come anticipate SYRIANA with me

I thought it was Soderberg - I guess I was wrong. But who is the writer/director then?

A great movie, I thought. Could have been a bit longer, and I'm still putting certain elements together in an attempt to understand the whole entirely.

None of it was surprising, I imagine that this stuff happens all the time, but I wish there were more mainstream films along these lines.

*SPOILERS*
Was anyone else disappointed that we never saw Clooney's son's reaction to what happened at the end?

Thought Bennett back-story cliched, Matt Damon was pretty funny "fuck you (wife)!". In all whole thing could have used injection of humor. Traffic had a bit more and it helped.

And funny in a great, subtle way - such as when a scene opens on what seems to be a safari in Africa with zebra and antelope and stuff & then the subtitle says "Texas."

The best globe-spanning, ensemble issue-drama is STILL the original Traffik!

Yeah, I know! Pesky characters, always getting in the way!

roger, that was sarcasm.

when do they have time to be fully-fleshed?

They don't. Which was really frustrating and irritating. That's why I didn't like it.

CLOONEY GIVEN 'SPINAL CAP' SURGERY

Superstar GEORGE CLOONEY is in the last stages of recovery after suffering severe headaches brought on by fluid leaking out of his spinal column.

Clooney injured his back while filming upcoming movie SYRIANA, and started getting agonising headaches after doctors operated on his neck.
It then took a while for Clooney's condition to be successfully diagnosed, at which point doctors performed 'spinal cap' surgery. The star, who had to wear a neck brace for a while, has now nearly fully recovered.

Clooney's publicist STAN ROSENFIELD tells website PAGESIX.COM, "He was getting tests and the doctors were saying, 'There's nothing wrong with you,' but he was having horrible headaches. He was in excruciating pain."

And, so bad was Clooney's discomfort, he was forced to pull out of promotional duties for sequel OCEAN'S TWELVE.

Rosenfield adds, "He was supposed to leave for New York on 28 November (04), but he couldn't. And he was supposed to leave for Europe on 8 December (04).

He actually drove to the airport, and said, 'Guys, I can't do it.'"

Why do they need time? They have their lives. That the camera eye doesn't focus on them cradle-to-grave doesn't take that away, nor does their failure to endlessly vocalize their motivations.

Esp. given that the story is bigger than any of them, and none of them, in the end, can claim to be innocent.

Whereas GARDENER souls too pure for this world vs. evil corps and bureaucrats FITE!

I don't know what "fully-fleshed" means, actually. What does that mean?

He seems a little depressed, maybe.

Don't hate me.

x-post

Today, it's thanks to jet lag! Namaste, bra.

OMG! Weird!

and ****SPOILER**** matt damon's supposedly brilliant pitch to the prince - c'mon, he hadn't thought of that before? puhleeze. i'm pretty sure OPEC buy or self-train some good brains.

but as far as fun things, i thought seeing Matt Damon as a hotshot derivatives trader in Switzerland with hot wife was great lifestyle porn. if, you know, that sort of life appeals to you.

Every character was a cliche (maybe Damon excepted, but that was just because that character didn't exist as such, he was just a sounding board for cliche reformer exposition), they didn't handle the convoluted plot very well and it ultimately didn't have anything to say about the oil situation (covering its bases at every step) or about its characters.

isn't the point that the prince HAD thought of that before?

EXACTLY!!!

It seemed that most everyone had thought of it & half of what he said (ie what the business world thinks of the country) was kind of the elephant in the room, but anyone expressing it in such blunt terms esp. to the prince was not so typical. There was a brief special on the making of this film on HBO last night & Gaghan said that after Damon's character loses his son he just adopts this go-for-broke attitude in his dealings with people, which he'd never have had otherwise.

I understood that you meant it that way, s1ocki. It's not like I have this checklist of things I demand from every movie, but when it failed to engage me on the level of story I turned to the characters for some kind of interest.

buh? [drools]

but anyone expressing it in such blunt terms esp. to the prince was not so typical

ooooh.

It is, I think, and the payoff to Damon's speech comes much later, when the prince explains it back to him.

I was very impressed with the way the script understood how simple it is to hurt or even kill a lot of people, and how when it happens, your understanding of what has happened falls easily and naturally between total understanding and total incomprehension. Everything is so cut-and-dry from one person to another, and everything is so frighteningly foggy once you put it into a larger context. If anything, that's the theme of the movie, and the sometimes baffling structure of the movie supports it.

