I don’t know anything about it…but I just saw and ad for a movie called ‘W’ about the life and presidency of George W. Bush. I guess it’s going to be directed by Oliver Stone.
I know this is probably more a CS type thingy, but considering the subject I figured I’d put it here (there might already be a thread on this…if so, Mods feel free to wack this one).
I suppose the debate is…well, what do you think? Is it a bit early for a movie about Bush? How do you think the movie will portray our fearless leader? In a positive light? Negative? Will it be a hard hitting movie showing the good as well as the bad?
When I saw the ad at first I thought it was a joke…then I though WTF?!?
After seeing threads on his JFK movie, I get the impression he takes dramtic license to spice things up. I expect something similar may happen.
No, not really. Barring another natural disaster or terrorist attack, dubbya is a lame duck.
I expect mostly negative. Not in a Farenheit 9/11 conspiracy way, but I think it might make him to be seen as stubborn or simple minded.
There may be some positives. For example, when Bush stood on the rubble at ground zero, he inspired folks, and came off seeming as “one of us”, and personally effected by the event, as opposed to saying platitudes he didn’t believe in.
I believe it will portray him in a very negative light but I also think it will be so over the top, overdone and obvious that no one will waste their time watching it.
It’s a pity, really, because there are so many examples of GWBs utter, feeble minded stupidity over the last eight years that all a Director would need to do would be to play it absolutely straight and honestly to create a quasi documentary that could become a classic.
Stone would be incapable of producing such a thing. He will be unable to resist playing up the frat boy trivialities, stupid nicknames and a host of other piffling stuff and the movie will be instantly forgettable, if it’s released at all.
I sincerely doubt that many people will be satisfied by the movie. Unless reviews could convince me otherwise, I would assume that it was garbage and not waste my time watching it.
Really, what would be the point? Bush has been in the media so much in the past 7 years that a movie about him couldn’t possibly tell us anything we didn’t already know or suspect. They would have to resort to making stuff up to prevent the movie being monotonous and predictable, and I’m not interested in seeing another shitty groan-inducing movie this year.
Sorry. I don’t think this is getting into GD territory (since it remains a commentary on the production and results of the movie, itself, or on Stone), so it’s off to CS.
(This does not preclude some debate on a bio-pic of GWB, but the focus would have to move away from the “movie” aspect of such a project.)
That’s putting it mildly. More like, he never lets facts get in the way of presenting his particular fantasy.
I don’t see any point in doing a dramatic movie about GWB; the public record pretty much speaks for itself, and I certainly don’t need it colored by a director’s personal agenda. (I thought the best part of Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 was the C-Span footage of Rice being forced to acknowledge that Bush had been presented with a PDB called “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the United States”.)
Worrying about whether it’s “too early” is a little bit barn door when you consider that there have been two television shows lampooning W directly since his election (That’s My Bush, prior to 9/11, and Li’l Bush more recently).
Supposedly, it’s going to be a satirical take, not a deadly earnest one. Stone is also claiming he’s sticking to facts.
Nixon was largely accurate, so I don’t know why everyone assumes that Stone is not capable of that. There is enough true material about Bush that it’s not necessary to make things up.
Seriously, I can’t imagine anybody other than Timothy Bottoms as Bush. He’s had experience playing W in both a comedic fashion (That’s My Bush; Croc Hunter: Collision Course) and in a serious dramatic production (DC 9/11: Time of Crisis) He’d be the perfect choice were the film a satire or a docudrama.
There’s also no reason to exaggerate or go over the top when the truth is already so preposterous.
It would not be possible to make anything approaching a truthful movie about Bush that would not be reviled, sight unseen as “lies and propaganda” by radio screamers and dittoheads everywhere (completely oblivious to the staggering hypocrisy of those accusations, of course) but that doesn’t mean it can’t make money or that it can’t be insightful. I’ll probably go see it.
So far my favorite movie with George W. Bush as a major character is The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai. Stone will have to go a long way to top a movie about a super-genius prostitute with a bullet lodged in her brain, who’s trying to prevent the North Koreans from acquiring the cloned finger of George Bush as part of their plan to set off a nuclear holocaust. Or maybe she wants to keep the finger for herself because she likes the way Bush can manipulate it via the television for the most surreal finger-bang scene in movie history.
