Syriana, Oil and Truth

I want to see the movie Syriana. I've just seen Jarhead tonight, which shows scenes of US soldiers wandering around in burning oilfields in the first Gulf war, reminding me a lot of a very slow arty film by some German guy (help me out here Duncan) about the capping of those wells. Jarhead also shows young US guys getting drunk, being jerks, and being shouted at by mentally disturbed "officers". JHead's an ok movie, I feel strangely ambivalent about it. Which i suppose is one of the themes of the movie; "War is dull, and I didn't get to kill anyone."

Anyway, here's a very interesting article from an (English speaking) Arab newspaper about Syriana. Wheels within wheels, the plot thickens...

I mentioned in an earlier blog somewhere that Paradise Now is an amazing must-see movie. All these movies are set in the Middle East, and some of them question the role of oil. And coincidentally I've been thinking a bit about how we use oil to make plastic, along with my growing concern about plastic pollution - our overuse of plastics. Oil will run out one day, perhaps in my lifetime. (I will leave aside the debate over exactly when. Most people think about cars, but i think the loss of plastic will be a greater difficulty given possible alternative fuels for vehicles. Expect me to rant more on this topic soon.



listening to Metamorphosis : Legacy of the Clenched Fist