Movie and Bookblogging
Dec. 28th, 2005 03:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedYou know what sucks? The cartoon based on Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks. I am still looking for that elusive thing, a cartoon based on a syndicated comic strip that does not suck. (Baby Blues is okay. Dogbert, however, sucks.)
Syriana
Saw this on Christmas Eve, liked it. It’s a simultaneous interweaving storylines kind of movie, like Traffic (same writer) or The Hours, with the difference being that...there isn’t much interweaving. I kept expecting eerie coincidences, movieland plot twists, for two characters to meet in a bar and almost make the connection...in the end the stories are connected, but only because American oil is linked to American spying is linked to Middle East government is linked to Middle East terrorism. No suspension of disbelief required, this movie feels real. Here’s a breakdown of the storylines:
The Terrorist Storyline
When the movie opens, frumpy CIA operative George Clooney[1] is selling a missile to what he thinks are pro-US rebel forces in...Israel? This isn’t important. The missile is stolen by a mysterious blue-eyed man who doesn’t speak the local language. We periodically cut back to this man and his training camp for teenage suicide bombers.
The funny thing is that these scenes mostly function as welcome breaks from the relentless politicking of the rest of the movie. It’s all very tranquil: the soon-to-be-suicides sit, they talk religion, they express doubt, they farm and play soccer. Nice kids. The missile is only sort of important later. (As George Clooney’s CIA handlers say, “Would you forget that damn missile already?” Contrast most Middle East thrillers to get an idea of how we are not headed to the same place with this one.)
The George Clooney Storyline
Poor longtime CIA assassin/working dad. After the missile fiasco and another one involving Prince Nassir and a graphic torture scene (sdfkjs HIS FINGERNAILS[2]), he becomes the CIA’s scapegoat. Is he a good man? A bad man? We meet his son, who dislikes him, and hear about his wife, another CIA operative with security clearance so high that we never do find out what she does. Clooney is loyal and (we can only assume from his prior track record) competent, but he’s also a fieldwork junkie who doesn’t question orders. He’s worked for the government too long and too hard to take the fall without getting some of his own back.
Personally I thought his were the least interesting parts of the movie.
The Prince Nasir Storyline
Prince Nasir, the only character whose name I remember. XD He’s the older, Oxford-educated, business suit-wearing son of the Emir. He’s reform-minded and the people love him, but American oil and the American government love his careless, beaming younger brother instead. Nasir wants to turn Syriana into a democracy, improve the status of women, and end American exploitation by throwing bidding open to the Chinese.[3] He’s aided by Matt Damon, who used to be an analyst in a very small and unimportant energy trading firm[4].
The Oil Merger Storyline
This is the heart of the movie, I think. Two gigantic American oil companies are merging, and the government has hired a law firm to look into it – but not too hard. The merger is good for the economy, after all. In this story we spend most of our time with an ambitious black lawyer played by Jeffrey Wright (for flavor, his father is an alcoholic bum). I say “heart of the movie” because these sections contain all of the juicy realpolitick speeches.
There are too many characters and they go by too quickly to for the audience to emotionally connect to any of them (see [1]). Therefore the only thing you can get out of this movie is Message, to wit: America is interfering in the Middle East for self-interested business reasons; what’s good for America is not good for others and if you don’t see this you are way too idealistic. I had a “You can make Hollywood movies about this sort of thing?” moment. (“Really? The director is allowed to say that? Well, I mean, of course he is allowed to say that[5], but. Warner Bros. is willing to pay him for it?”)
This movie gets its power from being a movie without any of the traditional movie trappings. No scenes designed to emotionally manipulate the audience, plenty of scenes designed to make the audience think. The conclusion reminded me of the conclusions of the short stories I’ve been reading recently – that is, there isn’t one. This makes it more real.
[1] Can’t remember character names. This is Syriana’s fault and not mine, because I paid plenty of attention. It’s a good thing Clooney and Damon and their instantly recognizable faces signed on to this movie.
