Syriana: Delightfully smart, not preachy and very much a think movie. George Clooney, who is the Cary Grant of our current generation, does a great job of looking like a schlub. Matt Damon, who is sort of hit or miss with me, shows that between him and Affleck, he’s the actual actor ( I still will never like the Talented Mr. Ripley, though).
Firewall: No actual firewalls are in the movie, and the idea of Harrison Ford just pounding out computer code stretches the imagination more than a little bit, BUT, if you are a fan of the genre known as “Bad Guy Threatens Harrison Ford and Harrison Ford Glowers And Kicks His Ass” – as I am – then you will like this movie. Not as good as “Get off my plane!”, but it’s fun Hollywood stuff anyhow.
Why am I suddenly thinking about pots and kettles?
Oh, and Frank, that would be [/sarcasm], with the “/” signifiying the off position. You do have your blog or something don’t you?
Heh. Indeed.
Richard Cohen on Syriana: “Syriana” is different because it’s first and foremost a political statement, a cinematic manifesto of the tired and empty cynicism of too many on the left. “Syriana” is not a bad movie. It is just a better cartoon.
Preachy is a Michael Moore movie, Syriana was morally ambigous if anything. But then, have you actually seen the movie?
And, oh yes, it’s not preachy. [/sarcasm off]
Frank doesn’t watch ‘message’ movies.
Frank,
You will be happier if you watch no Hollywood productions. Its all left wing garbage. Hollywood = extreme left.
Dugger, Do it quickly and all at once.
Dugger longs for the good old days, when films like Red Dawn and Rambo II and Delta Force kicked commie ass and kept their homoeroticism in the subtext, where it belongs! When men were men, and women weren t allowed!
Tom, who knows Dugger would like Brokeback Mountain a lot better if they were navy fighter pilots instead of cowboys.
Yea, better to sit in the house, with the shades down, holding a gun and watching nothing but Fox News all day. Them’ Merika hatin’ libruls always pushing the homo agenda in Disney cartoons need to be stopped!
Yes, the socialist overtones in Chicken Little and Chronicles of Narnia were just overboard.
Thank you for the advice, Mouse.
And, oh yes, your response to my comment was helpful, too. [/sarcasm]
FYI, I watch lots of movies. I also read lots of reviews. Cohen was not alone in his comments.
And, no, generally I don’t watch “message” movies, because I don’t find them entertaining [not to mention the FACT that trying to find a 'conservative' message movie is like looking for a needle in a Universe of haystacks]. I don’t read Marvel Comics anymore, but not because I think they’re liberal.
I think homoeroticism should be taught in the schools, along with evolution; not in the movies.
{See Dick. See Jane. See Jane have an illegitimate child, and go out to work for a little more than minimum wage for the rest of her life. See Tom. See Dick and Tom go to Massachusetts to get married.}
You, see, I’m not a liberal, so I don’t lead an ideologically driven life. I buy a Rhode Island sized cherry coke, and a Delaware sized buttered popcorn. I sit in the second row, and I go to three kinds of movies:
1) The gruesome movies my teenage son makes me go to with him,
2) Stupid comedies starring SNL past and present cast members, and
3) Movies where people get killed and shit blows up.
It’s fun being a conservative — try it some time!
So, you didn’t watch the movie. You let the media make up your mind for you. Way to be a lemming.
I’ve seen message movies, and I’ve seen Syriana, and I strongly don’t think it qualifies as one. Obviously Clooney has an opinion, but there’s a lot of room in that movie for individual interpretation. And if you want a decent conservative movie, Conan the Barbarian definitely qualifies. Seriously, Conan even opens with a quote from Nietzche. It’s the ultimate “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” movie.
A lemming? Because I read movie reviews? What are they written for? Why put them in the paper?
Oliver, how often do you set your house on fire? Well, how do you know it’s flammable?
Why would I go to a movie that got the kind of pre – publicity and reviews that this one did? To post a comment that met your approval?
The movie was called “political” in about 10 different places. Coming from Hollywood, that’s strike number one. It was called “smart” in about 10 places, including by you. Coming from Hollywood, that’s strike number 2. It was call “dense”, said that it “required patience”, “mostly talk.” I need more than that?
Would you have seen any of the Superman movies with those kind of reviews?
You’re being ridiculous.
Other good conservative movies: anything with the theme of zero-tolerance for crime, so Dirty Harry, the Death Wish series, Robocop, elements of Sin City. John Wayne movies are more of a western form of conservatism – small governement, self reliance – like Rooster Cogburn. The Godfather is very much about the retention and glorification of tradition in a changing world, (though it has criminal immigrants in it, so you might not like it — send ‘em home!) And then you’ve got Birth of a Nation, which is about the purest distillation of southern conservative social theory and practice ever committed to celluloid. Throw in a jingoistic war movie (Green Berets, maybe?), and you’ve got a full film festival right there, representing every genre and decade! Who says Hollywood ain’t conservative?
