Oct 26 2008
Books, Cinema, and the World at Large
This weekend my goat and I saw Body of Lies. It pissed us off, which is a sign of a pretty good movie. I won’t get into spoilers, but it gives you an idea of just how much the CIA plays fast and loose with international law and civil liberties.
To contextualize all this, I’m also trudging through Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars, a giant book that nicely sums up the United States’ involvement in the Middle East from the end of the Soviet war until September 10, 2001. It tells you, in a relatively accessibly form, about the key players and the main projects going on in Afghanistan during that time. It’s an interesting read if you’re into strategy, politics, or if you simply want to read up on the world around you.
Both the book and the movie show that the current situation overseas has been brewing for a long, long time. Whether or not anyone could have avoided it or what we should have/could have done is irrelevant now, but it gives one an idea of what’s happening in the world at large.
Now my goat and I don’t want to turn this blog into Ebert and Roper, but we did enjoy this movie because it made us think. We’re also intrigued by the amount of movies about current events these days. There is almost no lag time between an issue becoming apparent and the following movie about it. How frequently do we see movies about a particular president while he is still in office?
At any rate, we want to know what you think. Is it good that Hollywood directors have taken it upon themselves to educate us on current events? Does it make information more accessible? Or do they forsake facts for art and revenue?
That’s a great book, btw. I know I learned a lot from reading it.