I'm still not sure what purpose Jeffrey Wright's father served, but I'm still thinking about it. I'll get back to you.

My understanding is that it kinda is. Isn't it a fictionalized (to protect the innocent, assumedly) retelling of a nonfiction book?

I liked the reveal on that in the movie, actually. At the very end, when you're nearly emotionally devastated anyway, they tell you that this is based on a non-fiction book, which lets you know at the last moment that these events aren't as fantastical as you would probably like to leave the theater thinking.

I dunno about that, but I do think that how confusing it is has definitely been overstated.

I agree fully with Raymond on this. I wonder about people who would lay into Syriana too much, though. I mean, how many mainstream films treats the audience with as much respect. Not the best movie I've seen, and I do wonder how much of it was cut. But you've got to appreciate the effort, no?

(A friend left the theatre stating that she felt like she had to do some research.)

Also, this was from Ebert's syndicated column from a couple of weeks ago regarding the "corruption speech":

Corruption and greed in America

December 11, 2005

Q. I have read more than one review mentioning Tim Blake Nelson's "brilliant" speech about corruption in "Syriana." The speech has been compared to Michael Douglas' speech in "Wall Street" (1987) that defends greed. I haven't seen the movie yet but I'd love to just be able to read the speech.

Greg Nelson, Chicago

A. The speech is the work of Stephen Gaghan, the Oscar-winning writer and director of the film. Nelson plays Danny Dalton, a Texas oilman, who is speaking to Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright), a lawyer investigating a merger of two oil companies. Gaghan supplies this transcript:

Danny: Some trust fund prosecutor, got off-message at Brown, thinks he's gonna run this up the flagpole, make a name for himself, maybe get elected some two-bit, no-name congressman from nowhere, with the result that Russia or China can suddenly start having, at our expense, all the advantages we enjoy here. No, I tell you. No, sir. (mimics prosecutor) "But, Danny, these are sovereign nations." Sovereign nations! What is a sovereign nation, but a collective of greed run by one individual? "But, Danny, they're codified by the U.N. charter!" Legitimized gangsterism on a global basis that has no more validity than an agreement between the Crips and the Bloods! (Beat) ... Corruption charges. Corruption? Corruption ain't nothing more than government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That's Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around here instead of fighting each other for scraps of meat out in the streets. (Beat) Corruption ... is how we win.

Or when Christopher Plummer meets Clooney in the cafe, it's the middle of the night, he's a bit disheveled but has put on cufflinks. Like that's his reassurance to himself that he's the powerful one, the one in charge, despite his house having just been broken into.

I thought Damon's character was terrific, the way his desperation following the loss of his son was channeled into devotion to the Prince. People rarely just spiral downwards I think; they grab onto something and let it carry them down.

haha yes the one with NO IRANIANS.

i thought these moments were a bit "writerly" and didn't work for me

but much of the stuff about the suicide bomber was pretty searing, if only because i've never seen it before

thought this film was very smart, visually as well as uh narratively

His immediate bosses sent him there to assassinate Nasir because they were told he's funding terrorists. They don't know this to be false. Right?

Someone above them gave them the info in hopes of disposing with the problematic Nasir. Dean Whiting (Christopher Plummer) maybe has something to do with this?

Or was he clooney there to be killed by that guy who ripped his fingernails out? William hurt said the nail ripper had flipped and now worked for iran - while clooney was under the impression that he was still a us asset. It seemed like the nail ripper was an old contact of clooney's, rather than someone the cia had set him up with specifically for the nasir job. In which case it's unlikely he was double crossed.

Also - who exactly is Dean Whiting? An oil man with deep government connections?

Please help.

So the plot wasn't really very complicated, it was just that it was flimsily communicated enough for it to seem so.

I'm sure I'd enjoy it more on a second viewing, not having to miss the forest for concentrating on the trees, but yeah, it annoyed me.

I am rubbish with faces and names though.

Actually, earlier on I finally saw Good Night, And Good Luck and was excited to recognise the evil bumming one from Prison Break as an evil McCarthyite. I made an especial effort to remember his character's name so that I could check I was right when I got home. It was Donald, so I thought of a duck. Johnny Mnemonic, me. I'm going to check it now, in fact.

