Movie Review: "W."

Oliver Stone, for me, has always been an extremely over rated director. He has a knack for taking good, sometimes exceptional, scripts and adding his own flair that takes from the movie from potentially excellent to powerfully awful. He likes to focus on making politically-themed movies, but even when he ventures away from that, he still creates massive failures. His last film, "World Trade Center," was nothing more than average. His last venture away from politics, "Alexander," was widely panned. "Any Given Sunday" was a disappointment, and his most monumental failure was his bastardization of Tarantino's wonderful script for "Natural Born Killers."

Returning to his most successful roots making films chronicling the lives of politicians, Stone returns with his latest film "W.," a film about one of the most controversial Presidents ever, our current President, George W. Bush. Not one to stray too far from the norm, Stone delivers yet another aggressively average film. While the man's talent is undeniable, his style leaves much to be desired.

For starters, Stone portrays Bush Jr. as a victim: A victim of religion, a victim of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, and a victim of his father. All of Bush's accomplishments (or lack thereof) are done out of a painful desire to not only please his father, but surpass him. This is of course a very under-used theme in Hollywood. Anyway, Bush is jealous of his father's favoritism toward his brother. No matter how much he wants to please his father, his reckless behavior keeps causing him to screw up. He fails at essentially every single thing he does, from the military, to college, to an attempt to run for Congress. One of the few interesting moments in the film is Bush's devastation after his loss in the race for Congress. The Democratic candidate painted Bush as rich and out of touch with the common Texan and the common Christian. Afterward, Bush vowed that he would never be "out-Texas'd or out-Christian'd" again.

Bush then decides to give up alcohol and find God. Finding strength through God, Bush finds the motivation to run for Governor of Texas and finally succeeds. Seeing weakness in his father's handling of Saddam Hussein during his own Presidency, Bush says that God has decided it's his turn to give it a go in the White House. Unfortunately, the film paints Bush as a puppet, and I don't buy it. Once in the White House, it seems all of the decisions are made by God, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Donald Rumsfeld. Bush just blindly follows orders. The film essentially relieves Bush of all responsibility for his actions while in the White House. After all, he's too simple to know what to do on his own.

One of the few shining moments of the film is Josh Brolin's outstanding portrayal of the President. Following up his performance in "No Country For Old Men," Brolin is really on a roll. He's mastered all of Bush's mannerisms, his voice, and even his walk. Although Brolin has been around for quite some time, he's finally starting to hit his peak. His next film, "Milk," is very high on my list of must-see's. He does not star, but he plays a supporting role in a film about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician. A nearly unrecognizable Sean Penn stars, and the film takes place in San Francisco (surprise surprise). But I digress. Brolin has really been phenomenal as of late. Other than Brolin's performance, the film brings little else worthwhile to the table.

One of Stone's go-to moves is his tendency to feature symbolic, sometimes surreal, dream-like sequences in his movies. This is one of the many ways in which he ruined "Natural Born Killers," and he goes to the well too often in this film as well. The dream-like sequences are corny, unimaginative, and bash you over the head with an obvious point. We get it, Oliver. Dream sequences don't make you deep or intellectual, and when poorly done as in this case, they just trigger frequent eye rolls and deep sighs.

In addition to my previously mentioned point about his portrayal of the soon-to-be-former President, Stone also seems to not really be aware of what dialogue should stay in the film, and what should be left on the cutting room floor. I have never been one to complain about dialogue. The average film goer wants more actions and less talking. I, however, would almost prefer the opposite when it's well done. This film tries to find a proper balance and fails. There are long war room sequences that feature lengthy bouts of teeth-grindingly boring dialogue. These scenes weren't just boring, they were BOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!! I can't recall any time in recent memory when I had so trouble paying attention to the movie. I nearly walked out early in the film, completely prepared to come home and write a one-star review about how the film was so bad that I couldn't sit through it. I stuck it out, though, and the film did get better and managed to attain levels of mediocrity.

There are many other problems with this movie, including Thandie Newton's unintentionally comedic portrayal of Condoleeza Rice, but we all have other things to do. Basically, this is a two-star movie with four-star aspirations. If you're into politics, you won't learn much, if anything, you didn't already know. If you think this is a comedy, think again. A film about George W. Bush will of course have several funny moments, but Stone took this film in a far more serious direction. If you're a Stone fan, or someone desperately looking for a scapegoat on which to blame all of Bush's failures, you may like it. Otherwise, save your 10 bucks and wait until this is on DVD.

