Roundtable Review: W.
MoJo staffers riff on W., Oliver Stone's biopic of George W. Bush, starring Josh Brolin.
Director Oliver Stone has already profiled John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before he also tackled George W. Bush's controversial presidency. In the reality-based biopic W., Stone tracks Bush from his drunken days in Texas to cabinet meetings in the White House. Josh Brolin, Bush's alter ego under Stone's direction, dominates the film in scenes that are plausible and funny, if not strictly factual. Some key moments are pure speculation, like Stone's imagination of the closed-door meeting that decided Iraq's fate. Others are joyful recreations of public gaffes, like awkward press conferences whose gravity Bush "misunderestimated." In both personal and political relationships, Stone's W. is a confused, frustrated man, whose insatiable hunger for his father's approval drives him to make overly aggressive, emotion-based decisions. Bush the son, Stone suggests, has always wanted to escape his black sheep standing in a very white, aristocratic flock. No matter, it will never be enough. He can't be Jeb. He can't be Reagan. He can only ever be W.
Four MoJo staffers previewed W. this week and then discussed it via Gchat. W. opens nationwide this weekend.
Jen: Okay, let's get started. First impressions?
Elizabeth: Brolin was really good, but some of the characters (Condi) were more like caricatures.
Jesse: It left me thinking about the Bush family dynamics. You have to wonder what HW thinks of W's effect on the Bush family name.
Elizabeth: I actually came away with a whole lot of respect for Poppy, and dare I say some understanding of Barbara, who until now I just thought of as a racist bag.
Jen: I liked Poppy too. And the Connecticut / Texas divide was emphasized, but I'd think it would color their interactions with each other.
Daniel: Did any parts of the movie strike you as wildly inaccurate?
Elizabeth: I wondered about the torture/lettuce lunch between Dub and Vice. There's no way we know that's how it went down.
Jen: Probably the way Bush says "I'm the decider" every 10 minutes. Also we have no way of knowing he had a panic attack alone in the woods. Or obviously his private conversations with Laura. And is his "favorite play" really "Cats?"
Elizabeth: I felt sort of hit over the head with obvious stuff, like the hazing/torture parallel. Stone didn't want to leave the viewer to catch on to the ironies themselves, I guess.
Jen: Yeah, I also felt like Stone did a lot of winky stuff with the viewer. It was like he had to make sure people knew how clever he was being.
Elizabeth: Did anyone feel like they learned something new? I didn't know (and I'm not sure I wanted to know) that Laura calls him Geo.
Jesse: I was pleasantly surprised they spent so much time on Bush's failed reading initiatives as governor of Texas. (Go Randy Best!)
Jesse: I was surprised that stone wasn't more cynical about Bush's born-againness. Is it undisputed that Bush is really, truly a believer?
Jen: If he can believe there were WMDs in Iraq, why not that Jesus wanted him to be president? If nothing else, the movie demonstrated Bush's ability to suspend reality indefinitely.
Jesse: And that's the bottom line, really.
Elizabeth: It wasn't a short movie, but as it ended I realized I was disappointed not to see anything re the 2000 election, 9/11 at the elementary school, or the Katrina response played out.
Jen: Yes, no Katrina! But I guess you have to edit when you have so many good (awful?) moments to choose from. I could easily see this as a Chicago-style musical, starring Mark Wahlberg as Bush and Parker Posey as Laura.
Daniel: I could totally see Posey delivering the "John Quincy Adams" line.
Elizabeth: Back to Katrina for a hot sec. That was such a f-up, and less trodden than the "My Pet Goat" disaster on 9/11 that Fahrenheit 9/11 illustrated. I guess giving us Katrina would be more of an advance on the story. WMDs and yellowcake to me feels like old news, especially when you're timing your release two weeks before a presidential election.
Jesse: But it [the movie] didn't really look at Bush's second term at all, did it?
Elizabeth: No, it didn't, which to me felt incomplete. My last thought? It was alright, but it certainly wasn't better than "Cats."
