Hotel Rwanda - Syriana

I'm not a movie hound so sometimes it takes me a while to get around to seeing stuff, and sometimes I never get around to seeing even movies that win awards and stuff. I finally traded in my Blockbuster card for a Netflix subscription so I'm planning on catching up on lots of movies!

I finally got around to seeing Hotel Rwanda. What a heart-wrenching and sickening film. It's one of those films that it's almost hard to say "It was great!" because the subject was so sickening. But, it was an incredible film, and I would watch it again.

I saw Syriana in the theater a few weeks ago. Excellent movie. I need to see it again because there were things I missed or about which I missed some of the intracacies. I want to read the book. There is so much I don't understand about these things, and this movie makes it glaringly clear.

I finally saw Hotel Rwanda last week, and I must say, I didn't think it was all that great. I'm not sure why. It was a war movie, masquarading as a story of hope and love. I generally don't like it when war movies masquarade as stories of hope and love. I think its ok, to include scenes of the rare moments where a participant or bystander in war may be slimly reminded that something like hope or love exits...but I don't like a feel good war story if that makes any sense.

The only scene I thought that was well acted was when Paul comes back from the river road and is trying to take a shower and get dressed. The rest I thought was pretty mediocre.

Interesting perspective.

I don't think the intention of the movie was to present the war/mass genocide itself. I think that the movie was intended as a vehicle for telling a story of hope and love that occured during the war/period of mass genocide.

I saw it a while ago and I had a bit of an "ick" feeling after - I should have probably gotten a cheesy, corny drama instead after a day at work being depressed about the state of our world.

It was painful and draining to watch, but I think it's an important story that needs to be told. So many people get so little exposure to what happens in other countries, so any movie that tells a bit of those stories, I have to give the thumbs-up to.

I think the hopefulness and the "feel-good" storyline is probably important, like it or not, to get mainstream audiences interested in movies like it....just the way it is :rolleyes: .

I really want to see "Hotel Rwanda".

Yeah, maybe it just wasn't what I was expecting. I honestly thought it was a war movie...and now after reading what SG just wrote...I don't think it was intended to be that, and I think I may have had it wrong.

Yeah, maybe it just wasn't what I was expecting. I honestly thought it was a war movie...and now after reading what SG just wrote...I don't think it was intended to be that, and I think I may have had it wrong.

Ah, perspective is perspective, ya know? And I know what you mean. Sometimes with movies about war, etc., the movie-makers try to cram too many things into the story, and they wind up forfeiting the 'impact' of what was supposedly the main storyline.

I dunno. Trying to convey the experience of war through film can get bogged down quick in "people" stories unless its really well done...like Graham Greene's Quiet American. Great book too. That was a story with war as a backdrop, a setting in a lot of ways. Hotel Rwanda was about both the war, and the relationships, and I thought it was too cluttered.

Plus I just didn't think Don Cheadle was that good in it.

Saw the end of Titanic, thought it was crappy, but I think that was about a non-war related shipwreck. Pearl Harbor I have less than zero interest in so I can't say anything about it. I'm also pretty sure I didn't compare Hotel Rwanda to either of those movies.

Good movie, I thought!! Another **** up on Clinton's watch!! HA!! :rolleyes:

I also thought that Hotel Rwanda was compelling and moving and that Don Cheadle gave an unbelievably impressive performance. A really, really sad story, and a blot on the Western nations who did virtually nothing.

I wanted so badly to like Syrianna, but I was a little confused and disappointed and thought that it was trying to cram too much political info into an overlapping narrative structure that didn't work for me. Some great acting though.

hotel rwanda was a brilliant movie. i walked away LEARNING about the genocide that is happening in africa and asking the question if they were white would more people be up in arms? to answer to me is YES.

where i personally would like to see our armed forces IS in africa, where i would like to see tax dollars go is the war against aids in africa, that would be a war i would support.

syrianna was confusing, now i think that was intentional. it was not meant to be a mistake, the main character was totally duped by the people he thought were on his side (CIA). as a bit of an idealist myself (big shock) it is frightfully close to home to see someone loose their ideals, life, structure by the people who he thought were his hero's.

i walked away from syrianna thinking that the problems in the middle east are MESSY, overlapped, ancient, and not what they seem.