Presidential Debate Episode III: Revenge of the Simp

Well, after two very under whelming debates, we finally got the debate we all have been waiting on. The first two debates seemed like poorly organized campaign speeches. We heard nothing we hadn't already heard on the campaign trail, and each candidate took every opportunity to recite their stump speeches. No hard questions were asked, and moderators went very easy on both candidates. Personally, I was greatly disappointed in the second debate. Touted as a town hall debate, I expected to see something similar to what I saw during the first ever town hall debate in 1992 between Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ross Perot. Instead, I got a debate that was essentially the same as the first one, just with the audience asking the questions instead of the moderator. The questions were chosen by the moderator, Tom Brokaw, and the person only got to ask the question. They were not allowed to follow up or converse with the candidate.

Tonight, we saw a totally different strategy, both by the moderator and the candidates ... one candidate in particular. McCain came into this debate ready to throw punches. Like a boxer on the ropes, McCain came out fighting. He was ready to do any and every thing he could in order to get back into this race because, after all, he has no choice at this point. His back is to the wall. For the most part, at least to start off, I thought he was successful in his attempts. McCain came out tough and ready to throw punches. McCain's most successful part of the night is when he decided to totally separate himself from President Bush. "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." Personally, I only thought the first sentence was powerful. He looked right at Obama when he said it, and he was very direct. The second sentence was not necessary. I don't think anyone thinks that Obama would have preferred to run against Bush.

Surprisingly, McCain allowed Obama back into the fold when the topic of the debate switched to the subject of attack ads. It is clear now, as it has been for many months, that the people are tired of hearing about things that have nothing to do with the issues. He forced Obama to speak on his relationship with William Ayers and ACORN, and Obama handled the situation very well. He seemed as if he didn't even want to respond to such ridiculous attacks, but was only doing it because McCain would not leave it alone. Then, when that should have been the end of it, McCain kept coming back to it. He kept the conversation on unrelated negativity. You could literally feel the nation rolling its collective eyes. He began to look flustered, and could barely contain his disdain for Senator Obama. He no longer listened to Obama's answers, and would repeat the same falsehoods about Obama's policies over and over, even after Obama had already cleared them up.

McCain then tried to play the sympathy card by essentially saying his feelings were hurt when a reporter tied him to racial segregation. He said that anytime someone has said anything bad about Obama, he's repudiated it. Yet, when this reporter essentially called McCain racist, Obama said nothing. This was a key point in the debate for me. I was interested to see how Obama would respond to what I felt was a valid point. Obama took this as an opportunity to first speak on all the wildly negative, and quite frankly, scary things that McCain supporters have said about him. At Palin rallies, people have called him "Osama," a terrorist, and many other horrible things, with Palin saying nothing. This prompted the reporter to say what he said, to which the Obama campaign responded by saying the guy was out of line. Then the guy himself apologized. Once again, this should have been the end of it. McCain then surprisingly went on to essentially defend his supporters because they wear Vietnam hats. OK.

After the long stretch in which McCain seemed to want to focus on negative and lies, his head no longer seemed to be in the game. In the final half hour of the debate, the moderator took the debate into a new direction, asking them to speak on subjects we had not yet heard them speak on. He asked the candidates about health care. McCain asserted that Obama would charge a fine to "Joe the Plumber," a man who Obama had spoken to on the campaign trail earlier in the day, for not providing health care to his employees. He challenged Obama to say just how much that fine would be. Obama then explained his health care for what seemed like the millionth time. He explained that if you had a health care plan, you could keep it, and he would lower costs. If you didn't, you would be able to buy into the same plan he uses, and the costs would be low since so many other politicians use that plan. Then, he looked directly into the camera and said "Joe, you want to know how much your fine would be? 0." He then explained that small business owners are exempt from that fine, and would receive money in order to help them provide health care to their employees. He said it was the large companies, the ones that can afford to offer health care, that would be fined if they didn't. McCain's response, and I'm paraphrasing here "He's gonna charge you Joe, let's find out how much." Was he not paying attention?

Obama then shed some light on McCain's plan. McCain has said that his plan will offer a $5,000 tax credit to families. Obama then pointed out that what McCain doesn't tell you is that his plan will cause millions of people to lose their health care with their employer, and that McCain was going to tax health care benefits. He said the average cost of health care is $12,000/yr, so if you lose your health care and you get $5,000, you're still $7,000 in the hole. McCain's response, and I'm paraphrasing here ... well, he didn't respond.

The moderator then took the debate to the highly controversial subject of abortion. He asked the candidates if they could ever appoint someone to the Supreme Court who did not agree with them on Roe v. Wade. Obama, who is pro-choice, supports Roe v. Wade. McCain, who is pro-life, wants it overturned. To be fair, Obama did not really answer the question. He just said that he would base his decision on their qualifications. McCain took a different, much riskier route. He did answer the question ... eventually. After being pressed for an answer, McCain said he would also appoint based off of qualifications, but that anyone who didn't agree with him on Roe v. Wade wouldn't meet his qualifications. There goes the female vote!

