Nice Bombs.

"With Nice Bombs, [Usama] Alshaibi joins a growing number of filmmakers who, having abandoned war-torn homelands for the US as children, decide to make pilgrimages as adults and see what they've been missing. You can go home again - sort of," writes Michelle Orange in the Voice. Even if home is Iraq.

"Jumping from home movies to news clips to an insurgency training video, Nice Bombs feels as sad and directionless as the country it documents," writes Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. "Lacking the range and idealism of Maysoon Pachachi's Return to the Land of Wonders or the mournful intimacy of Laura Poitras's My Country, My Country, the movie struggles to engage. At this stage of the war, that may be the saddest thing of all."

Ray Pride's followed the film's development for some time and asks Alshaibi, "So finally it's locked, loaded and out there: I'm sure there's something to be gained from the stock question of, what have you learned?"

Earlier: Ignatius Vishnevetsky's interview.

Posted by dwhudson at July 11, 2007 2:46 PM