Dubya Gets Stoned! W. – The Film Babble Blog Review

W. (Dir. Oliver Stone, 2008)

<!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} — <!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} —“If NIXON was a symphony, this is more like a chamber piece and not as dark in tone”.
– Oliver Stone (Daily Variety 1/20/08)

Since his paranoid thriller epic masterpiece JFK (1991), Oliver Stone has developed a reputation for throwing people off what his suspected tack will be for hitting his targets. Most thought NIXON (1995) would be a savage dressing down of the fraudulent former president but what emerged was a grand (and at at times surreal) sympathetic portrait of a man stalking the corridors of power tormented by demons. There were no 9/11 truth movement conspiracy theories or any political agendas in WORLD TRADE CENTER (2006), it was simply the story of a couple of firefighters struggling to survive while buried in Ground Zero rubble. Now Stone gives us W. (pronounced “Dubya” as some in the press have dubbed him), the first ever feature length drama focusing on a President while he’s still in office. While it does contain plenty of grist for the Bush hater’s mill, it is actually an empathetic study balancing swift satire with earnest melodrama.

W. skips back and forth timeline-wise from Bush’s ANIMAL HOUSE-esque frat days to the Oval office Iraq war strategy sessions up to his re-election in 2004. Josh Brolin embodies our 43rd president with a swagger and ever present determination; sometimes overly arrogant, sometimes an impulsive hothead who can’t seem to relax even when lounging watching Sportscenter drinking a non-alcoholic beer and munching on miniature pretzels (if you know your history, you know what happens with those pretzels). This is a man with major Daddy issues as seen in the recreations of his early days, who disappoints his father (James Cromwell as George Bush Sr.) right and left with his constant career failures and constant drinking. “I’ll never get out of Poppy’s shadow!” he exclaims as he attempts to get a grasp on his destiny.

As “the decider” he surrounds himself with some of his Papa’s former staff including Dick Cheney (a strangely subdued Richard Dreyfuss) and Colin Powell (a stoical Jeffrey Wright) who come off as the devil fighting with the angel on Bush’s shoulders in meeting after meeting. Bush’s reasons for the war in Iraq are angrily off the cuff: “I don’t like mud suckers who gas their own people!” and “I don’t like assholes who try to kill my father!” Despite Powell’s voice of reason deterrents Bush goes to the Cheney darkside believing that he is serving a higher power than his father and never letting consensus criticism get in his way.

Extensively researched and layered with obviously labored over exposition, Stanley Weiser’s screenplay mostly speculates about what goes on behind closed doors more than the already documented public record. 9/11 is thankfully not dramatized or even visually referenced, likewise Katrina and the extraordinary events of the 2000 election (see RECOUNT for that), though there are a number of restaging of W.’s greatest hits. The “Mission Accomplished” aircraft carrier episode and various press conference and interview examples of embarrassing statements (“Is our children learning” for one) are given Stone’s patented cinematic treatment albeit with a more restrained and less flashy presentation than in his previous work. Don’t worry though, Stone staples like “glow lighting” on actors in dark interiors, seamless blending of real footage into the movie mix, and a quality ensemble cast (including Scott Glenn, Bruce McGill, Toby Jones and Stacy Keach) are all on vivid display.

Unfortunately a long time complaint about Stone’s work bears true as the women characters are underwritten and cliché driven. Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush mostly sits on the sidelines looking pretty offering trite support to her man while Thandie Newton’s snippy take on Condoleezza Rice barely registers in the many boy’s club discussions. Of the ladies only Ellen Burstyn has some good blustery moments as Barbara Bush but she too has a very limited point of view. Brolin though is the show as he carries the entire movie with his performance. With his concentrated vocal inflections and intense brow furthering he pulls off a Bush that is not a caricature but a believable guy which is quite a feat in the world of non-stop Daily Show jabs and SNL impressions of what many consider the worst President ever. James Cromwell, who never attempts to imitate Bush Sr.’s voice, should be recognized come awards season for his measured and sternly nuanced work here – his presence is the finest and most effective in this film.

W. gives a wide personal perspective to a man who many feel doesn’t deserve one. It will play as a broad comedy to some audiences with folks mining the material for mirth but the poignant sadness of a powerful world figure standing in an empty stadium imagining cheering crowds and a possible grab for baseball star greatness will linger longer than the laughs. Oliver Stone’s “chamber piece” as he calls it, isn’t a typical biopic but a dramatic thesis that goes out of its way to avoid cheap shots supremely aware that its choir has already been inundated with them. W., while no masterpiece, is a great gutsy and ambitious movie about a not-so great gutsy and ambitious man. It succeeds on helping us relate with, not hate on George W. Bush even if you, like me, can’t wait to see him leave office.

