George W. Bush Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Oliver Stone's docudrama W. opened last week to mixed critical response (including our own review) and a modest box office take of just over $10 million. Now, as Stone has promised in interview after interview, a rather thorough fact guide has been posted online, a bibliography with which one can corroborate several facts in a film admittedly filled with all manner of re-enactment and artistic license.

For those much more inclined than I, there are over eighty pages to delve into regarding where dialogue was lifted from actual quotes and where inference was otherwise made, like an exhaustive scene-by-scene commentary or (I'm guessing) a similar supplement for the eventual DVD release.

To quote Stone off his MySpace profile: "I am not trying to be a historian; I'm a dramatist -- and sometimes one who does a dramatic interpretation of history." Even those who enjoyed the film can't deny that statement as being just as accurate -- if not more so -- than anything in the film, and as for those who didn't, they might now struggle to say it was for lack of research.

After seeing Oliver Stone's W., I found myself wishing I had a little more time to think it over before writing a review; then again, I'm sure there are some involved with the film who found themselves wishing they had a little more time to think over the Bush administration before making it. Distance grants perspective, or so we're told; what could a film about the life and presidency of George W. Bush released while he's still in office really have to say about his life and times? If distance grants perspective, though, you could also argue that proximity grants immediacy, and argue that Stone's W. is not meant as a somber, serious look back but rather a cautious, nervy attempt to peer into the recent past, a film with, in the words another Presidential candidate recently borrowed, "the fierce urgency of now."

But W. has plenty of urgency; you could argue that what it lacks is a point of view, or rather a point of view other than Freudian family psychodrama, with George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) fighting for the presidency and fighting in Iraq as a way to earn the respect and love of his distant, driven father George H. W. Bush (James Cromwell). But to many, examining the inner life of George W. Bush is like asking yourself about the source of the lumber when you're being hit in the head with a baseball bat. We get a lot of dialogue in W. about the difference between the external and the internal, between ideology and identity; Laura Bush (Elizabeth Banks) offers that "I don't think politics should define a human being ..." while George H.W. notes that "I've always believed in leaving personal feelings out of politics." But in W., it feels like Stone doesn't even want to let politics define politics, and leaving the politics out of the personal feelings he's exploring.

More photos from Oliver Stone's upcoming George W. Bush satire, W., have arrived online via USA Today, and a good amount of them show what it looked like behind the scenes on one of this fall's most talked-about films. Above you get a pretty good look at Stone going over notes with Thandie Newton (Condoleeza Rice), Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld), Bruce McGill (George Tenet), Josh Brolin (George W. Bush), Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell) and Richard Dreyfuss (Dick Cheney). Also featured in this selection of images is James Cromwell as President George H.W. Bush.

Apparently the film opens with Bush Jr. standing in the middle of a baseball field, listening to the roar of the crowd as an announcer calls forth the 43rd president of the United States. However, the camera pans back to reveal no one there but Bush. What's up with what? Stone notes, "We all have retreat fantasies. He did have the express desire to be baseball commissioner, and I think some people, historically, would say if he had become baseball commissioner, it would have saved us a lot of problems."

As far as the target audience for W. goes, Stone adds, "I'm not interested in that radical 15% that hate Bush or the 15 to 20% who love Bush. That's not our audience. Those people probably won't come. I'm interested in that 60% in the American middle who at least have a little more open mind."

Will you be seeing Oliver Stone's W. when it hits theaters on October 17? Check out two new photos of Bush and Bush Jr. below, then head to USA Today for the rest.

Each day seems to bring us yet another piece of promotional marketing for Oliver Stone's Bush flick, W. Not long after Moviefone debuted the trailer, AICN now has a teaser poster and what you see above is one of two newly-released images from the film. They're definitely pimping it, trying to get folks interested in a movie about the life and times of George W. Bush even though many of us are tired of the man, the jokes, the legend -- all of it. We've spent 8 years with this dude ... can't we just shake his hand, thank him for a job done and move on?

Anyway, W (which feels like it was shot and edited in three weeks in order to make a pre-Election Day release date) arrives in theaters on October 17, and we were wondering how much you think it's gonna make? With one of the biggest presidential elections in years only a couple weeks away from that date, and with the entire world watching to see who we'll replace Dubya with, will all that chitter-chatter raise more or less interest in the Oliver Stone movie? Is this the kind of flick that will surprise everyone with a giant taking, or will it crash and burn? Sound off below ... and we'll revisit your answers in a couple months when W rolls out.

When Josh Brolin takes a night off from playing a young George W. Bush to get arrested in a bar, the jokes practically write themselves. (Method acting, anyone?) That's what happened in the wee hours of Saturday morning in Shreveport, La., as Brolin, co-star Jeffrey Wright (who plays Colin Powell), and five crew members from Oliver Stone's biopic W. were arrested at the Stray Cat bar and taken down to the big house.

The Associated Press's account is sparse, so we turn to Shreveport's KSLA News 12 for more details (and thanks to Jeffrey Wells for the link). Seems it was closin' time at the ol' Stray Cat, and Brolin and his pals wouldn't leave, despite bein' asked twice, and they were bein' rowdy. So the bar staff called the police, who arrived just after 2 a.m., whereupon there was a bit of a scuffle, and a fellow named Eric Felland got arresting for remaining in the bar, public drunkenness, and resisting arrest. Brolin, Wright, and the other W.-affiliated folks reportedly interfered with the arrest, so they got arrested for that misdemeanor.

