Grist's reviewer asks why the film does not connect the oil industry behemoth to the biggest end users: we-the-people.  Simple reason: movies are about observing and judging an external world.  Whether it is intrinsic or due to cautious marketing (NEVER offend your customer!) media companies do not challenge viewers to real introspection, self-criticism, self-restraint, and higher standards for our own behavior.  It is fine to stir outrage at OTHERS, but the face we see in the mirror?  God forbid!

Sure we will watch nature and environmental films and then make contributions to WWF and buy Material World for our coffee tables and put bumper stickers on our cars.  These things do not rock the boat - i.e. the good ship Economic Growth Now and Forever.

I will change my mind on this one when I see a popular movie that challenges us to SKIP THE CAR and walk, bike, and/or use public transit -- including on the way to the multiplex!

A good movie or piece of literature does not need to hit people over the head with its message.  Better that viewers figure out for themselves that they're causing the problems they've just witnessed.  As Dave noticed, this movie wasn't made for idiots.

Syriana reminds me of The Constant Gardener, taking lots of recent headlines and weaving them into a plot. I found The Constant Gardener to have been better cinema. In particular, seeing Syriana's prince promising women's equality to a group of burnoose-clad men didn't strike me as authentic. Nonetheless, both films appeal to conscience in challenging viewers to view the world in a broader context.

Nothing will turn off that altogether impossible spark of realisation that this good earth, us, and our children, have a problem, faster than a lecture.

But how stupid can people be not to connect the resource war to the bowser?  How can this movie not connect people to the idea that this damned all-consuming life isn't going to last.

Maybe it's true ... maybe us socioenvironmentally concerned earnest people who just like every other poor sad bastard out here in Joe Sixpackland have been brainwashed into believing we actually have a voice, have democracy and the freedom to chart our own future ...

Maybe we don't.

What an idea.  For me, the penny's dropped.  The world just a got a little bit clearer. And I haven't even seen the movie yet!

Thanks for a great review.

David queries: ".   .   .     There's no chance we could self-organize to use less, and twist the arms of our elected representatives until they help us? Are we so apathetic, so powerless?"

That process has begun in every place where someone is talking with somebody else about simplifying their lives, using local energy sources, buying locally grown food or goods, building bike routes [or taking back the public roads for bikes a la Critical Mass], blocking drilling in ANWR, getting out to walk, creating cohousing, or various other efforts.

One suggestion for further organization: postcarbon.org where they have set up a network to help groups 'relocalize' their communities.  It is an effort to provide resources and gather creative minds in local efforts to break our addiction to cheap energy.  Take a look; form a group; relocalize!