More later…

Some Fall New Release DVDs If You Please

Catching up on some new DVDs fresh out of the red Netflix envelope into my DVD player then onto my blog. Let’s start with yet another movie I recently regretted missing at the theater :

NO END IN SIGHT (Dir. Charles Ferguson, 2007) I was not the only one that missed this one in its brief limited release – from what I’ve heard it played to mostly empty theaters. Seems like most are tapped out when it comes to another liberal hatin’ on Bush anti-war documentary so folks stayed away in droves. That’s a damn shame because this is such a different animal than such staples as FAHRENHEIT 9/11 or WHY WE FIGHT in that it gives us much more of a precise and sobering overview of the war in Iraq from one horrible decision to the next. Campbell Scott’s straight narration (some have called it flat but I think it has more gusto than that) lies over the many interviewees that this manifesto is mostly made of. The ones interviewed are so high up in there that it can’t be denied – sorting out the good guys from the bad can be quite a game – I figure Colonel Paul Hughes who was director of strategic policy for the U.S. occupation in 2003 to be one of the good guys; Walter Slocombe (who comes across as a ‘dumbfuck’ as Natalie Maines would say) – senior advisor for National Security and Defense and head of CPA is, by my guess, one of the bad guys.

It’s funny how the line – “refused to be interviewed for this film” is so dramatically used again and again but not so funny when it pertains to administrator of the CPA L. Paul Bremer (whose 3 central mistakes make up the bulk of this film’s crux), Dick Cheney, Condolezza Rice and asshole golden boy Donald Rumsfeld whose glib remarks like “I don’t do quagmires” will anger any reasonable human. Less a ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN than a All Satan’s Men this documentary is the definition of ‘incendiary’. As a blogger pretending to be a substantial film critic I would say this is a “must see” but as a guy watching this in an apartment sitting on a couch with a cat – I just can’t help from tearing up.

MR. BROOKS (Dir. Bruce A Evans, 2007) Without a doubt the best Kevin Costner film in ages, yeah I know that’s not saying a lot but hear (or read) me out. Costner plays Earl Brooks – a box company CEO who is in the dark of night a cold calculating serial killer. His murderous impulses are personified to him and us in the presence of Marshall (William Hurt) – an alter ego or better yet -an evil imaginary friend. After a murder of a young couple in the bed of their townhouse, Mr. Brooks finds himself being blackmailed by a voyeur played by Dane Cook who has compromising photographs (the curtains were left open in the couple’s bedroom). Cook though wants to be a killer himself and wants Mr. Brooks to show him the ropes. This idea scares Brooks but amuses and challenges Marshall so on they go off into the night following a measured but still convoluted scheme. Meanwhile Demi Moore (who is far from believable but that may just be my own personal problem with Moore) as a beleaguered police detective suffering through a tortured and costly divorce is on their trail and Costner’s daughter (Danielle Panabaker) is home from college under mysterious circumstances so the plot thickens. Maybe some would say it gets too thick – in more than one sense of the word.

I am reminded by the late Pauline Kael, several years after she retired from writing, speaking in a Newsweek interview about a little late 90’s dog called THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE (starring Al Pacino as the devil disguised as a big-time New York lawyer taunting up-start Keano Reeves). She said that that film had a “hambone quality” to it that she enjoyed. I strongly feel the same thing can be said about MR. BROOKS. It has a lot of meticulously plotted psychological edges but they all frame what is essentially pulp – highly entertaining but kitsch all the same. This is what makes it work though – you don’t employ Dane Cook if you are not aware of the diciness of your material so director Evans and screenwriter partner Raynold Gideon (both collaborated on MADE IN HEAVEN, STARMAN, and STAND BY ME) know what they’re doing to some degree. Costner with his charisma in check coupled with Hurt’s smug leering sociopath repartee and a strangely sober yet almost satirical hold on the material makes MR. BROOKS resemble at more times than I’d like to admit a really good movie. Ham-boned as it is.

