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A not-bad one-liner: in his Colbert Report intro tonight, Stephen Colbert called W. "Oliver Stone's prequel to Spike Lee's X."

Surprisingly perhaps, Armond digs it.

His assessment of Stone's top movies is also of interest.

And he managed to get Spielberg in there!

Armond Red White and Blue wrote:Today’s political satire has distorted our sense of judgment.

Good lord

John Cope wrote:Surprisingly perhaps, Armond digs it.

His assessment of Stone's top movies is also of interest.

Natural Born Killers (1994)
Before it implodes, the definitive illustration of Postmodernism and Violence.

Fletch F. Fletch wrote:

John Cope wrote:Surprisingly perhaps, Armond digs it.

His assessment of Stone's top movies is also of interest.

Natural Born Killers (1994)
Before it implodes, the definitive illustration of Postmodernism and Violence.

The(!) definitive illustration of violence?

Mr_sausage wrote:

Fletch F. Fletch wrote:

John Cope wrote:Surprisingly perhaps, Armond digs it.

His assessment of Stone's top movies is also of interest.

Natural Born Killers (1994)
Before it implodes, the definitive illustration of Postmodernism and Violence.

The(!) definitive illustration of violence?

The key is the "and." As in, Postmodernism and Violence taken together.

Via_Chicago wrote:The key is the "and." As in, Postmodernism and Violence taken together.

An "and" hardly makes it obvious that two words are being considered inextricably, so I think my confusion excusable. Although even with your explanation I still don't know what that sentence means, since postmodernism is a meaningless and illusory idea, let alone postmodern violence.

No, the key is in not trying to distill meaning from an Armond White review. That thing's been through so many iterations of a thesaurus it barely even exists anymore.

Mr_sausage wrote:

Via_Chicago wrote:The key is the "and." As in, Postmodernism and Violence taken together.

An "and" hardly makes it obvious that two words are being considered inextricably, so I think my confusion excusable. Although even with your explanation I still don't know what that sentence means, since postmodernism is a meaningless and illusory idea, let alone postmodern violence.

Whatever, dude.

...and I'm not even going to begin to address that Postmodernism statement you made. That's just begging for an argument that I for one am not going to engage in.

Via_Chicago wrote:...and I'm not even going to begin to address that Postmodernism statement you made. That's just begging for an argument that I for one am not going to engage in.

I normally would as I do see worth in that approach but perhaps not enough to substantiate its veracity; and quite frankly I don't think I have the stamina to go toe to toe with the Sausage on a subject I have a middling interest in defending.

Via_Chicago wrote:

Mr_sausage wrote:

Via_Chicago wrote:The key is the "and." As in, Postmodernism and Violence taken together.

An "and" hardly makes it obvious that two words are being considered inextricably, so I think my confusion excusable. Although even with your explanation I still don't know what that sentence means, since postmodernism is a meaningless and illusory idea, let alone postmodern violence.

Whatever, dude.

I hope you realize I think your explanation is right. It's just that White phrases the thing so poorly that misunderstandings are bound to occur.

Really good. Dreyfuss and Brolin were great as well. I hate to say it, but..."too soon".

I think this film will be seen as a masterpiece in 20 years, but for me it was a clothes-line of youtube videos.

I thought there were great moments and but some issues that need to be brought up. I don't have time for a well thought out review, but I wanted to share some thoughts.

The Bad: This film did feel rushed. But I don't really know what I mean by that since the performances were all top notch (except for Rice). But, disregarding the under 2 hour running time, it didn't have the Stone feel found within Nixon or even JFK. But the main problem is, and I thought I would never say it, this film was the victim of "too soon". Which brings me to the good.

The Good: I think in 20 years, this will be regarded as a masterpiece. It was the perfect summation of the past 8 years. It was tragic. It was Greek. I actually felt sorry for Bush at some points, but b/c I am so close to these events, I am still far too angry for this film. The other problem is that every scene seemed self-aware and calculating. This wasn't really any different than streaming together 24 Youtube videos or watching Frontline. Now, I have read that the same can be said about Nixon, but since I wasn't around for that Administration, this was obviously less of a problem. That is why I think the film will age well. It was well made, even if it felt rushed.

One last things is the performances. My God.. Brolin was fantastic as was Dreyfuss. The only person who I didn't think nailed it was Rice. She was transparent and a caricature. The one thing that can be said about this film was that the performances were fantastic which is amazing considering that it felt rushed at times.

Two new interviews with Stone:

A.V. Club

and

L.A. Weekly

As far as the editing goes, if there are things Stone wants to continue working on, there's probably a decent chance it could be revised on DVD since Stone's done that so much in the past.

I'll be seeing this over the weekend.

Roger Ebert interviews Stone.

Also, Stone and Josh Brolin are going to be on Charlie Rose tonight.

Just watched this today, and was kind of underwhelmed. I thought Josh Brolin's performance was excellent and is basically the reason to see the film. He really inhabited the character and was compelling and believable from start to finish. I also like Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, and James Cromwell as George Sr., they both brought some humanity, and some charisma to there roles.

