Nancy Carter (Maddy Hill) after she asked him what an Arabic passage he had marked in the Qur’an meant (“Do good to near of kin, the neighbour who’s a stranger, to the companion at your side, and to the traveller”).

“That to me is what Islam is about,” Tamwar said. “Be kind to people, family and strangers alike, and love them.”

It was a new perspective and storyline previously untold by soaps or dramas, and the product of research into real Muslim lives. According to Rizwan, this is severely absent from most shows and films. “The point is that there are more interesting south Asian stories than we usually get in the media,” he says. “If you’re not from that part of the world or don’t have family from there, it’s easy to fall back into writing stereotypes. The worst thing about that is that what the viewers see they take as gospel. It’s time for something more nuanced.”

Informer starts Tuesday 16 October at 9pm, BBC1

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