Woah! That was Robert Downey Jr.

Anyway, hang on - doesn't this only work if other characters adopt this same protocol when referring to them?

I didn't hear any lines like: "I'm sorry, but that's not going to cut it with the Department of Justice – we need bigger fish than that dude from all the Coen Bros movies."

*SPOILER ALERT*

when clooney halts the convoy with the white flag, is what subsequently happens part of his plan?

is damon's switching of cars a suggestion he suspects what is ahead, or totally innocent?

i am more confused now.

this was rubbish.

maybe it would have been an okay mini-series, but it tried to do way too much.

anyway 'the kingdom' isn't great but it is at least a film. don't think 'syriana' is really more intelligent either. it's just that clooney talks a good game and has earned liberal credentials for saying that mccarthy was a bad dude.

the kingdom was one of the worst movies i ever seen

reading upthread 1) make it a miniseries is a meme already 2) the corruption speech is good.

I thought it was good. It was almost exactly the same film as Any Given Sunday in many ways. Matt Damon was the best thing in it. Weirdly.

better than traffic

syriana was great. traffic and the kingdom sucked balls bigtime.

traffic is bad but at least made an effort at characterization. it had a complex plot but ideas-wise it wasn't that complicated.

it had convenient color-coding

in this film the doctor from deep space nine gets blowed up

with a doctor from ER

who previously teamed up with the country singer in a movie about odysseus

while the kid from GWH watches his family implode

and america runs on gas

the end

Syriana has neither Benicio del Toro bargaining with the feds while floating in a pool, nor teenage crackheads - ergo it cannot be superior to Traffic in any way.

The Kingdom would have been a lot better had it been an actual Michael Mann film instead of trying to be intelligent and CSI-y. Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper runnin' and gunnin' through Saudi Arabia would have been enough.

Chris Cooper is criminally underused, actually. Both of his awesome lines are in the trailer. Fuck that.

if they'd shot 'the kingdom' like 'miami vice' and had more terseness i'd be happy as larry, fuck the politics.

the actual investigationy bits were pretty weak. and i couldn't work out if the bad guys at the end were in cahoots with the national guard guy all along etc, which wouldn't have mattered if it'd been more like 'heat'.

i liked syriana more than traffic -- which is a seriously bad film -- but they both pretend to be way smarter and tougher than they are. the dumbest thing in syriana is the very end, where we're still presented with this all-powerful (if, you know, deeply flawed and corrupt) america, in which flinty dudes in washington can nail anyone anywhere with the flick of a switch, and watch the carnage on big-screen tvs. (i also hate movies where they kill off a kid for no good reason except to up the emotional ante.)

syriana doesn't have a white girl's sleeping with a black guy as being the key "rock bottom moment" so i'm gonna go with my og pick

i also hate movies where they kill off a kid for no good reason except to up the emotional ante

the kid's death is a pretty major plot point as it provides a reason for prince nasir to hire matt damon

this movie was all hat and no cattle. at times it felt like it was being shot and edited by a film student -- there were striking shots but then some real clunky ones (i.e. FEET running UP THE STAIRS); even that set-piece speech about corruption was ruined by OCD editing and weirdo jerky off-center framing. when so little is trying to communicate so much, with so little connective expository tissue, please let us just concentrate on the characters and what they're getting across.

anyway i agree that a whole movie about the pakistani kids would have been 1,000,000,000,000,000 times better.

come on, it wouldn't really have been a quadrillion times better. maybe just a little.

i thought the dude from star trek did a good job.

If anything, this is better a decade later.

ISIS, wealth stratification, all here.

found this movie Bad

i liked it much better the second time. more than traffic, anyhow.

less racist or trite than Traffic but also less pretty & purposeful. Character arcs in Traffic make sense. motivations here are just confused.

i dont need a film to tell me american imperialism will steamroll the lives of good people, id like to understand how ppl respond to that experience & apparently the answer is like, wave a white shirt & forget about how important your family is for a little while . . . . so many loose ends that dont really relate to anything else & so they just kill half the cast at the end to tie it up idk not into it

I learned one important message from this very shite movie; put an RCBO on the swimming pool lighting circuit dude.

Thought about watching this tonight, thinking I never saw it. Decided to check ilx to see what folks thought. Evidently, 4.5 years ago I did see it, and hated it! Good to know. A little worried about my brain health