Nick and "Syriana".
The reviews of "Syriana" all mentioned the complexity of the plot, however many also noted that to an audience with some knowledge of Middle Eastern history and current affairs it is by no means impossible to follow - the bits in Teheran and Beirut Shia involved Sunni/Shia issues for example, one of the SAM's sold in Teheran was to a non-farsi speaker - that kind of thing. The plot was however "incomprehensible" to Nick, his only understanding was that "Clooney" "was trying to say that the US policy in the Middle East was "all about oil". What a guy! The film does not mention Iraq, Israel, or US foreign policy so what's Nick's beef here? It's because "Clooney" is a well known liberal, I don't think Nick has seen the film, he clearly has no idea what it's about, this is just knee jerk stuff. As for his suggestion that a brave film maker would make a film supporting US policy, the mind boggles and a new parlour game appears. "Pitch Nick's movie to a studio". Mel Gibson IS Donald Rumsfeld etc etc.
On a lighter note, nice to see Deborah Ross in The Indie namechecking Dave in her column. He appears as an example of someone whose spurious moral indignation returns to haunt them, and to quote D Ross ". . . he now realises he has been a bit of a Silly Billy"
V
On a lighter note, nice to see Deborah Ross in The Indie namechecking Dave in her column. He appears as an example of someone whose spurious moral indignation returns to haunt them, and to quote D Ross ". . . he now realises he has been a bit of a Silly Billy"
V
posted by Anonymous at 3/15/2006 08:39:00 PM
5 Comments:
I don't think you can say the film has nothing to do with US foreign policy when it climaxes with ***SPOILER DON'T READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW****
the CIA murdering a secular pro-democratic Arab leader because he intended to sell his oil in ways that cut out the US oil company's role as middle-man and profiteer.
Off topic, but I just noticed that Nick Cohen nicked his Rowan Pelling-with-a-bomb-in-her-bag joke fron the kind of funny, but defintely very right wing blog, Daily Ablution
What I couldn't understand was how Nick kept referring to it as "Clooney's" film.
George is in fact the star of the film, plus executive producer, which means he's basically there for the money - to attract funding - and is NOT responsible for the film's content, tone, plot or political attitude. Had he wished to query these he could well have pointed the finger instead at writer-director Stephen Gaghan, or even Robert Baer, who wrote the book that the film was loosely based on.... oh, but of course then he'd have lost his cheap 'n easy pop at that vile liberal Clooney.
What are the chances of Decent Dave writing a cutting piece of investigative journalism on this?
The Labour Party in financial dire straits, so the PM and Levy arrange secret loans and peerage nominations; the money generated flows into into a secret fund of possibly more than 10 million quid. The party's treasurer is not informed.
"The prime minister conceded he had made a mistake in not telling the Labour party treasurer, Jack Dromey, about the loans. He said he took personal responsibility, but was unable to explain the reason for leaving Mr Dromey out of the loop.
Tony Blair also admitted that he had not told the Lords appointments scrutiny committee that three of his candidates for working Labour peerages had given the party loans."
Corruption. Will Dave give it a mention? Perhaps brush past it, play it down...
Clear lack of financial transparency in the party, and corruption in the affairs of state.
But mum's the word - probably - for New Labour's favourite columnist.
aaro watch!
http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CAFCE.htm
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