{"id":11113,"date":"2008-03-25T03:00:55","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T00:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/25\/syriana\/"},"modified":"2010-04-08T13:02:12","modified_gmt":"2010-04-08T11:02:12","slug":"syriana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/25\/syriana\/","title":{"rendered":"Syriana"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/syriana.jpg?w=660&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Syriana\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I rented &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0365737\/\">Syriana<\/a>&#8221; when I saw George Clooney and Matt Damon on the cover.  Not that they are a guarantee of a good film, but they are a pretty good sign of one.\u00c2\u00a0 And indeed they both did a nice job in this film, however it wasn&#8217;t enough for me.<\/p>\n<p>This time though, my criticism (critinism?) is not of the film itself, but of that particular DVD that I rented.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn&#8217;t have English sub-titles (although I don&#8217;t know if it didn&#8217;t have them originally, or if this DVD was a pirated copy).\u00c2\u00a0 Half of the movie takes place in Middle East and there is a lot of non-English talk happening. \u00c2\u00a0 I couldn&#8217;t make much sense out of it, except for the general dramatic mood and some people over there not being very happy with some people over here and vice versa.<\/p>\n<p>Other than that, the film looked to be very nice &#8211; it has a certain mood, there is some good photography, and there is also a lot of human appreciation, which is something I like seeing in the movies.\u00c2\u00a0 That is when people appreciate other people for just being people.\u00c2\u00a0 There aren&#8217;t enough films out there promoting appreciation.\u00c2\u00a0 It was nice to see this one did.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d rate it as a 6 out of 10, with reserving a lot of space on either end of this rating due to not understanding half of what was said.<\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>I rented &#8220;Syriana&#8221; when I saw George Clooney and Matt Damon on the cover. Not that they are a guarantee of a good film, but they are a pretty good sign of one.\u00c2\u00a0 And indeed they both did a nice job in this film, however it wasn&#8217;t enough for me. This time though, my criticism &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/25\/syriana\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Syriana<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1707,1,24],"tags":[1444,1446,1445,1443,1381],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-11113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-stars","category-general","category-movies","tag-amanda-peet","tag-chris-cooper","tag-christopher-plummer","tag-george-clooney","tag-matt-damon"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- All in One SEO 4.9.8 - aioseo.com -->\n\t<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I rented &quot;Syriana&quot; when I saw George Clooney and Matt Damon on the cover. 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Not that they are a guarantee of a good film, but they are a pretty good sign of one.\u00c2 And indeed they both did a nice job in this film, however it wasn't enough for me. This time though, my criticism","og:url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/25\/syriana\/","og:image":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/leonid-sailing-beer.jpg","og:image:secure_url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/leonid-sailing-beer.jpg","og:image:width":1024,"og:image:height":1024,"article:published_time":"2008-03-25T00:00:55+00:00","article:modified_time":"2010-04-08T11:02:12+00:00","article:publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MamchenkovBlog","twitter:card":"summary_large_image","twitter:site":"@mamchenkov","twitter:title":"Syriana - Leonid Mamchenkov","twitter:description":"I rented &quot;Syriana&quot; when I saw George Clooney and Matt Damon on the cover. Not that they are a guarantee of a good film, but they are a pretty good sign of one.\u00c2 And indeed they both did a nice job in this film, however it wasn't enough for me. This time though, my criticism","twitter:creator":"@mamchenkov","twitter:image":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/leonid-sailing-beer.jpg"},"aioseo_meta_data":{"post_id":"11113","title":null,"description":null,"keywords":null,"keyphrases":null,"primary_term":null,"canonical_url":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"og_object_type":"default","og_image_type":"default","og_image_url":null,"og_image_width":null,"og_image_height":null,"og_image_custom_url":null,"og_image_custom_fields":null,"og_video":null,"og_custom_url":null,"og_article_section":null,"og_article_tags":null,"twitter_use_og":false,"twitter_card":"default","twitter_image_type":"default","twitter_image_url":null,"twitter_image_custom_url":null,"twitter_image_custom_fields":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"schema":{"blockGraphs":[],"customGraphs":[],"default":{"data":{"Article":[],"Course":[],"Dataset":[],"FAQPage":[],"Movie":[],"Person":[],"Product":[],"ProductReview":[],"Car":[],"Recipe":[],"Service":[],"SoftwareApplication":[],"WebPage":[]},"graphName":"","isEnabled":true},"graphs":[]},"schema_type":"default","schema_type_options":null,"pillar_content":false,"robots_default":true,"robots_noindex":false,"robots_noarchive":false,"robots_nosnippet":false,"robots_nofollow":false,"robots_noimageindex":false,"robots_noodp":false,"robots_notranslate":false,"robots_max_snippet":null,"robots_max_videopreview":null,"robots_max_imagepreview":"large","priority":null,"frequency":null,"local_seo":null,"breadcrumb_settings":null,"limit_modified_date":false,"ai":null,"created":"2023-07-19 