[2] *shudders* Thankfully it’s not as bad as the scenes in The Manchurian Candidate (either version). Those gave me nightmares for weeks.
[3] The Chinese were always, always, always in the background. They are only discussed a few times, and never for long, but they are the ominous looming threat in the back of all the characters’ minds. Extras in every crowd scene. You get the idea.
[4] This is the one non-real part of the movie. Matt Damon is a small-time player who attains big-time prominence thanks to the accidental death of his six-year-old son. It’s important that he be a smaller player, because if he were a larger player – like Jeffrey Wright, for example – he would never work with Nasir for a better Syriana. He’d work for the interests of the United States, which are diametrically opposed, or for his own interests. At least, this is what the movie implied. It was important that he be a freak case. In fact his freakiness only underscored how unusual his principled position was.
What a depressing thought.
[5] A story! Senior year of high school, I was sitting in the back of Mr. Jet’s Journalism class working overtime on the Literary Magazine. This was 2003, and maybe 60% of my high school still believed Saddam Hussein had been responsible for 9/11 (no really; there was a poll). Mr. Jet was talking about Iraq’s possible weapons of mass destruction (his words: “the issue is not whether or not Saddam has these weapons, we know he has them. The issue is whether he will use them”) when the issue of negative press came up. Quoth one girl, “They’re saying bad things about the government! You’re not allowed to say bad things about the government!”
....yeah. In Journalism class.
That took too long, so I’ll keep the rest short.
The Island
AKJSDH Why hadn’t I heard of this movie before? It’s out on DVD folks, go rent it. Adults in white tracksuits in a futuristic enclosed facility, living responsibility-free lives; their only purpose is to bide time until chosen to live on “The Island,” the last pollutant-free place on Earth. But is it really 2019? Is the planet really contaminated? Why is every aspect of life in the facility monitored? Most importantly, why are all of these adults acting like five year olds?
The technology driving this movie exists, sort of. But the second half forgets all that stuff in favor of being a disappointingly dumb action movie (lol guyz I think there weren’t enuf explosions, ½ of LA is still standing!). The Island is still worth seeing for Ewan McGreggor pretending to be a genius five-year-old, though. XDXD
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley.
It took me two chapters to realize that I’d already read this book – in middle school, before I was keeping track of authors. My reaction is the same: aw, fluffy colonialists! That was the kindest, most “we’re good people at heart, even our prejudices are endearing” look at English people I have ever seen! (Homelanders. Whatever.)
The heroine, who is too tall and too independent and too poor to marry well despite her obvious intelligence and good sense, is sent to an outpost, where she falls in love with 1) the desert, and 2) a psychic desert prince who has gold eyes and is taller than her. A fun book. Vivian Vande Velde does teen fantasy kink romance better, though.
Wicked
The story of Elphalba, the Wicked Witch of the West. I liked it but had a strange niggling sensation of not-rightness. The Land of Oz was never meant to be given the realistic political treatment. Look at the map! A desert on the west side of a mountain range, when the wind blows east? Draining a swamp leads to water shortages at higher elevations? Not Right. It was strange beyond words to read about Animal Oppression as a political distraction from reduced farm yields. (Pretty funny to see Elphalba crusade for Animals on the one hand, hate Tiktok creatures on the other, though. *g* everyone has a blind spot.)
By the end of the book the author had gotten so far away from Wicked Witch’s normal characterization that when Dorothy finally showed up, he could only get Elphalba to follow the script by making her temporarily insomniac and delusional. XD
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler.
I don’t want to finish this book. It’s pretty squick – ten year old girl vampire sleeps with man in his twenties, numerous others – but more than that it’s...too rational. A fantasy story forced to be a sci fi story. There are two problems with this:
1) like in Wicked, there are certain things that make more sense when they are not explained.