But ultimately these strong performances where undermined by the inconsistent tone of the film, and some of the laughably bad performances(I'm looking at you Thandie Newton), as well as the abandoning of the flashback structure for the final section of the film. It was frustrating to see the presidential scenes being played so schizophrenically, alternately played deathly serious, and as heavy-handed satire. The use of silly music(that damned Robin Hood song), and the portrayal of Bush and his cronies as clueless buffoons in some scenes felt like a very bad SNL sketch. The attempts at satire feel completely off the mark, in part because they are so badly executed, but also because they feel so redundant after 8 years of the Daily Show covering the same ground.

As for the bad performances, aside from Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, and Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, everyone else seemed to be trying way to hard to mimic the people they were playing, with little emphasis on being anything other than a caricature. It was pretty amateurish I thought.

Finally, the abandonment of the flashback structure was frustrating, because the strongest sequences in the film I felt were the flashbacks. It was fascinating to see Bush's progression from drunken fuck-up to savvy politician, and that to me is the really interesting part of Bush's story. I particularly liked how Stone treated Bush's faith without condescension, which was completely surprising given the man being portrayed, and given the Hollywood tendency to mock all things Christian. The flashbacks are also the sequences that allow Brolin to flesh out the character of Bush, rather than focus on strictly impersonating him. Stone ought to have made these scenes the focus of the film, and had the present day stuff be secondary, especially given the intense media saturation of the Iraq war coverage the past few years. The people know all about the political mechanations leading up to the Iraq war, so why re-tell it so soon on the big screen(and do it so poorly), when you have an engaging and fascinating story right at your fingertips.

My review

I thought it was mostly pretty good. A bit heavy-handed with some of the foreshadowing moments in the flashbacks, trying too hard to turn this long, messy story into a coherent narrative. But otherwise, great performances, and a great summation of the last 8 years and the person behind them.

I take it the Scott Glenn musical number was cut?

The script for this film was just inexcusably awful. There were attempts at humor that fell SO flat that all you could do was cringe in your seat. Some of the performances (Brolin, Dreyfuss) were good, but some (Cromwell) were absolutely terrible. Why do some of these actors think they can get away with not sounding anything like the living person they're playing? Cromwell didn't even try, and it took some mastery behind the camera and some cleverly placed hands/teacups/etc to get him to look remotely like H.W. And Brolin playing W from age 18? It looked absolutely absurd. The film had a problem finding its tone throughout its bloated running time, and shed absolutely no new light on the Bush presidency. And why in the world did Stone insist on, for example, having a phony news broadcast that rang completely false? There were so many moments of lame attempts at satire that it was a couple of degrees away from Postal.

mfunk9786 wrote:The script for this film was just inexcusably awful. There were attempts at humor that fell SO flat that all you could do was cringe in your seat. Some of the performances (Brolin, Dreyfuss) were good, but some (Cromwell) were absolutely terrible. Why do some of these actors think they can get away with not sounding anything like the living person they're playing? Cromwell didn't even try, and it took some mastery behind the camera and some cleverly placed hands/teacups/etc to get him to look remotely like H.W. And Brolin playing W from age 18? It looked absolutely absurd. The film had a problem finding its tone throughout its bloated running time, and shed absolutely no new light on the Bush presidency. And why in the world did Stone insist on, for example, having a phony news broadcast that rang completely false? There were so many moments of lame attempts at satire that it was a couple of degrees away from Postal.

Seconded. Brolin performance was good, but the script sucked, the film was awfulled long and dull. Some of the actors playing other characters were just plain bad. There really wasn't anything funny about the subject matter. Oliver Stone should have just compiled eight years of Bush material and made a documentary. Would have been much humorous.

I loathe the very idea of Ollie Stone and have only seen one of his other films (the football one). But this was pretty fair and balanced. It certainly reminded me of many of the reasons I am so fond of the Bush clan. Total nostalgia trip. I'll miss W.

The perfs are surprisingly good. Brolin and Dreyfuss in particular. But Rove was bad and Rumsfeld a complete bust--I kept forgetting who he was supposed to be. I agree Rice was technically horrific and completely at odds with the rest of the cast. I bet Thandie thinks she "nailed" Condi. But for that reason I found her riveting and train wrecky. I hope she gets a supporting nom for RocknRolla.

I'm not sure why people are complaining it wasn't funny. This is a melodrama with a few funny bits, not a "comedy".

But no one could possibly praise the script. The whole production has a "let's put on a show!" quality. If this is considered a masterpiece in 20 years, I will leave this Forum.

mfunk9786 wrote:The script for this film was just inexcusably awful. There were attempts at humor that fell SO flat that all you could do was cringe in your seat.

The audience I saw this with tonight was laughing hysterically at both the intentional humor and the unintentional humor (Newton's godawful Condi).

All in all, though, I quite like the film even if it felt a bit too truncated. I imagine there will be a new cut on DVD.

Barmy wrote:If this is considered a masterpiece in 20 years, I will leave this Forum.

Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.