Letters to the Editor
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Obsessions?
quote: the movie's obsessive plot
What in the world is an obsessive plot?
How about complex, tortuous, tangled, convoluted, knotty, labyrinthine, Byzantine, involved....?
But obsessive???
Regardless. I obsessively await this film. It would be nice to see a movie that engages the audience.
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whew!
Thanks Stephanie! I wouldn't want to waste my time on a complicated movie that I might not completely and totally understand. I guess I'll just buy a magazine and stare at Clooney's dreamy face. That should be much more illuminating, I'm sure.
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Age
Let's see, 35 (Matt Damon) is 'young,' 40 (Jeffrey Wright) is 'young,' but somehow 44 (George Clooney) is 'middle aged.' Is there some magic line that divides those two? You're young, you're young you're young, until BOOM! You're middle aged.
Actually, lots of people are apparently young. Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, and Matt's kid. That's a lot of youth in one paragraph! Maybe Ms. Zacharek needs a descriptive that suggests immaturity. I have always liked 'jejune.' Her inability to discern the need for a thesaurus could explain why Ms. Zacharek can't follow the complicated plot of this movie.
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complicated
I don't think Stephanie understood the movie, and therefore the movie is "too complicated". God forbid Stephanie should read Ulysses, listen to Stravinsky or try to learn another language.
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Syriana and snark
My god, give the woman a break. The letters section of Salon is starting to look like a spewing ground for a lot of envious unpublished writers.
The review was just fine. She said what she thought was bad and good about it. Go see it and make up your own mind.
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well worth seeing - not that complicated
Go see this film. For me, I had no trouble following 'Syriana" and was thrilled that it did such a great job using a fictional story that (in my mind) directly connects Dick Cheney's 2001 secret meetings with the energy industry to his present attacks on Rep. Murtha and braying of "stay the course in Iraq" - Syriana explains exactly why in a pretty straight forward and compelling way. The acting is great, including Chris Cooper, and the editing probably saved the film. Gaghan may well be the kind of writer whose ego gets in the way, but I wonder if the article writer was responding to some non-film experience of him rather than just what is in the film itself.
I got to go to the NY premiere of "Syriana" and spent some time chatting with Bob Baer, the ex-CIA operative who wrote the book on which it's based. I have seen plenty of films that were hard to follow and frankly, this was not one of them. I know I am not the average viewer in terms of how much interest I have in geopolitics and energy/materials policy, but most Salon readers fall into that category. These are not simplistic topics and I was expecting the film to be longer and more complex than it is. One of the people I was with had a similar response in that she wanted to see it again and catch what she missed, so I'm sure that is valid and depends on the person.
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Syriana
where the fuck is the release date?
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You know, it's not just about the snark, but maybe it is.
Stephanie Zacharek writes many of the movie reviews for Salon, and this presents a problem of sorts, as far as I'm concerned (which may not concern her, but there you go). Almost every movie that comes from a mainstream movie company (which is most of what she seems to review) is, in a word, bad. Syriana is "complicated" and Rent is "worse than last year's over-the-top travesty 'Phantom Of The Opera'." Yes, these movies might be less than she's expecting. But let's be honest -- it seems to me that she's expecting WAY too much from the average mainstream movie.
Chris Columbus probably wasn't the best choice to direct Rent. George Clooney wears his heart on his sleeve, which apparently doesn't work for political thrillers. Nonetheless, I think it might be time for Salon to consider getting another writer for movie reviews. Stephanie is a great writer -- I love what she does. I just think her snarkiness has gotten out-of-hand, and is no longer constructive in the review department. Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
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One small, respectful quibble
I agree with the other letter writer who said this is getting to be a spewing ground. I like Stephanie Zacharek's reviews even if I disagree with some of them. Therefore please don't take this as a spew against the author but --
"When Chris Cooper, at a meeting of bigwig executives, asks, "What is an emir, anyway?" he pronounces the word, in a slithery Texas drawl, "E-murr," as if he thinks it's some sort of exotic animal. Cooper is a wonderful actor, capable of far more subtlety than that. But he seems to be doing exactly what the movie asks of him, which isn't much."
Um, have you MET a Texan? Or for that matter, any Republican cog? Seen Jack Abramoff's emails? Or Michael Brown's?
Sometimes subtlety is just for art's sake. People like that suck and not in a subtle way.
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Syrianas complications
I just saw syriana....I understand why she thought it was complicated, but to my mind confusing the viewer with complications serves the message of movie. She should have mention that the cinematography, the sets, the music were brillant, spot on. This is a very important film.
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Clooney/Krugman
I saw the movie, and I agree with the reviewer that it was unnecessarily complicated. I also want to make the observation that George Clooney with a beard looks uncannily like Paul Krugman, columnist for the New York Times.
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Where does all that oil come from?
I hated this movie. It was boring, dumb, and poorly written. It was a polemic by Clooney on our failed policy in the Middle East and how they have "our" oil... News flash...
Top Four countries that US imports oil...
1) Canada - Remember the Canadian-American War of 2002?
2) Saudi Arabia
3) Mexico - The Mexican-American War of 2003 was even better!
4) Venezuela
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Let me add #5
#5 is Nigeria - Remember all those pundits saying that the US doesn't intervene in African countries because there is no oil over there. Yeah, I remember!
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Syriana had a valid message
If that list is correct, then those are only the top 5 countries that we import oil from today. As they said in the movie, in a few decades 90% of what is left will be in the middle east. Besides, there are more reasons to maintain American domination over those oil fields than just the raw amount of oil imports going back to the U.S. Preserving American control over the oil as insurance for the future and limiting Chinese economic growth are two that I can think of and that the movie alluded to. Leave it to a conservative to think that a single five-point list can refute the entire other side of a very complicated issue.
The movie certainly had a distinctly one-sided message, but from the way the government has handled things in Iraq, it rang disturbingly true in my judgment. Ms. Zacharek's criticisms of Gaghan's overcomplication are accurate, but the film paints a rich tapestry of the biggest issue our country faces today, and should be commended just for trying to tie together the intricacies of the issue for the audience in only a few hours. I thoroughly enjoyed being immersed in these dealings and conflicts that I've spent so much time thinking about in the past few years.