- Ten points to the casting directors for managing to have a large Arab cast without feeling the need to cast Siddig El Fadil yet again.
- I like that Meryl Streep a) doesn’t feel the need for plastic surgery, b) actually looks her age, and c) looks absolutely radiant anyway. Is this how it’s going to be for her from now on, though, smaller supporting roles where she completely owns ever scene she’s in? Probably, they don’t write a lot of lead roles for women her age that aren’t Calendar Girls-esque. This will probably also be her fate in Lions for Lambs, I’m guessing. Oh well, a little Meryl Streep is better than no Meryl Streep at all.
- I’m fond of Peter Sarsgaard. He’ll go far.
- Totally didn’t see that timeline shift coming.
- I feel like Reese Witherspoon was really Acting with a Capital A in this movie. That scene where she’s screaming that she wants her husband back? I hate fake movie!yelling like that. Like please, try harder.
- You know that theory that people who are couples off-screen have no chemistry on-screen? Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal must be freaking soulmates because they don’t even share a single scene together. How’s that for chemistry!
- These War on Terrorism movies — in all incarnations, since you can cover a lot of different territory with this as a basic theme — are becoming a dime a dozen and I don’t like it. I’m hoping Lions for Lambs is better than this one.
- Speaking of which, I saw the trailer for Charlie Wilson’s War last week and “All Along The Watchtower” felt completely out of place. God, can we please stop using the soundtrack of the Vietnam War for all war-based movies coming out right now? I get it, I really do: Iraq is this generation’s Vietnam. Stop hitting me over the head! The fact that we’re now using the Vietnam soundtrack to talk about Iraq by applying it to Afghanistan in 1979 is killing me.
Rendition
Bland.
IMDB Plot Synopsis A CIA analyst questions his assignment after witnessing an unorthodox interrogation at a secret detention facility outside the US.