2) The writing style. Basically it consists of pages and pages and pages of ten-year-old amnesiac vampire protagonist working things out in her head. This is quintessential Octavia E. Butler; but in a story without aliens or cults or dystopian future societies, it is also more than I can take.
Syriana
Saw this on Christmas Eve, liked it. It’s a simultaneous interweaving storylines kind of movie, like Traffic (same writer) or The Hours, with the difference being that...there isn’t much interweaving. I kept expecting eerie coincidences, movieland plot twists, for two characters to meet in a bar and almost make the connection...in the end the stories are connected, but only because American oil is linked to American spying is linked to Middle East government is linked to Middle East terrorism. No suspension of disbelief required, this movie feels real. Here’s a breakdown of the storylines:
The Terrorist Storyline
When the movie opens, frumpy CIA operative George Clooney[1] is selling a missile to what he thinks are pro-US rebel forces in...Israel? This isn’t important. The missile is stolen by a mysterious blue-eyed man who doesn’t speak the local language. We periodically cut back to this man and his training camp for teenage suicide bombers.
The funny thing is that these scenes mostly function as welcome breaks from the relentless politicking of the rest of the movie. It’s all very tranquil: the soon-to-be-suicides sit, they talk religion, they express doubt, they farm and play soccer. Nice kids. The missile is only sort of important later. (As George Clooney’s CIA handlers say, “Would you forget that damn missile already?” Contrast most Middle East thrillers to get an idea of how we are not headed to the same place with this one.)
The George Clooney Storyline
Poor longtime CIA assassin/working dad. After the missile fiasco and another one involving Prince Nassir and a graphic torture scene (sdfkjs HIS FINGERNAILS[2]), he becomes the CIA’s scapegoat. Is he a good man? A bad man? We meet his son, who dislikes him, and hear about his wife, another CIA operative with security clearance so high that we never do find out what she does. Clooney is loyal and (we can only assume from his prior track record) competent, but he’s also a fieldwork junkie who doesn’t question orders. He’s worked for the government too long and too hard to take the fall without getting some of his own back.
Personally I thought his were the least interesting parts of the movie.
The Prince Nasir Storyline
Prince Nasir, the only character whose name I remember. XD He’s the older, Oxford-educated, business suit-wearing son of the Emir. He’s reform-minded and the people love him, but American oil and the American government love his careless, beaming younger brother instead. Nasir wants to turn Syriana into a democracy, improve the status of women, and end American exploitation by throwing bidding open to the Chinese.[3] He’s aided by Matt Damon, who used to be an analyst in a very small and unimportant energy trading firm[4].
The Oil Merger Storyline
This is the heart of the movie, I think. Two gigantic American oil companies are merging, and the government has hired a law firm to look into it – but not too hard. The merger is good for the economy, after all. In this story we spend most of our time with an ambitious black lawyer played by Jeffrey Wright (for flavor, his father is an alcoholic bum). I say “heart of the movie” because these sections contain all of the juicy realpolitick speeches.
There are too many characters and they go by too quickly to for the audience to emotionally connect to any of them (see [1]). Therefore the only thing you can get out of this movie is Message, to wit: America is interfering in the Middle East for self-interested business reasons; what’s good for America is not good for others and if you don’t see this you are way too idealistic. I had a “You can make Hollywood movies about this sort of thing?” moment. (“Really? The director is allowed to say that? Well, I mean, of course he is allowed to say that[5], but. Warner Bros. is willing to pay him for it?”)
This movie gets its power from being a movie without any of the traditional movie trappings. No scenes designed to emotionally manipulate the audience, plenty of scenes designed to make the audience think. The conclusion reminded me of the conclusions of the short stories I’ve been reading recently – that is, there isn’t one. This makes it more real.
[1] Can’t remember character names. This is Syriana’s fault and not mine, because I paid plenty of attention. It’s a good thing Clooney and Damon and their instantly recognizable faces signed on to this movie.
[2] *shudders* Thankfully it’s not as bad as the scenes in The Manchurian Candidate (either version). Those gave me nightmares for weeks.
