Oct. 26, 2008
Oliver Stone's "W." Backfires
National Review Online: Director Intended To Make Us Come Out Hating Bush, Instead He Makes Bush More Likeable
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Reel To Real: "W."
Reel To Real compares a scene from "W.", the new Oliver Stone film that follows the career of President George W. Bush, to footage of an actual presidential address that took place April 13, 2004.
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Josh Brolin is 'W'
Actor Josh Brolin stopped by "The Early Show" and spoke with Harry Smith about his new film "W," directed by Oliver Stone and based on the life of President George W. Bush.
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Oliver Stone On "W"
Oliver Stone talks to Harry Smith about his new film, "W," a character study of George W. Bush.
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Josh Brolin stars in Lionsgate Films' W. - 2008 (Lionsgate Films)
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Photo Essay
"W." Tosses Hat In The Ring
Biopic set to debut in theaters after gala New York premiere.
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Bush Presidency
The president's agenda, plus facts, figures, major events and key personalities.
The movie W., despite the worst intentions of its makers, succeeds in making George W. Bush more likeable. Reviewers keep remarking on the strange phenomenon. They hated Bush going in - and kind of liked the guy when they came out.
That the movie doesn’t intend you to like George W. Bush is obvious from the cheap shots it revels in. You can tell a director (in this case Oliver Stone) and a writer (Stanley Weiser) want you to dislike a lead character if they have him:
How can skilled filmmakers who clearly want to make Bush look bad end up making him likeable? Maybe it’s just by comparison to the other characters in the movie, whom they clearly hate much more.
But the hatred Stone and Weiser have for those characters isn’t enough to explain why Bush seems so likeable in this movie. Here are a few theories.
Maybe Bush seems likeable because he’s a real person. The movie puts him in scenes you can’t imagine a movie putting the Clintons in:
(As Bob Dole once told the National Catholic Register, “I think Bush’s faith is authentic, and that will be useful to us.”)
Maybe Bush is likeable in the film because it bucks conventional liberal wisdom in a couple of ways that favor him.
Or maybe Bush is more likeable in the movie than the filmmakers intend owing to dramatic flaws in the film itself.
But perhaps the ultimate reason why Bush is so likeable in this movie is that Josh Brolin makes him likeable. His W. is an earnest guy who overcame his partying youth by self-discipline, the steady and tolerant love of a woman, and real faith. He saw his life as part of a larger plan, and invaded Iraq because he thought it was the right thing to do. He’s a sincere striver who tries to do right by God, his country, and his family, and is startled and crushed when things don’t go the way he hoped.
That means the movie’s real bad guys are all those around the president who, the film suggests, work with duplicitous motives for dishonorable ends they really don’t believe in.
Clearly, Scott McClellan must hate W.
Finally, perhaps, most infuriating to the Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferers: The film also makes the case for John McCain. Stone’s movie carefully makes the argument that all of America was put in danger because Bush was able to get to the presidency with no real experience after political handlers took him over following his failed attempts at various careers. It suggests that Bush has iffy military experience, and the script hurls Cheney’s “four deferments” in our face. If the lesson is, “Don’t put an Ivy League cushy career-jumping reinvented politician with little or no executive experience in office, and only turn to those with military experience in times of peril,” then the way to apply the film’s lesson is to vote for John McCain over Barack Obama.
By Tom Hoopes
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.





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See all 55 CommentsAs Roger Ebert likes to say: Uh huh.
I think for myyself. You should try it some time.
Powell lost my respect when he backed Obama, he showed just how black he really was and he too is a bigot. Yo brother, same old nonsense. What is scarey is if Obama gets in!
Vote McCain!
haven''t we seen enough of him already??????
you people are sick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who likes re-runs, right John...
Posted by B0ludo
Except that Bush is NOT from middle America. He was born into an extremely wealthy, powerful family. His dad was president, and his grand-daddy was a senior political figure. He can trace his heritage to English royalty. He''s NOT from middle America. It''s the idiots who think he''s one of them and voted as such, that are responsible for the moron-in-chief having eight years to f_uck everything up.
He would have shown Bush standing up in front of Congress seven months before 9/11 saying our main security threat required the development of a new missile shield. He would have shown Bush ignoring classified memos warning of imminent threats of terrorist attacks, exactly along the lines of what happened on 9/11.
