The Age of Stupid (2009)

This documentary is told from a future perspective of the last man living on earth, so it's a bit hyperbolic. It extrapolates our environmental damage to the planet to the point where all the polar ice caps have melted and all humanity (except one Brit) is lost to drought, storm, etc.

The man scans documentary footage of what is our present day of people trying to fight the trend towards obliteration. Some good stuff in terms of alternative energy, but discouraging in how very little traction their efforts make.

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Green Zone (2010)

Faced with absolutely no repercussions for having fabricated the WMD threat in Iraq, Paul Greengrass helps put the lie into perspective with this thriller set in Baghdad.

Captain Miller is charged with securing sites where weapons of mass destruction are said to be located around Iraq after the US invasion in 2002. He's frustrated after each mission because the sites are turning up empty. Miller turns his energy to finding who the source is for the intelligence.

There is smart drama in this film and it gives a powerful sense of what Iraq was like in the first days of the war. It does a magnificent job giving the hawk and dove perspectives and what they project Iraq to be - kind of a thriller No End in Sight.

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W. (2008)

Oliver Stone follows up depictions of JFK and Nixon with this two termer and his pappy. George W. Bush gets a fair treatment on the big screen.

We cover a period of 40 years spanning W.'s university, marriage, career and presidency. The two greatest impacts on his personal life (which then spilled into his professional life) are his father's approval and his faith. 

The acting in the film is superb, especially Josh Brolin's title character, Jeffrey Wright's Powell, and Richard Dreyfuss's Cheney. There seems to have been a concerted effort to replicate the events as accurately as possible and then edit them together out of sequence to tell the desired story.

It's no secret that I dislike Bush and even more so his policies, but this film drew some humanity out and I felt bad for him, a little. Just a tiny bit. I still have more sympathy for his international victims than for him though.

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And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself (2003)

At the same time a footnote in history and cinema, Pancho Villa once dominated the headlines in the United States as he waged war on United States interest (those of William Randolph Hearst in particular) and on the Mexican despotic regime.

This HBO production focuses on the relationship Villa had with a film producer whom he hired to tell his story and to document the civil war battles he was waging. The films went on to heavily influence popular opinion in the U.S. even though they were heavily edited and the story was modified.

The film's success stands on the great acting (especially Antonio Banderas) and from what I can tell, a faithful retelling of formidable events with colourful characters. No one is perfect and while they are shaken by the painful subject matter, life does continue.

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Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)

The sad and infuriating story of Enron's demise.

This documentary follows the CEO, president, formulators, and criminals who built the Enron empire out of paper and speculation. We are given the essential details as to how the company grew over two decades and then quickly fell over a matter of a couple months.

The film is very good at keep the focus on individual players so that the view isn't lost. However, it does needlessly bring the film into a higher MPAA rating by including scenes from a strip club that could easily have been inferred, thus keeping the film out of classrooms.

The "smart guys" and the financial system are effectively demonized throughout the picture. It urges its viewers to take a second look at the economic structure in the west.

Truth: The fall of civilization has its roots in the human depravity of its all-to-powerful leaders. Deregulation does not empower the consumer when there aren't several providers of the service.

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There Will Be Blood (2007)

Being a fan of PT Anderson's work (Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love), I have been anticipating this film for a year. My expectations were blown quite literally out of the ground.

Daniel Planview (whose portrayal by Daniel Day-Lewis won the Oscar for best actor) seeks riches with all his being. He risks his life and others' lives while mining and then drilling for oil. Being able to play the part of a father or a Christian when opportunity knocks helps his image until image isn't important anymore. In one confession, he says that he really does not like people. Added to the plot of this oil tycoon is a religious wacko (Paul Dano of Little Miss Sunshine fame) who overtakes the community in another fashion, though with perhaps similar motives.

The film moves effortlessly across three decades and culminates in one of the most stirring and disturbing endings I have ever seen. The last two words echo for days and days.

Anderson takes this film to a new plain. The music is not typical of a sweeping western or epic drama. It resembles more a horror film. The effects of the early 20th century oil drills are stunning and so are the violent accident scenes (realistic to a fault perhaps). As I can not compare the book to Anderson's screenplay, I can't say who wrote the story better, but Anderson's version is supernatural. The film haunted my dreams through the night and into the next day.

Truths: When a person rejects what little blessing his or her father gives him or her, they take on the curse. Living for yourself yields no joy and it yields a distrust and hatred for others.

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Syriana (2005)

Two Clooney films in a row. This one is by far the more intelligent one, though perhaps not as accessible to all of its viewers.

The film focuses on three American men who are deeply involved, though amazingly indirectly, in the global oil business. The film brings these three innocents to task and we end up sharing in the culpability that ultimately consumes them from within and without.

None of the players in the story are vilified, except perhaps the spoiled Arab prince. The purpose of the film is to expose how we share in the atrocities committed in the name of global energy production because we demand low prices and we demand that our governments ensure that our domestic economy has enough "grease" to compete (dominate) internationally.

The writing, acting (both American and foreign), camera work, and directing is superb. We are whisked around the world from Washington DC to Switzerland to the Middle East to Spain and Lebanon and Iran. It captures an essential truth that in today's world we are deeply interconnected.

A must.

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