[3] The Chinese were always, always, always in the background. They are only discussed a few times, and never for long, but they are the ominous looming threat in the back of all the characters’ minds. Extras in every crowd scene. You get the idea.
[4] This is the one non-real part of the movie. Matt Damon is a small-time player who attains big-time prominence thanks to the accidental death of his six-year-old son. It’s important that he be a smaller player, because if he were a larger player – like Jeffrey Wright, for example – he would never work with Nasir for a better Syriana. He’d work for the interests of the United States, which are diametrically opposed, or for his own interests. At least, this is what the movie implied. It was important that he be a freak case. In fact his freakiness only underscored how unusual his principled position was.
What a depressing thought.
[5] A story! Senior year of high school, I was sitting in the back of Mr. Jet’s Journalism class working overtime on the Literary Magazine. This was 2003, and maybe 60% of my high school still believed Saddam Hussein had been responsible for 9/11 (no really; there was a poll). Mr. Jet was talking about Iraq’s possible weapons of mass destruction (his words: “the issue is not whether or not Saddam has these weapons, we know he has them. The issue is whether he will use them”) when the issue of negative press came up. Quoth one girl, “They’re saying bad things about the government! You’re not allowed to say bad things about the government!”
....yeah. In Journalism class.
That took too long, so I’ll keep the rest short.
The Island
AKJSDH Why hadn’t I heard of this movie before? It’s out on DVD folks, go rent it. Adults in white tracksuits in a futuristic enclosed facility, living responsibility-free lives; their only purpose is to bide time until chosen to live on “The Island,” the last pollutant-free place on Earth. But is it really 2019? Is the planet really contaminated? Why is every aspect of life in the facility monitored? Most importantly, why are all of these adults acting like five year olds?
The technology driving this movie exists, sort of. But the second half forgets all that stuff in favor of being a disappointingly dumb action movie (lol guyz I think there weren’t enuf explosions, ½ of LA is still standing!). The Island is still worth seeing for Ewan McGreggor pretending to be a genius five-year-old, though. XDXD
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley.
It took me two chapters to realize that I’d already read this book – in middle school, before I was keeping track of authors. My reaction is the same: aw, fluffy colonialists! That was the kindest, most “we’re good people at heart, even our prejudices are endearing” look at English people I have ever seen! (Homelanders. Whatever.)
The heroine, who is too tall and too independent and too poor to marry well despite her obvious intelligence and good sense, is sent to an outpost, where she falls in love with 1) the desert, and 2) a psychic desert prince who has gold eyes and is taller than her. A fun book. Vivian Vande Velde does teen fantasy kink romance better, though.
Wicked
The story of Elphalba, the Wicked Witch of the West. I liked it but had a strange niggling sensation of not-rightness. The Land of Oz was never meant to be given the realistic political treatment. Look at the map! A desert on the west side of a mountain range, when the wind blows east? Draining a swamp leads to water shortages at higher elevations? Not Right. It was strange beyond words to read about Animal Oppression as a political distraction from reduced farm yields. (Pretty funny to see Elphalba crusade for Animals on the one hand, hate Tiktok creatures on the other, though. *g* everyone has a blind spot.)
By the end of the book the author had gotten so far away from Wicked Witch’s normal characterization that when Dorothy finally showed up, he could only get Elphalba to follow the script by making her temporarily insomniac and delusional. XD
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler.
I don’t want to finish this book. It’s pretty squick – ten year old girl vampire sleeps with man in his twenties, numerous others – but more than that it’s...too rational. A fantasy story forced to be a sci fi story. There are two problems with this:
1) like in Wicked, there are certain things that make more sense when they are not explained.
2) The writing style. Basically it consists of pages and pages and pages of ten-year-old amnesiac vampire protagonist working things out in her head. This is quintessential Octavia E. Butler; but in a story without aliens or cults or dystopian future societies, it is also more than I can take.