Now for those of you who were not aware of the whole "Joe the Plumber" thing, the candidates were referencing a dialogue between Obama and a plumber named Joe that took place on the campaign trail earlier in the day. Basically, this guy told Obama that he didn't like Obama's tax plan because, as a new business owner who is making just over $250K/yr, his taxes would go up and it would be difficult for him to expand his business. McCain attempted to use this to his advantage by pointing out only Joe's half of the dialogue, and parlaying that into a lie about Obama raising everyone's taxes. He insinuated that Obama is attempting to stamp out the American dream by not allowing Joe to expand his business. That moment, and this entire campaign, should teach McCain and all politicians about running a campaign based on lies. Obama pointed out that his goal is to help people who are aspiring to be like Joe. He wants to help the people who want to be able to start their own business. Then, yet again, Obama had to explain the lie about his raising taxes. McCain claimed, and has been saying throughout the entire campaign, that Obama is going to raise taxes for people making more than 42K/yr. Obama responded with what, for me, was one of the best lines of the night when he said that all major media sources have cited that as untrue ... even Fox News, who rarely refutes any negativity thrown his way.

Although I've been a proponent of ending what Barack has called "silly season" in politics, it was about time that he got the opportunity to speak on all of the lies that McCain and his campaign have said about him. He got to speak on taxes, health care, William Ayers, ACORN, being called a terrorist, and all the other negative attacks that are thrown his way. This was the most exciting portion of the debate, and it swung the debate HEAVILY in Obama's favor. McCain never really seemed to recover. Afterward, the results poured in, and the people overwhelmingly felt Obama won the debate. CNN reported that Obama's favorability has gone up with every debate. In fact, all of his numbers have gone up with every debate. They've started to call the state of Virginia for Obama, which is a huge swing state. Essentially, we've reached a point where McCain would have to win all the swing states, even though Obama leads in a couple of them, as well as win over some states that look like they're going to Obama. In other words, in about 19 days, we can bet on being able to close the door on the prospect of John McCain Presidency. The closer we get to election day, the more worried I become ... but the more hopeful I become as well. True change is less than weeks away from happening in this country, and we can only hope that things continue in this direction. If they don't, we can expect the country to descend into a state in which we have not seen since the Civil War. I shudder to think about what will happen if Obama loses this election, both in the White House and in the streets.

Presidential Debate Episode II: Attack of the Clods

The second of three Presidential debates took place on Tuesday, and I can now officially say that I am no longer anticipating the third. This pseudo-town hall debate failed to reach expectations, and I see no reason to expect the third debate to be any different. A few days prior to the second debate, I saw a REAL town hall debate on CNBC2 between Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ross Perot from 1992. I think this is the only time a Presidential debate has featured 3 people. Anyway, due to the more "relaxed" nature of the debate, the moderator, as well as the guests, were free to take the candidates up on their vague responses. No candidate was allowed to give a half-ass answer that failed to address the question. There was a moment when a guest asked one of the candidates how something specifically affected them, and the candidate gave a "political" answer that didn't really answer the question. The guest said "No, I said SPECIFICALLY YOU..." I was hoping for this sort of candor during this second debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Unfortunately, I did not get what I was hoping for. This debate was nothing more than a nationally televised opportunity for the candidates to recite the same old stump speeches and slogans we've been hearing on the campaign trail for the past several months. The guests submitted their question to Tom Brokaw, the moderator. Brokaw, I guess, reviewed the questions, and selected which ones would be allowed to be asked. Also, this debate was not as informal as I had hoped. The guests read their cards with their question on it, then the candidate RECITED his speech. There was no response by the guest. There was no dialogue. Brokaw did not take either candidate to task when failing to answer a question. I learned nothing new from this debate, and I saw nothing new from either candidate. I am GREATLY disappointed. Maybe on Wednesday we'll get some different questions that will prompt new responses, but I doubt it.

We did, however, witness some fairly controversial moments. The most talked about moment was when McCain referred to Obama as "that one." A lot of people, not surprisingly, are calling racism. I fail to see how that comment, while fairly disrespectful, could be construed as racist. I've been sick the past couple days, but while I was confined to my bed, did "that one" all of a sudden become a racial slur? Maybe if he said "that boy," (lol) I would understand. He didn't, though, so I don't see the big deal. I'm actually kind of surprised that the reference has been such a big deal over the past couple days. There was another moment that I found much more controversial.