With the directors approval.
Stone, etc were making a Shakespearean tragedy and they succeeded. To do that, they needed to make the characters sympathetic so that their ultimate failing is real.
Their timing is wonderful, because we come in thinking we ''know'' the characters, and are exposed to the ''dramatists'' version of the characters, different from what we know and different from reality. This actually heightens the drama and tension. I found the experience to be most satisfying. Of course, I also realize that the timing was affected by marketing as well... Bush may not be the ''draw'' he is now in 6 months.
Good movie. Important discussion of current events (esp those leading to the invasion of Iraq)? Yes. Shakespearean tragedy dramatically portrayed? Yes. Accurate portrayal of the central characters? Pulleeze... Under the circumstances, thats one ''yes'' too many to expect. You want an accurate portrayal? Tune in ''Face the Nation'' or some such...
Want proof of how badly they twist reality? When Bush is asked what were his biggest mistakes in Iraq, he can''t name a single one! And they think the audience will feel sorry for him because "a president in wartime with American lives on the line can%u2019t glibly answer a question like that"! What absolute BS!!! At that point in time, we ALL knew there were NO WMDs!!! The biggest mistake was illegally invading a country that did not attack us for NO GAWDD@MN REASON! (except to steal their oil and park a bunch of military bases on their soil. Oh, yeah, and so Baby Bush could be a "war president" and get away with whatever he wanted!) We don''t "feel sorry" for the rat-b@stard! We condemn him for 4,000+ dead US soldiers (and maybe a half million dead Iraqis) who did not need to die! We condemn him for wasting our country''s blood and treasure! We condemn him for turning the entire world against us!
I don''t need the NRO to tell me what to think about this movie, or about GW Bush or Johnny McSame. Contempt is too polite a word for the feeling these r@t-b@stards invoke.
NRO - Please ...
Think you some kind of Roger Ebert or something ?
Just stick with your normal ''Reviews''
Leave Film Critiques to the Pros
But if you insist on attempting such endeavors ?
Do not start with Oliver Stone
Take some baby steps first
Like maybe, oh, John Ford and John Wayne Westerns
That should keep you busy for a while
Then get back to us in 50 years or so
p.s.
NRO, if you need more examples of what you could aim for ?
Try some imdb-dot-com reviews by ''Joe, Six-Pack or Plumber''
And they do them for free
Josh Brolin was spot-on Bush. Richard Dreyfus did a great job of capturing Cheney calculatedly manipulating Bush. Stone''s speculative portrayal of Gen. Powell was painful to watch, but well played by Jeffrey Wright. The movie might even have been an entertaining film bio, if we weren''t all suffering from the consequences of Bush''s inept leadership, ignorance, and gullibility.
Did you actually watch this movie?
If you liked Bush before you saw the movie, you''re in serious denial.
If you liked him after, you''re obviously suffering from "Beaten Dog Syndrome."
Everyone takes a liking to the class clown or the village idiot when they see him in action and not just hear about the dumb bushit the pulled. But most times we pity the idiot.
The lesson however in the end is maybe we should try electing someone who is objectively intelligent for once rather than the guy who runs the dirtier campaign.
I can''t believe CBS published this article. A round of applause, please!
But, now that I think of it, 8 years of the real "W" was pretty much like sitting through a bad movie too!
The spin machine never stops. Just give it up, the moron Bush is on his way out, and we are DONE with him. Voting for McCain would be piling stupidity on insanity.
First of all W''s record speaks for itself, everyone already hates him. I have not seen the movie but from reviews I think it protrays him as the disturbed pathetic individual he is. Which is quite fair and objective. I mean I have heard right wing wackos defend him by saying that he means well. So did Hitler.
It''s his policies I hate.
(More dumb journalism?)
The movie was forthright, honest, and didn''t go too far on conjecture. He did, in fact, humanize Bush in a way that writers from both the left and the right have previously failed to do. The man he presents is not the devil, nor is he a saint.
BTW, why do some people feel the need to post about Obama when the articles aren''t even about Obama?
it was intentional. if stone truly hated him ... he could have made that film. why didn''t he?
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/McCollum/index.html
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