While in Beirut in January, I met a backpacker. She hailed from from Queens, NYC, and has been travelling mostly through East and Central Asia for the last year and a half. She picked up on the fact that I would be returning to NYC this summer, and as we talked about the places we would be going and where we had been, it seemed quite clear that I would soon become the caretaker of her laptop computer, an item which she did not want to carry with her as she ventured through Africa, an item which I could safely (one hopes) return to a family member of hers when I get back to the City, an item which I happily agreed to use to its fullest in my home. Here is Mina of Queens in Byblos, donor of said laptop.


Now I am in possession of said laptop and have been catching up on my film watching. Tres exciting, indeed, since a lot of the Oscar contenders this year were major hits and worth the time spent watching them. Because of the wonders of DSL, we have plenty of access to unedited versions of many movies. This is not to ignore the fact that we have access to plenty of current cinema at theaters in Cairo, both major motion pictures and foreign/regional films. Walk the Line and Paradise Now played at the Cairo Int'l Film Festival last fall, and Syriana is playing in theaters now, making it here just about the same time it would have after its release in the US. Munich and Crash are also currently playing in Cairo. Because I am not sure what other films will make their debut here, I saw Good Night and Good Luck and Hustle & Flow on various laptops. I can tell you if Hustle & Flow does make it to Cairo, the edited version would be a tragedy to modern American cinema. The movie is not obscene, violent or graphic, but the film is about a pimp and his "employees." I am not sure how much of the movie would have to be scrapped to pass the censors in Egypt. I watched it twice because it made me so happy--so happy because it was incredibly rich in music, sound and color. Cutting it up would be a crime. The music made me long for something indescribable about the US of A. The soundtrack itself is a work of art, seemlessly mixing genre and eras of sound like a little history of emotion and creativity itself. Deleting scenes would result in something similar to a cream sauce without the cream. On the flip side, if someone hears just one song that they had never heard before, and that song inspires them, then I suppose, no matter how much of the integrity of the movie has been compromised, the inspiration is a good thing. Let it come then, if it is to be. I'll see it again.