Watched Syriana last night and I must say I was mighty disappointed. Not because the film was badly done or anything. What bothered me about it was how well it was done. A cast of some considerable note, though almost all were men, a little offputting, but by no means a problem for me. People like to watch attractive people they've seen before in a film, myself included, can't fault anyone for that.

No, what got me was how masterfully the film gives you, the viewer, insight into some hidden world of Oilmen of the year, or into the inner workings of large multinational companies, CIA espionage, illegal? weapons trade, and international politics. Yeah, those pseudo insights. Sure some of the film might well represent reality and just how corrupt things are. But at the same time, if things are as bad as they are made out to be, there isn't a damn thing any one of us common folk can do.

Stranger Than Fiction it's called, and Will Ferrell and the rest of the cast do an excellent job. Take the family too as it's rated PG-13, and I must say, there's something in it for everyone. I just saw it tonight at an advance screening and left thinking unequivocally: "must see." It opens Friday so times aren't listed yet on cinemaclock, but keep checking that link and they will be soon enough.

And yeah, no reason why I can't have two Jay's picks in one day, in multiple categories at that :)

Death of a President scores TIFF critics' prize.

The title says it all.

I can't imagine how much hype is out there on the web and on various blogs about this, but figure it still bears a post. This film, called Elephant's Dream, combines Free Software (free as in beer and free as in speech), an open Creative Commons Attribution license, and a set of fully free and redistributable models included on the DVD or free (as in beer and speech) for download. Take a look. I'd recommend using the 1024 torrent, since on the first day it had something like 10,000 peers. I think that the website and mirrors practically got DDos'ed (distributed denial of service).

As to the film itself, it is definitely not for the very young and impressionable, but for those with a little fortitude and/or fascination with all things digital, it's a great showpiece for what open source (I use this term sparingly for reasons that I'll perhaps elaborate upon at some time soon) software can do, running on Linux, or other platforms for that matter.

A short film that is not to be missed.

Its not often that a film can affect the body politic of a nation. But that is the effect of the movie released on St. Patrick's Day, V for Vendetta.

Wayne Madsen comments on the parallels between events in the movie, V for Vendetta and current political events in the US and Britain at The Wayne Madsen Report .

I got around to watching The Edukators the other night. It took me a while to get into this one, but once the kidnapping began it got interesting. I really enjoyed it from here on - especially the conversations around the table at the cabin in the mountains. Great surprise ending too - good pick!

http://www.maclarenart.com/visit/screen_one.cfm -- more later -- writing an exam ;)

I finally watched What The #$*! Do We Know yesterday. I'd been trying to rent it from our local video rental store for a couple of months but it was always out. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie - the integration of special effects and animations was very well done. While much of quantum physics is way over my head and I question some of the new age stuff presented in the movie, I'm left with a good feeling and am intrigued by the mix of science and spirituality. According to most of the comments at IMDB , it would seem that this movie was not viewed very positively by many who saw it. The folks at filmcritic.com don't think much of it either. Oh, well. I've rented The Machinist to watch next.

Two movies this week:

Bread & Tulips - an Italian love story shot mainly in Venice - nice story with awesome Venetian scenery.
Italian For Beginners - a Danish Dogme 95 film.

Enjoyed them both.