THE HOAX (Dir. Lasse Hallström , 2006) Definitely the best Richard Gere film in like…forever! Yeah, I know I played that hand already above but it’s really true. In this tasty tale of a man who lies his way into a major book deal Gere has just the right spin. The man was struggling novelist Clifford Irving and the lie was that he fabricated a book of interviews with Howard Hughes in the early 70’s. Hughes had been reclusive and completely out of the public eye for well over a decade so Irving and proffesional partner Richard Suskind (Alfred Molina) speculate he would not come forward to denounce the project. They also figure that Hughes denies everything anyway so how could they go wrong? The how is a huge part of the fun as is Gere and Molina’s camaradarie. Well cast as well – Marcia Gay Harden as Irving’s exasperated wife and Julie Delphy as actress Nina Van Pallandt as his mistress. THE HOAX takes some truthiness liberties that at times turn towards the surreal – like the people at MacGraw Hill that Irving pitches to – we don’t know what to believe at times especially when supposed Hughes’ hired goons show up at Irving’s door. These fatanstical touches though are carried off in a more successful manner than in George Clooney’s CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND – a likewise questionable adaptation of ‘real’ events. Irving is credited as “technical advisor” on this film but reportedly he disowns it and has denied its accuracy. He really should get over himself! This may be the best thing he’s ever had anything to do with.

More later…

Film Babble Blog’s Year-End Blogtastic Festivus!

Now it’s time for:

FILM BABBLE BLOG’S YEAR-END BLOGTASTIC FESTIVUS!

Now I ain’t claiming to be any fancy pants seen-it-all babbler – I’m just a writer who works at a movie theater and mostly sees and blogs about what I’m intersted in so no big summation of the year’s offerings here. I mean it’s pointless to make a top ten list of the year’s best at this point – many lauded big-time studio features (like LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, CHILDREN OF MEN, THE GOOD SHEPHERD, etc.) aren’t gonna be in my area ’til January or later so I’m just gonna blab blurbs ’bout a bunch o’ flicks I have seen since my last post. Such as :

THE QUEEN (Dir. Stephen Frears) Definitely one of the year’s best and most likely the definitive ‘walking on eggshells’ movie. Helen Mirren’s dead-on portrayal of her Majesty and her reaction (or at first non-reaction) to former Princess Diana’s death and Tony Blair’s (Michael Sheen) touching and funny attempts to smooth it all over with the peeved off public all plays perfectly. Not a wasted moment – this deserves every Oscar it will get.

SHUT UP & SING (Dir. Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck) Like THE QUEEN this is very much about public relations. As I’m fairly sure my readers know The Dixie Chicks made history when Natalie Maines made a fiercely anti-Bush comment between songs at a London concert at the dawn of the Iraq war. The snowballing firestorm (I don’t care if that’s a glaring contradiction) that ensued makes up the bulk of this documentary. Less a cinematic statement on the state of free speech in America than truly a sharp music doc ’bout a band dealing with backlash from a controversial quote and how that affects their touring and recording – the bit that has Bush’s response from a Tom Brokow interview – “They shouldn’t have their feelings hurt just because some people don’t want to buy their records when they speak out … Freedom is a two-way street” – then Maines reply to that – “what a dumbfuck. He’s a dumbfuck” – yep that bit alone makes this whole deal essential viewing.

BLOOD DIAMOND (Dir. Edward Zwick) Way too long with awfully written dialogue throughout – “In America, it’s bling bling. But out here it’s bling bang”. The scenes between Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly are TV-movie bad. Still there’s some great photography and worthwhile story elements – just unfortunate that when the dust settles it is just a big noisy empty bling bang.

CASINO ROYALE (Dir. Martin Campbell) The return of Bond – in a reboot of the series going back to the original 1953 Ian Fleming novel – yeah yeah yeah we all know the details. Daniel Craig is the new beefy blond Bond with blood on his hands, face and mind at all times. And that’s fine. Really it is. I enjoyed the movie. Grittier and harsher than the last Brosnan Bonds, sure, but…where were the babes?!!? In just about every one of the 20 Bond movies the man beds 4-5 ladies but he only has one here – okay he woos and almost does another but c’mon! I knew I was in trouble in the opening title sequence – usually a reliable orgy of nude female silouettes embracing a fully clothed Bond silhouette aiming his gun at some off screen villain was this time out a bunch of silhouetted fight sequences with playing card imagery. I mean I liked it – Craig is a good focused actor and the tone is right but next time out 007 better go to Babe Island or something.

Next time out – DVD reviews and more when filmbabble enters a brand new year!

This post is dedicated to the
Godfather of Soul
James Brown

RIP JB 1933-2006

More later…