The Siege

[Kurai Tsuki]

As I am half Lebanese myself, I do not agree with the many claims that this movie is racist. First of all, it gives a glimpse of the Islamic and Arab community in New York City and shows some positive aspects of their culture, and second, the protagonist has a Lebanese partner. I think that many Arabs who did find this movie racist were more worried about the subject manner. Most Arabs living in America are very patriotic, often to the point where they hate seeing negative aspects of the American government as much as many European Americans. This was a movie which tried to show, in addition to terrorism, exactly what the American government is capable of when it feels threatened by a particular ethnicity or political persuasion; as exemplified by the internment camps which were created for Shiite Moslems and the scene where the suspected terrorist is tortured and shot. These acts were not an attempt by the movie-makers to say that they approve of it (if it were, I'm sure the Lebanese actor Tony Shaloub would not have had a part in it) but to show the extremities to which military officials can be driven. In the aforementioned internment camp scene a moment is even taken to address Arab pride, as Tony Shaloub's character throws his badge at Denzel Washington 's character and says, "Tell them I'm not their sand-nigger anymore."

Those who want to criticize racist movies need only look to The Delta Force, or Rules of Engagement. But The Siege is a movie which truly takes all aspects of the terrorism issue into consideration, except perhaps what provokes it.

[Red Skyscraper]

This movie was a good prophecy of what happened with 9/11 and the Patriot Act. I thought it was interesting.