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STOIC

OSCAR MOMENT

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STOIC   

I am writing these words as I am watching Forest Whitaker take the Oscars home for the film the LAST KING OF SCOTLAND. I believe that he did an excellent job depicting the life of Iddi Amin.We all sum up all of a films feature into either “I loved that movie” or “ I hated it”. But we all can tell when an actor does a good job relating to the settings and the story behind the movie. Forest Whittaker really depicted Iddi Amin’s side of power and vulnerability. Forest Whitaker really stayed true to the film by interacting with the Ugandans by shooting the film in its base home. Though I believe major portion of the script was fiction, but at least few historical moments were highlighted in the film. Among the Ugandans Iddi was a dictator who had no mercy to his own people, but there was a human side to his life too.

 

I think the Africans visual response to THE LAST KING OF SCOTTLAND and its stoic setting will inspire them to dislike injustice and scorn all that is dictatorship. They are far from enticing.They should be loathed and rebelled against. This is what a movie can do, the power to disturb people’s mind by prodding them to think and explore beyond . It has been my privilege to draw on the messages of really good films.

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Taliban   
I haven't seen the movie by Forest Whitaker, but I wouldn't recommend it for Muslims. For one thing, it's a revisionist movie that aims to disparage and defame Muslims in general, those in Uganda specifically. The son of the late marhum Idi Amin recently denounced the movie for dehumanizing his father. So, please boycott the movie if you are a moviegoer.

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J.Lee   

^If you had seen the movie you would've know that Idi amin's religious beliefs weren't even introduced to the audience. The movie was in 3rd omni where Forest was concerned; the POV was from the perspective of the Scottish doctor.

 

In my opinion, Forest deserved that Oscar, I was even moved during his speech in Village; I got goosebumps. I just fell in love with the character .

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BOB   

Originally posted by STOIC:

I believe that he did an excellent job depicting the life of Iddi Amin.

No he did a lousy job and no self respecting man/actor would ever accept such role and in my opinion he looked more stup!d than that Jaluo from OMO commercial on KBC TV...una kumbuka?

 

An old man once said to me...if you see the western world singing the praises of non-western man...especially a Muslim man...there must be some monkey business going on between them and if you see them belittling, denouncing, dehumanizing and defaming a non-western man, particularly a Muslim for that matter...that man must have been a one mighty brave or a noble Muslim man.

 

Yeah I watched it and to be honest I laughed at how stup!d Whitaker looked more than anything else and how low some would go just to humiliate a long dead man...and what's with the shoe polish thing and what kind of Kiswahili is "Nduyaye hiniinaa uwaawa kuu kiii etc" I never knew such words existed in Kiswahili until Forest Whitaker came along in The Last King Of Scotland.

 

If you want to laugh at how stup!d one man would look and how low one would stoop just for a statue called an Oscar...look no further than Forest Witaker...for me he sold his soul in this movie and as a black man I expected him to have a respect for a fellow dead black man...

 

For me Di Caprio should've won for either Departed or Blood Diamond...both of them excellent movies and I would recommend for anybody who hasn't seen them yet to go and watch them.

 

Stoic...nime chukiya huyu fala Whitaker ajili ya hii picha..kwangu, ame jiuzia rahisi sana wallahi.

 

 

Peace, Love & Unity.

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STOIC   

First, we all need to understand that this is a movie and not a true-life story of Idi Amin. If one wants to understand the life of Idi Amin all you have to do was research in any magazines archive. Movies are used as an instrument in drawing serious attention to a piece of history by breaking away from the traditional History channel style of narrating true story in a dramatization format. It will not be fair to hold Forest Whitaker responsible for portrayal of a ruler, hero or a religious figure he acted on a movie.

 

This was an epic film that had a story taken from some significant point in history of Uganda. It only has a moral to preach to you and I, but to take it as a fact will be misleading.Yes the film may have an inflammatory material that can be quite an offensive to the family of Iddi for it is exaggerated in style.We have to understand that films have a grab bag of tricks to have more people to watch.

 

I will consider logically absurd to not watch a film because it portrays a Muslim in a bad light after all this is a movie and not a true-life story. I think Forest Whitaker did a good job with his powerful performance of depicting Idi as a more human. I thought the movie was riveting. Saying that Forest Whitaker sold his life by stooping so low is quite absurd too. This is an art and the man is an actor. Do you remember when Denzel won the best actor in the film TRAINING DAY? Do you want to tell me that Denzel condones Gangster life? No, I think he was just a character in the movie, right. So It was for Forest Whitaker. I think the Swahili part was reasonable because the guy doesn't speak Swahili.So I think we should expect some incorrect grammatical and pronunciations errors. Heck it is just like me speaking French or Arabic :D

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Taliban   

Originally posted by STOIC:

First, we all need to understand that this is a movie and not a true-life story of Idi Amin.

Well, movies play a critical role in people's lives (at least those in the West). Movies raise people from children, young adults to grownups. Much of what those people learn from life, beliefs, human relationships, history, iwm comes from movies. Movies are facts and realities to them. To those people, movie stars are role models to emulate, eventhough the lives of those stars are marked by drug & alcohol abuse, family dysfunctions & breakups, immorality, weird behaviors, sexual perversion, iwm.

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NGONGE   

^^ Forget that and explain the unfounded accusations you levelled at the Somali president, saaxib.

 

Ps

Are you Haddad? :D

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Catalyst   

Informed by history, the one thing that has always bugged me about the way bad guys play out in dramas is that they seem so... bad. So irritable, and unpleasant, and humorless, and often arrogantly ******. This is actually a dangerous thing. When you teach people that evil wears a mask that even an ***** could see through, people don't try really try to pierce the smiling, paternal, populist masks that evil actually tends to wear when it reaches toward power.

 

Thus: Forest Whitaker = genius.

 

Whitaker's Idi Amin was ultimately a monster who lived up to the historical record. But he was also funny. Impulsive. Imaginative. Passionate. Persausive. Sharp. And even, in the earlier parts of the film, inspiring. This was no one-note performance; it was incredibly lush, and rich.

 

And most importantly: it sets a standard by which all historical "bad guy" roles should be judged by.

 

Being evil is not so hard. Being charismatic, charming and persausive on TOP of being evil is incredibly difficult -- and the sort of thing we ought to give a little more thought to when we try to identify the good guys, villains and incredible rogues gallery in between that populate the real world's geopolitical stage.

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N.O.R.F   

Recently saw Dicaprio in Blood Diamond and i thought he was excellent. The rebel leader in that movie was also excellent - he started his career on the BBCs casualty (does that still come by the way?)

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Teardrop   

I too saw Blood Diamond and I absolutely loved it. The way the story unfolded was a masterpiece. I though the supporting actor was great and very sexy.

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