21:02:48","updated":"2026-01-15 03:49:03","seo_analyzer_scan_date":null},"aioseo_breadcrumb":"<div class=\"aioseo-breadcrumbs\"><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\" title=\"Home\">Home<\/a>\n\t\t<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb-separator\">&raquo;<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/\" title=\"Movies\">Movies<\/a>\n\t\t<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb-separator\">&raquo;<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/movie-reviews\/\" title=\"Reviews\">Reviews<\/a>\n\t\t<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb-separator\">&raquo;<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/movie-reviews\/4-stars\/\" title=\"4 stars\">4 stars<\/a>\n\t\t<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb-separator\">&raquo;<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb\">\n\t\t\tSyriana\n\t\t<\/span><\/div>","aioseo_breadcrumb_json":[{"label":"Home","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress"},{"label":"Movies","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/"},{"label":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/movie-reviews\/"},{"label":"4 stars","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/movie-reviews\/4-stars\/"},{"label":"Syriana","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/25\/syriana\/"}],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7798,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2004\/08\/13\/confessions-of-a-dangerous-mind\/","url_meta":{"origin":11113,"position":0},"title":"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"August 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I thought that once in a while I should watch a movie from my wishlist, so I got a copy of \"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind\" and watched it. During the whole film I had this feeling of dejavu and only when the closing titles started rolling, I remembered that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12400,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/02\/green-zone\/","url_meta":{"origin":11113,"position":1},"title":"Green Zone","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of weeks ago I saw \"Green Zone\" in the cinema.\u00a0 I barely heard anything about this film - only that Matt Damon plays the main character and that it was directed by the same guy who did some of the Bourne trilogy - but even that was enough.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;4 stars&quot;","block_context":{"text":"4 stars","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/movie-reviews\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/green_zone.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11372,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/10\/16\/burn-after-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":11113,"position":2},"title":"Burn After Reading","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I went to see \"Burn After Reading\" a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0 I had a feeling that it should be rather good, because it was directed by Cohen brothers, who directed, produced, and wrote screenplays for quite a few good movies (\"No Country for Old Men\", \"O Brother, Where Art\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;5 stars&quot;","block_context":{"text":"5 stars","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/movie-reviews\/5-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/burn_after_reading.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11084,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/14\/the-departed\/","url_meta":{"origin":11113,"position":3},"title":"The Departed","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"How many celebrities can you imagine involved in a single movie?\u00c2\u00a0 Try the cast of \"The Departed\".\u00c2\u00a0 Directed by Martin Scorsese.\u00c2\u00a0 Main roles played by Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, and more.\u00c2\u00a0 Even one of the co-producers was Brad Pitt himself. There was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7460,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2004\/04\/22\/the-third-wheel\/","url_meta":{"origin":11113,"position":4},"title":"The Third Wheel","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 22, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Feeling the need for entertainment, I've watched \"The Third Wheel\" on DVD. Apparetenly, I've already seen this film, but totally forgot about it. And I was right. There is nothing so special to remember about it. This is the typical attempt of a comedy about the guy who has problems\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13451,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/07\/trailer-true-grit\/","url_meta":{"origin":11113,"position":5},"title":"Trailer : True Grit","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It looks like the movie is horribly misrepresented by this trailer. \u00a0Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges, and Josh Brolin in the film directed by Coen brothers - that's definitely something not to miss.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/uco41pOKeJg\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11113"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=11113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}