What if you could sit down at a kitchen table with an American Muslim mom and ask her anything you wanted about her faith and religious practice?

The best move of the year (so far) wears its Dickensian spirit and soaring optimism shamelessly and proudly on its tattered, slumdog sleeves.   Danny Boyle's cinematic triumph demands and requires the audience to immediately believe in destiny. One that has already written the fated union of two slumdog lovers, Jamal and Latika, from an abundant inkwell overflowing with all the vibrancy, chaos, joy, despair and hope that defines modern day India.

Like its protagonist, the movie Traitor exists with conflicting loyalties and a fleeting sense of fidelity to its honorable, yet ultimately porous, intentions. The Don Cheadle-headed action/thriller, co-written by comedian/playwright Steve Martin and director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, inelegantly attempts to combine cardboard, blockbuster plot mechanics with the important, philosophical musings of a complicated post 9-11 world.

Driving to the “Sex and the City: The Movie” premiere, I felt like Morgan Spurlock, the director of “Super Size Me” who foolishly consumed fast food for 30 days; a man voluntarily condemning himself to masochistic pain for sake of a cultural experiment. Even before entering, the publicity coordinator, who knows me and the other frequent movie critics, said, “Dude, you’re like one of 6 guys in the entire movie theatre.”

“How much of human life is lost in wait,” muses a character towards the end of the highly anticipated, twenty years in the making Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Although I lack the wisdom to answer the philosophical question, after watching the premiere of the sequel, however, I can say much of the original wit and frenetic energy of the series is lost in a muddled and confused screenplay.

As most “Star Wars” fans know, director George Lucas took spiritual elements, which are common in most major world religions to create his epic saga of good vs. evil.  As a Muslim, I always thought of the “Jedi” as what a true follower of Islam should be like.  Never mind the fact Jedi masters with their North African style cloaks and scruffy beards look like Sufi Sheikhs, but they way they are taught to respect a greater power, fight for the defense of the innocent and honor a code of morals and ethics in order to bring about peace and

With his book,  How Does it Feel to Be a Problem, author Moustafa Bayoumi writes about Arabs coping with their home, the United States, turning their back on them in this post 9/11 world we live in.

Introducing Alpa Chino’s Booty Sweat: A new energy drink. Now, if you were to see a very well made, faux trailer promoting a cartoonish, hyper-sexualized rapper’s version of “Red Bull” known as “Booty Sweat” and you laugh, then this movie is for you. If this confounds you and leaves you flabbergasted with disgust and outrage, then please, for the love of God, go see Kit Kittredge. Ben Stiller’s new movie is an absurd, violent, gleefully politically incorrect and at times uproariously funny skewering of Hollywood, War movies and pretentious thespian egos.

The Dark Knight boldly deconstructs and resurrects the superhero movie, confidently allowing the comic book genre to soar beyond superficial assumptions and transcend new heights as a legitimate, epic, philosophical narrative. The highly anticipated sequel to Batman Begins is surely not without its faults and not quite a “masterpiece,” but nonetheless it rightfully breaks new ground in tackling the much derided and mocked “comic” culture with a mature, intense sophistication; one that refuses to carelessly disavow the question, “What if a billionaire really did fight crime dressed like a giant bat?” Talented and intelligent filmmaker Christopher Nolan answers the question

WANTED is a relentless, kick ass summer action movie that succeeds where most summer entries have failed: it actually entertains. To truly enjoy the graphic novel adaptation, one must suspend logic, desire for a meaningful plot, emotional depth and aversions to violence and CGI blood. It’s pure cotton candy - eye popping, visceral, action packed entertainment thoroughly well delivered by successful Russian director, Timur Bekmambetov [Director of Russia's most lucrative movie franchise Night Watch and Day Watch, two ludicrous, off the wall, yet very enjoyable and well made fantasy-action oddities.]