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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 11/10/2008 : 10:49:30
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W.
It's been 20 years since Oliver Stone last directed a Stanley Weiser screenplay. That was Wall Street, which, like W. is structured like a documentary and deals as much with psychological motivation as story.
I'm not saying W. is Stone's best film by a long way, but it definitely doesn't deserve the critical dismissal it's been getting. As with Platoon Stone knows enough about his subject to present an expressionistic view of the material, a visceral reaction engendered by letting the camera peek in on unexpected moments.
Perhaps that deceptively neutral approach is more acceptable within a war genre, so laden with action and exotic visuals. I think it works here, too. Even those of us who don't live in the US have direct experience of a man so intimately associated with political and economic decisions that have impinged on our freedoms and our choices.
Both Gordon Gecko and Stone's Dubya are less interested in results than in the addictive high they get from achievement, and in trying to escape the knowledge that nothing will ever be good enough to erase the feelings of failure so ingrained as children.
I've read that W. fails because you don't learn anything new about Bush, but that's not the point. Stone may borrow documentary techniques of lighting, camerawork, and pace, but this is just as much a portrait of us as of an unlikely president.
Whatever conversions the man made from wild child to head of state, his public approval rating swing from 80 to 20% says far more about the governed than the governor. What Stone seeks, and perhaps is impossible to deliver, is an attempt at an analysis more Freudian than literary.
With few exceptions, the cast he's chosen to help him, though uniformly impressive, have little to do as actors. Their function is largely to help clarify the RealPolitik that eventually resulted in the global debacle which recently prompted the Obama victory.
That said, some portrayals stand out if only for their thespian technique. What a pleasure to see that fine actor Stacy Keach embody so completely the quiet platitudinous assurance of a man more teacher than preacher. Richard Dreyfuss' Dick Cheney is constructed of such skillful nuance you can almost see into his soul. Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice, and the brilliant Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, neither given anything resembling characterization in the script, both invent enough to enliven otherwise dull roles. Ellen Burstyn plays the more dimensioned Barbara Bush with all the fire and ice we suspected were behind the public face, and James Cromwell allows us to understand by revealing the senior Bush's own demons of failure, the poisoned chalice he passes on to Junior.
It's only Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush who doesn't quite build on her charming meet cute introduction to Geo, as she calls him. Decades later she hasn't grown very much at all.
Of course it was always down to Josh Brolin to provide the eponymous centerpiece for the film. His performance is a triumph not merely because he has humanized the man behind the media buffoon, but because he's understood Stone's intent. Any specific portrait of human frailty has inevitably to reflect on its commonality.
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demonic 
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 11/10/2008 : 14:52:17
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I enjoyed this film quite a lot; it wasn't a knockout, but it was certainly no failure. I'm surprised that the critics have been at all harsh on Stone because he manages to bring out some superb performance from all his actors: Brolin, of course, but also Dreyfuss, Newton, Wright, Jones, Glenn are all quite excellent, and another expert performance by Ellen Burstyn. The scenes concerning the inner circle of the Bush Administration are the best for my money as from a story perspective they are the most fascinating to me; what would it have been like to have been a fly on the wall when the decision was made to go to war? The tensions between Cheney and Powell with their dumb puppet President in the middle are brilliant.
I'd read that Stone isn't "hard" enough on Bush to make it work as a film as people hate him that much that all they want is a Michael Moore style dismantling - that of course is a simplistic viewpoint, and also a pretty inert one dramatically. How much more interesting to find nuance and perhaps even empathy for a villifed man. The key point is that Stone is being empathetic, and not sympathetic, to the President.
The real success of the film for me was the change of perspective it gave me; Bush to me has been a lying, self-righteous, embarrassingly inarticulate, smirking buffoon as leader of the Western World. I now feel like I've got a alternative view of the whys and wherefores of his actions and his mistakes and that perhaps the blame doesn't always land squarely and solely at the feet of the figurehead. |
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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 11/10/2008 : 16:28:23
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| I thought it was a very vivid and compelling portrait of a man in way over his head. I like how sympathetic he is as a man of doubt and how repulsive and obnoxious he is as a take-charge decider. |
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 11/18/2008 : 12:44:48
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I was a bit disappointed. I found the screen Bush easy to empathize with, but couldn't square him with the real one. There is not enough of the in-over-his-head stuff that I think is the real one's primary feature. However, it does successfully paint him as relatively unarrogant, which I had previously 'defended' him as being.
The main thing I got from this film was a confirmation of my feeling that I buy into biopics too easily. Must be more sceptical from now on. |
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damalc 
"last watched: Sausage Party"
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Posted - 06/23/2009 : 00:32:55
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| just watched the dvd and have some complaints. i didn't think there was a great acting job in the bunch. it was more like a group of bad impressions that didn't quite hit the mark on Saturday Night Live. i know it wasn't a documentary, but i thought it was pretty clear on which side of the W fence Stone stands on. i really wanted to learn something and gain some understanding of the way he governed. |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 06/23/2009 : 03:55:48
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It's a minor piece, and Stone himself knew it the moment he let go of the negative.
Brolin and others are amusing, but this feels and sounds just like a Stone-directed, Jim Garrison version of the truth. For entertainment only. [P.S. There's plenty!] |
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duh 
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 06/23/2009 : 04:23:50
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| I saw Stone's appearance on The Colbert Report back when the film was first released. The interview was, I assume, tongue in cheek, as Stone said that history will show W to have been one of our greatest presidents. |
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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W.
