Mashabble.com gave this review of the Taqwacore doc by the Canadian filmmaker Omar Majeed:
Stripped down and laid bare of all cultural referents,Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam is a rock ‘n’ roll road movie. Made by Canadian filmmaker Omar Majeed, it feels similar to its frenetic and lionized antecedent Another State of Mind, which showcased and documented the efforts of Better Youth Organization-related bands, like Youth Brigade and Social Distortion, to tour and connect disparate communities in far flung locales during the heyday of early ‘80s hardcore punk.
Yet that analogy doesn’t encompass the full breadth of this film. With stealth, the filmmaker and participants dissect America’s so-called mosaic or melting pot culture in-depth by examining the tale of emergent Muslim-American youth. In doing so, it exposes fervent politics, abundant identity crises, varied social, religious, and inter-generational conflicts, and undeniable mixed cultural heritage.
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Yesterday we reviewed a film that was financed entirely with integrated advertising, Morgan Spurlock's "Greatest Movie Ever Sold." Today we turn to a project that could use a few good sponsors to see the light of day. Or to see the dark of an art house cinema. The makers of the proposed film about comic strip artists and the decline of their platform, newspapers, are in need of final financing. "Stripped" is not a "Food Inc" expose or "Waiting for Superman" polemic. It describes itself benignly as a "love letter to the art form" of comics.
According to The New York Times film review "The movie offers the only chance that most of us will probably have to visit what he left behind, this strange, eerie Kieferland." Follow the movie Playdates in the US and latest reviews at the official movie site.
The linup of guest speakers for selected screenings of EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS at Film Forum has been announced! Read More
Intimate Stranger," says Berliner, "walks the fine line between sorting the dirty family laundry and polishing the precious family jewel." Family members try to make sense of it all in this witty, candid and cinematically inventive documentary biography.
"Funny, probing and so wholly original in both style and
substance as to seem completely without precedent...
brilliant, one-of-a-kind film...the remarkable life of a
seemingly average man presents a figure as complicated and
enthralling as any fictional character in recent memory...
intoxicating montage...expertly pieced together...
a spectacular high-wire feat by a fledgling master."
— THE WASHINGTON POST
"Compellingly eccentric...powerful, bittersweet...
a rich, tumultuous portrait of family life..."
— THE NEW YORK TIMES