I don’t look at reviews before going to movies. I go to movies based on their own merit (the patented “does it look good?” test). People call Jerry Bruckheimer’s movies right-wing, doesn’t stop me from going to them (I loved “The Rock”) – I’m not the kind of lemming you appear to be, Frank.
I’d go see a Superman movie if it was directed by Limbaugh and written by Coulter, dude. Lighten up.
You know, I should have brought this up in the comic discussion the other day, but there’s a conservative super hero comic called “Liberality.” It’s set in the future, when conservatism is outlawed and Michael Moore is vice president (Chelsea’s the prez.) The heros? Sean Hannity, Oliver North and a robotic G. Gordon Liddy. I am not making this up. You could not ask for a more perfect distillation of conservative paranoia and self-aggrandizement. It is simply one of the most incredible things I’ve ever read.
http://www.accstudios.com/f/accproduct.htm
Oh, and Lord of the Rings is conservative, though it’s a peculiar kind of Catholic pre-industrial conservatism, but I’ll still count it.
“Does it look good”? OK, fine. I’ll buy that. Syriana didn’t pass that for me, either. It ‘looked like’ Ishtar plus petroleum politics.
And the reason I read reviews is because I can judge the movie from what they say, not because I blindly follow what they say. Most movie reviewers don’t appreciate the movies I do.
For the truly curious, you can National Review’s top 100 Conservative Movies (from 1994) right here.
As for the Liberality comic, I love the concept:
Most movie reviewers don t appreciate the movies I do.
Which is why I don’t read reviews before I see a movie, even for critics like Ebert who I generally agree with. Syriana is certainly not Ishtar. But then, I actually saw it.
Actually TomY I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I accept your point that there have been a few conservative or non-liberal movies: Starship Troopers (I know it was somewhat fascist-ized), a few sub strata older actioners with Norris, van Damme, Gibson, even Stallone maybe. Certainly Atlas shrugged, Patton a little. These are all movies that, howebver, do not have the premise of reflecting a core conservative argument or value. They kind of reflect a middle American, non liberal ethos. I would say there have been no provocative, conservative ideological movies for a long long time. Running on as I am (you’re probably reading another post) , I would like to see a few conservtaibve movies that cook the books like liberal movies do.
Anyway, my advice was like saying as a conservative you’ll be better off just assuming all movies and movie stars are liberal.
Dugger
I said it ‘looked like’ Ishtar… Isn’t that your criterion?
Let me ask you, Oliver. Why did you write that little review? Were’nt you recommending the movie? Does that make people “lemmings” if they go see it on your recommendation?
I just thought of something. You haven’t read any reviews of the new Inspector Clouseau, have you?
Even though it’s got Steve Martin and Beyonce (better even in “The Fighting Temptations” than she was in “Goldmember”) in it, I still wouldn’t go see it, unless it were free — which I do occasionally. I call that a “video” movie. I can see it on video, or on cable, but I’m not paying $18 (ticket, popcorn, soda) for that.
How about you?
Lets just say I’d have to be guaranteed 2-3 minutes of totally topless Beyonce action to see the new pink panther movie. No, nobody should go see Syriana or Firewall based on my say-so. I’m amazed that anyone does that for any critic to be honest. For me, movies are as personal as music is for some. What the critics like – A History of Violence, for instance – I can find to be exploitative nonsense.
Personally, I’m perfectly comfortable with forms of conservatism in fiction. It’s reality where it runs into problems. Again, Lord of the Rings were great movies; I have a lot of affection for Conan the Barbarian’s self-reliance ethos, though it was pretty ridiculous. But the book Starship Troopers is explicitly fascist (only soldiers can vote, for example). The film’s a bit different since Verhoeven was making a parody of jingoism and WW2-style nationalism, so it definitely doesn’t fall under the category of right wing.
Most Hollywood movies are by default conservative, because they uphold standards of the way things are now, and are designed, for the most part, to make as much money as possible. Thus reinforcing unbcounded commercialism at every step.
I would argue that even liberal “message movies” are a lot more conservative than they wish they were.
TomY,
Agree w/you on Starship, but the book was conservative and I think the overly-obvious fascist window dressing (Nazi like symbols, etc) hid a basic message of self-reliant soldierly values. OK, I’m sure it probably wasn’t like this, but if I wanted to get paranoid, I can see a movie maker who wants to make a conservative movie saying ” I’ll dress it up with enough overtly fascistic silliness that the leftie critics will be placated and miss the underlying message. ”
OW, I actually like your movie comments. You like entertaining movies. To my wife’s dismay, I can’t enjoy an otherwise entertaining movie if it has a (IMO) liberal cooked-book subplot or moral (for literally decades, a liberal friend has been trying to get me to watch “The Way We Were”)
Dugger