Kam
11-28-2005, 08:01 AM
Syriana - High reccomendation. Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan (the writer of Traffic). This movie follows the same structure as traffic, with 4 major storylines. The only drawback to it, was that it was too short. At about 2hours with credits and all the story alone is about 1:50 and change total. It definitely felt like the studio told gaghan to chop 40 minutes out of it to keep it in the 2 hour range and allow the requisite number of showings per day. Soderburgh had the clout to say he wanted to keep traffic at 2:30 and keep each storyline as developed as he wanted to. With Syriana, the george clooney and geoffrey wright storylines are the least developed whereas the matt damon and the terrorist storyline are the most developed. Syriana is broken up in to 4 storys:
1) George Clooney is a cia operative sent on various missions, one of which ends up with a weapon being lost.
2) matt damon is an energy consultant that manages to work with the crown-prince of saudi arabia who wishes to bring saudi into the new world of equality and out of dependance on oil vs. the prince's younger brother, who wants to keep things as-is, and keep the dependency on oil as strong as ever.
3) geoffrey wright is a lawyer who is investigating a deal between two of the biggest oil companies in the us and how some improprieties may have occurred.
4) the terrorist is a pakistani kid living in saudi arabia with his dad who gets laid off from the oil plant he was working in because of the merger between the two giant US oil companies and then begins to go to a school with a friend (that ends up being a taliban-esque school).
each story is connected in some way to the other and each is woven really well into each other. i really just wish they had about 30-40 more minutes to develop the clooney/wright stories more.
however, still a high reccomendation and a great ending too. makes you think, even though it is a 'work of fiction.'
Derailed - avoid at all costs. this is a glorified lifetime movie of the week. wasnt worth the free screening.
Flightplan - the jodie foster thriller is enjoyable if you absolutely can turn off ALL logic of ANY kind. granted it was better than derailed, but maybe it's because by comparison it seemed much better. there are HUGE, and i mean HUGE logic holes throughout the entire movie, mainly right at the beginning, which dont even come to fruition until the end. That is, when the big 'reveal' happens, i just couldnt stop from a having a huge, "waaaaaaaait just a minute" moment where the huge logic holes just jumped, leaped, and threatened to burst from the screen. Jodie foster, however, was great as always and sean bean was awesome too. with all the big uproar from the flight attendant's unions complaining about the movie, has got to be one of the dumbest, if not dumbest complaint i've ever heard of.
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(spoiler)
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in case anyone does see it, one of the flight attendant's is a badguy, along with the main badguy who is an air marshall. so.... why didnt the air marshalls' union complain about their guy being portrayed as a badguy? and also, why hasnt every other profession in the history of the world complained about being portrayed as a badguy in a movie? doctors? lawyers? plumbers? cops? business men? taxi drivers? street sweepers? ditch diggers? truck drivers? clowns? cosonostro? politicians? sports players? hello? there's an unbelievable amount of "horrible, disgusting misrepresentation" going on out there, why aren't all these other profession's complaining? why? because, i would hope, it's this thing called FICTION. but... the flight attendants have to complain because a flight attendant is a badguy in the movie, even though she reneges at the end and gives up on the plot. not sure if they were pissed that she was a badguy, or that she was a crappy badguy. although she had great eyes.
peace
k2
1) George Clooney is a cia operative sent on various missions, one of which ends up with a weapon being lost.
2) matt damon is an energy consultant that manages to work with the crown-prince of saudi arabia who wishes to bring saudi into the new world of equality and out of dependance on oil vs. the prince's younger brother, who wants to keep things as-is, and keep the dependency on oil as strong as ever.
3) geoffrey wright is a lawyer who is investigating a deal between two of the biggest oil companies in the us and how some improprieties may have occurred.
4) the terrorist is a pakistani kid living in saudi arabia with his dad who gets laid off from the oil plant he was working in because of the merger between the two giant US oil companies and then begins to go to a school with a friend (that ends up being a taliban-esque school).
each story is connected in some way to the other and each is woven really well into each other. i really just wish they had about 30-40 more minutes to develop the clooney/wright stories more.
however, still a high reccomendation and a great ending too. makes you think, even though it is a 'work of fiction.'
Derailed - avoid at all costs. this is a glorified lifetime movie of the week. wasnt worth the free screening.
Flightplan - the jodie foster thriller is enjoyable if you absolutely can turn off ALL logic of ANY kind. granted it was better than derailed, but maybe it's because by comparison it seemed much better. there are HUGE, and i mean HUGE logic holes throughout the entire movie, mainly right at the beginning, which dont even come to fruition until the end. That is, when the big 'reveal' happens, i just couldnt stop from a having a huge, "waaaaaaaait just a minute" moment where the huge logic holes just jumped, leaped, and threatened to burst from the screen. Jodie foster, however, was great as always and sean bean was awesome too. with all the big uproar from the flight attendant's unions complaining about the movie, has got to be one of the dumbest, if not dumbest complaint i've ever heard of.
.
.
.
(spoiler)
.
.
.
.
in case anyone does see it, one of the flight attendant's is a badguy, along with the main badguy who is an air marshall. so.... why didnt the air marshalls' union complain about their guy being portrayed as a badguy? and also, why hasnt every other profession in the history of the world complained about being portrayed as a badguy in a movie? doctors? lawyers? plumbers? cops? business men? taxi drivers? street sweepers? ditch diggers? truck drivers? clowns? cosonostro? politicians? sports players? hello? there's an unbelievable amount of "horrible, disgusting misrepresentation" going on out there, why aren't all these other profession's complaining? why? because, i would hope, it's this thing called FICTION. but... the flight attendants have to complain because a flight attendant is a badguy in the movie, even though she reneges at the end and gives up on the plot. not sure if they were pissed that she was a badguy, or that she was a crappy badguy. although she had great eyes.
peace
k2