One or two questions into the debate, a black man asked a question about the housing crisis. Prior to insinuating that because the man asked a question about housing that he must be losing his house, McCain said, paraphrasing him here, "I bet you never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before all this happened." I, for one, would have been pretty offended if I were that guy. Whether I'd heard of them or not, you should not assume anyone to be ignorant of anything. I'm surprised this didn't bring forth many "Oh, because he's black he must not have heard of them, huh?!?!" This comment, however, went largely unnoticed.

This all does go to show that McCain really is out of touch and is just simply too old to be President. He frequently slips up and says inappropriate things. He displayed EXTREMELY poor judgment in selecting his running mate. He is without a doubt the least cunning strategist I've seen in a long time, making COMPLETELY OBVIOUS political moves in an attempt to pass them off as being a "maverick." He's just too old and senile to realize how stupid and out of touch he is. Hopefully on the night of November 4th, he'll be put out of his misery.

2008: The Year of the Comedy

Over the course of the next few months, I will probably be writing several movie-themed blogs. These blogs may or may not be movie reviews, I haven't decided yet. But being the film connoisseur that I am, there are a great deal of film related topics that I would like to touch .. the year is out. This will all culminate in my best movies of the year blog, which will probably come in January of 2009.

Having said all that, the first of those blogs is being unleashed upon your eyeballs right now. (On a side note, forgive me if this blog is poorly written. It's very late, but I want to write this before I forget to do it altogether.) Let me start by saying that I never have been, and never will be, a fan of the comedy genre. Like the horror genre, it rarely succeeds in doing what it sets out to do. Horrors rarely scare me, and comedies rarely make me laugh. So, the fact that I'm even writing this blog says a great deal about the caliber of comedies that have come out this year.

Basically, in any given year, if I see one comedy I like, it's been a good year. If I see two, it's been a great year. This year, off the top of my head, I think I saw 6 comedies I liked, 2 of which I LOVED, and there's another potential one to be added to the list that comes out at the end of the month. This fact makes 2008, hands down, the winner of the best year for comedies in my entire life.

First off, I'll talk about the movie I liked the least, Strange Wilderness. It probably wouldn't get a thumbs up from me at all if it were not for two scenes. These two scenes made me laugh harder than I've laughed at anything I've ever seen in a movie. I'm talking about stomach hurting and crying levels of laughter. I NEVER reach that level watching a movie. I only laugh that hard at something that happened or was said in real life. One of those scenes was in the commercial for the movie, and to this day I still remember when I first saw that commercial and how hard I laughed. I've NEVER laughed that hard watching a trailer. So I figured the movie would have all kinds of greatness in store for me. I guess since I set the bar so high, I was destined to be disappointed, but whatever. While I didn't laugh too much watching the movie, I was blessed with another scene that elicited almost as much laughter as the trailer scene. The fact that this movie made my list because of two scenes says a lot about those scenes. So would I recommend checking out Strange Wilderness? Well, yes and no. No, because my opinion of the movie overall isn't that high (it isn't that low either). Yes, because, well, even though my opinion isn't high, I set my bar high. It didn't quite meet my expectations, but it may meet yours. Then of course, you owe it to yourself to see these two scenes. Then again, you may not find them as funny as I did. I have a sick sense of humor. lol

While nowhere near as good as its predecesor, Harold and Kumar: Escape From Guantanomo Bay was still funny as hell. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one too. It didn't come with as many laughs as White Castle, but a funny movie is a funny movie, and this one deserves to make the list.

A movie that surprised me this year, although it probably shouldn't have, was Get Smart. Now don't get me wrong, it's not legendary status or anything. But it was funny. A more important thing, though, that I'd like to focus on is the emergence of Steve Carrell. I typically find him funny in any movie I see him in, although to be honest, he does seem to play the same character all the time. Off the top of my mind, I liked him in The 40 Yr Old Virgin (obviously, who wouldn't?), Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, and now Get Smart. I can't officially say that I've seen his TV show, The Office, but I've seen bits and pieces and I thought that was funny as well. I should probably check it out. Anyway, the point is that Steve Carrell is funny, and so are his movies.