Jen: I also wish it would have taken us right up to the present. And yes, "Cats" might be better.
Jesse: You took the words right off my fingertips. That [When Laura gets Bush tickets to "Cats" to cheer him up] was the best moment in the movie, for me personally.
Elizabeth: He'll [Bush] give up sweets for the troops but not "Cats?" What a tool.
Jen: Thanks, all, for Gchatting about W. Next time we'll go see "Cats" instead, I promise.
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The movie "W" was not shown in Casper,
WY, the home of Dick Cheney. I don't
know about the rest of the state.
Just saw the movie and it seemed to really capture the personna of all of the players and particularly displayed the megalomania of "W" himself. The movie hinted at the profound damage that an insecure megalomaniac can wreak upon the world when surrounded by men and women who understand the sickness and use it for their own benefit.
Just wondering if W's cowardly act of joining the "TX Air National Guard", during the Vietnam war, will be depicted, and if so will it go into some detail. This act by Bush was just as cowardly as McCain's aid and comfort to the North Vietnamese.
W is a Turd!
Run out of the Theater as fast as you can.
Stone is trying to make King George II a palatable person.
Feel sorry for the stoned drunk: George SIX-PACK!
I have a gut feeling!
Something much more insidious is at work here.
We were looking for The TRUTH and all we got were: Sugar coated half truths!
As far as The BUSH family name goes!
Do you think that these Euro-trash,
Neo-Con ,
Nazi Sympathizers:
Stay up late at night worrying about their family name?
Sorry!
They’re Cold Blooded Killers.
W was Right.
They write history.
It is a script.
No weapons of destruction here!
That is why he never bothers to read it.
It is all about you.
It is all meant for you.
The Grand Delusion!
W knows it's all PROPAGANDA,
Misinformation,
Conditioning.
and
Rovien Turd Blossom Garbage.
Bush is a low level operative of
Emperor Ratschild
Now you know where all the money went!
FIRE SALE!
The Bush family of cowardly,
Traitors and Treasonous,
Lying, Spying,
Torturous, Murderous,
Vote Stealing,
Assassins.
Stone serves up another bowl of
Regurgitated
Gruel.
Where's the Meat?
My favorite Bush Joke is-This isn't funny anymore!Bush and Cheney should have been impeached on so many charges that Kuscinich took hours to read them but , simply put, they lined their pockets on the blood of Innocents and copied the methods of the people that attacked us! They made America into a Nation that it was never intended to be and trounched on our Constitution and basic beliefs to do it! The less I see of Bush-Cheney, the happier I and the entire World will be!
One of my favorite jokes:
If Bush and Cheney were on a sinking boat, who would be saved?
The rest of the world.
Naaah... the movie is schite. Big disappoint in the omissions. And I must say, this "dialogue" between the editors, et al was total schite as well.
If I had any say in the casting of Stone's W, I would have begged John Goodman to revise his award winning role as Barbara Bush.
Don't get me wrong, I hate Bush as much as the next guy, but that movie was awful! Stone took so many liberties with the whole nature of the Bush family and his inner feelings that, as far as I'm concerned, anything in the movie that I didn't already know, that isn't common public knowledge, I feel as though I need to completely throw out as hogwash (W.'s relationship with his father and brother, for example - which is a cornerstone of the film!)
Went to see the movie. General reaction of most of the audience overheard on the way out? BOR-ing. Certain parts of it were interesting but basically it was deja vu all over again that was depressing. Also got the feeling that Stone was conflicted on just how to portray Bush--as a caricature or as a tragic man as in a Greek drama--a man with a tragic flaw that causes all the destruction around him. sorry, but just thought it wasn't worth the $6 I paid to see it. I have to give kudos to the actors though. Especially Richard Dreyfuss who was extraordinary as Cheney, the obsequious courtier that manipulates the strings. Also his running battle with Powell.
Better to wait for the DVD when you can rent it for $1.
I thought the movie was terrible. It was boring and obvious. I wasted atleast an hour and half visually seeing things I all ready knew