Now it's time to talk about someone else who has essentially come from nowhere to officially OWN the comedy scene right now, Judd Apatow. Thank Science that Mr. Apatow seems to have reached a point where he can crank out at least one, maybe two, movies a year. He has given me faith in comedy. His movies are some of the funniest movies I've EVER seen. It's amazing that the next movie I'm going to talk about, while still wildly funny, is probably the LEAST of his movies that I've seen. Pineapple Express, starring Seth Rogen (who I am going to probably have to devote an entire blog to in Nov) and James Franco, is yet another comedy that received two thumbs up from me this year. The surprisingly violent ending provided few laughs, and like all of Apatow's comedies, it ran a little long. But the complaints are far fewer than the number of laughs. Unfortunately, Pineapple Express didn't hit the "I LOVE this movie" level of greatness, but fortunately for me, another Apatow comedy that came out this year did.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall was THE SHIT, point blank period. Anyone who doesn't find this movie hilarious should immediately have their head examined. The only famous Apatow flick that DOESN'T feature Seth Rogen, didn't need him. As a matter of fact, Rogen's greatness was replaced by the greatness of "newcomer," Russell Brand. Brand is apparently a big deal in the UK, and I will begin a mission shortly to find other movies of his. Brand's character of Aldous Snow wasn't just the shit, but will probably go down as one of the all-time great comedic characters. I still don't know where I would rank this movie among the Apatow comedies, but I love them all so much that it doesn't feel fair to rank one as "better" than another. However, Knocked Up is still my favorite. :) I said "It's a girl, buy some pink shit" for the next few weeks after seeing that. lol That was funny AND cold-blooded.

The final of my six awesome comedies is another one that I was surprised I liked it as much as I did. I did just like it, I LOVED Tropic Thunder. As a comedy overall, it was top-notch. As a satirical look at Hollywood, it was legendary and genius and by far the best film Ben Stiller has ever directed (though that doesn't say much). I guess if you're not as into Hollywood and movies as I am, you may may not see all the humor or find the movie as genius as I did, but this was a truly outstanding film and was funny as hell.

On October 31st, what will undoubtedly be the 7th great comedy is going to be released, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. This flick has all the ingredients necessary to make a hilarious movie. It has the best of both worlds: Kevin Smith writing and directing, and an Apatow cast. Kevin Smith wrote and directed two of my all-time favorite comedies, "Clerks" and "Dogma," and has made several other films that I enjoyed. His script and direction, with Seth Rogen and other Apatow actors in the cast, makes sure that this will be the 7th great comedy of the year. 1 week later, there's a potential 8th flick in Role Models. If you haven't seen the trailer yet, look it up. It looks like good shit and stars Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott.

One of my all-time favorite actors has fallen off...

So today, I finally watched a movie that I thought I'd been waiting on forever. My two favorite actors of all-time, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, had finally truly done a movie together. Of course, they were both in The Godfather II, but since their roles took place in two separate time periods, they shared no screen time. They also starred in Heat together, but shared very little screen time, save for one memorable scene. On September 12th, the world received the film they were waiting for, Righteous Kill. These two screen legends were going to share the screen throughout the movie. To top it off, it looked like a damn good movie.

Unfortunately, it didn't live up to the hype. The film was generic and predictable ... very predictable ... VERY VERY VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY predictable. But this blog isn't about Righteous Kill, it's about something much worse: the decline of the career of Al Pacino.

I've literally watched one of the finest actors of all-time fall from perennial Oscar favorite, to box office bust. Al Pacino used to be one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood. Over a 20-year time span, he played a myriad of different, yet equally amazing, characters. In 1972, he starred in one of our all-time greatest films, The Godfather. In 1973, he played Officer Frank Serpico in Serpico. In 1974, he returned to the role of Michael Corleone and won as Oscar. In 1975, he starred in one of my all-time favorite films and probably one of his most slept-on roles in Dog Day Afternoon. In it, he played a ... well, we'll call him "eccentric" ... man who royally bungles a bank robbery. The money from the robbery would have been used to pay for his wife's operation. In 1979, he played a lawyer in yet another one of his most slept-on roles in And Justice For All. In 1983, he starred in his most famous role as Tony Montana in Scarface. And in 1992, he won another Oscar playing a blind retired Army colonel in Scent Of A Woman. All of these roles very different, but equally outstanding.

What happened to the Al Pacino who played different characters? Now, he plays the same guy in every movie: the gravely-voiced hard-ass. Insomnia, Any Given Sunday, The Recruit, Ocean's Thirteen, 88 Mins, Righteous Kill ... all essentially the same character. I don't think he takes the role if he doesn't get to raise his voice in it. I keep waiting for that role that rejuvenates Al's career, the one that will provide him with his first Oscar nomination since ... well, 1992. How many more bad movies or bad roles is Al going to have to take before he stops getting work altogether? Can he even show diversity anymore? Robert DeNiro has shown he can be FUNNY. Al doesn't even seem able to change his voice anymore. I hope I'm wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the inevitable failure of Righteous Kill will signal the end of the career of a screen giant.