The Shreveport Times reports that Brolin posted a $334 bond and was free to go. Wright and the other four arrest-resisters had the same price on their heads. The guy who was being arrested in the first place, Felland, who is a lighting technician on the film, had a $752 bond. It's unclear from the early news reports how long it took everyone to get out of the clink, but one assumes they didn't have to fester in jail too long. I like what one of the commenters at Hollywood Elsewhere said, that it would have been great if James Cromwell, who plays George Bush Sr., had had to come bail everyone out.

When it comes to sifting through all actors responsible for portraying the most powerful man on the planet, there's no shortage of options. John Travolta did a great Bill Clinton impersonation in Primary Colors and Timothy Bottoms delivered a near-perfect imitation of George W. Bush in both D.C. 9/11: Time of Crisis and That's My Bush! Neither one comes across as particularly flattering, so presidential nominee Barack Obama has chosen a safer bet: At a recent party in Los Angeles, Obama revealed that he prefers Jeff Bridges' conflicted commander-in-chief in The Contender. Granted, he may have said this simply to keep his audience happy -- in this case, Contender director Rod Lurie, one of the attendees who was willing to plop down $28,000 for the event. "'I just plugged your movie," Obama told Lurie, according to a report the director sent to Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells.

Still, when you're under the kind of intense scrutiny that Obama currently endures, Bridges actually seems like a pretty safe choice. Choose Anthony Hopkins in Nixon and it sounds like you're endorsing the bad guy. Choose Kevin Kline in Dave and you come across as disingenuous. Choose Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove and somebody will call you incompetent. Bridges, on the other hand, plays a fierce leader bound to his moral convictions. Of course, Obama also expressed sympathy over Lurie's short-lived television show Commander-in-Chief, which featured Geena Davis as the first woman president. Perhaps it's no coincidence that he and Hillary have publicly made amends.

Before the pre-festivals press screening of Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, the new documentary about the life and death of Republican political operative Lee Atwater, two separate Rolling Stones songs were running through my head. "Street Fightin' Man, " possibly inspired by Atwater's reputation as a dirty trickster of the higher order, and "Sympathy for the Devil," perhaps springing from Atwater's deathbed renunciation of many of the things he'd done; both associations sprang from the little I knew about Atwater. Thanks to the work of director Stefan Forbes, I now know a lot more; I now know so much, in fact, I'm not sure what to think.

Combining archival news footage with interviews from people who knew Atwater and some who, interestingly, only knew him through the public ramifications of his work, Boogie Man paints a complex portrait of a complex figure: A race-baiting political operative (Atwater may or may not have been behind the infamous 'Willie Horton' ad that cost Michael Dukakis the election in '88) who nonetheless loved to listen to, and play blues music; a man who sprang from the South who helped elect Eastern elites like George H.W. Bush; a man whose pupils in the modern political art of war, Karl Rove and George W. Bush (who worked with Atwater on his father's campaign) turned their back on him as he lay dying.

If anyone was still expecting Oliver Stone's W to be a sympathetic, thoughtful treatment of a controversial figure a lá Nixon, you can pretty much toss that out the window. The teaser poster for the rushed-to-production George W. Bush biopic -- a piece of artwork Lionsgate took with them to Cannes -- makes Stone's attitude toward the man pretty clear. Check it out after the jump.

My question is this: does anyone seriously think that people are going to flock to the theater in the middle of election season lured by the promise of... Bushisms? That's your marketing pitch? Bush supporters don't appreciate the jibes, and Democrats have already heard all the jokes.

Look, I don't want a movie that's kind to Bush, or even one that's "even-handed"; I just want one that's thoughtful. Of course it's possible that the poster doesn't match the tone of Stone's film; after all, the Lionsgate marketing department almost certainly had final say. Granted, too, this was a poster produced for Cannes, and may not be representative of the eventual American campaign. But everything I've heard about W -- most notably this -- indicates that the poster has it pretty much right. Bush is a frat boy, a bumbler, "the improbable president." No doubt. But is he anything else?

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Now that you know what Josh Brolin's George W. Bush will look like, you should know that you'll get to see him in action real soon -- probably sooner than you thought. The ever-courageous Lionsgate has picked up Oliver Stone's W, and plans to release it on October 17th. Of this year. That's 2008. Before the election. Notably, the movie hasn't even started shooting yet -- it goes into production on May 12th in Louisiana.

I never really thought the film would fail to find distribution, though early buzz on the screenplay has been fairly toxic. I did think there was going to be a race between when W would be finished and when Dubya would be finished -- that is, out of office. But apparently Stone is not messing around and plans to deliver the film in a few months, with Lionsgate hoping to capitalize on the furor that will surround the election.

Jeez -- maybe it's because I read too many blogs (or because I live in Pennsylvania, suddenly a battleground state), but it's barely May and I'm already tired of the election. Is W really how people will want to spend their leisure time in late October? I can't imagine, but I respect the folks at Lionsgate enough to think they know what they're doing. Incidentally: Dick Cheney remains uncast. Any suggestions?

Oh Ari Fleischer -- the David Cross of Press Secretaries. Wait a minute -- why didn't they get David Cross for this role? He'd be perfect. Anyway, MTV tells us that Rob Corddry (The Daily Show, Semi-Pro ... and a bunch of other random comedies) has signed on to play former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in Oliver Stone's W. Corddry joins a cast that continues to get larger by the minute, and includes Josh Brolin (George W. Bush), Elizabeth Banks (Laura Bush), James Cromwell (George Bush Sr.), Ellen Burstyn (Barbara Bush), Thandie Newton (Condi Rice), Ioan Gruffudd (Tony Blair) and 50 Cent (as Colin Powell).

Yes, I'm kidding about that last one.

Earlier today, we clued you into a script review of W currently circulating the internets. According to some, the film seems to be taking the Bush is a moronic alcoholic fratboy route, which, if you watch, well, The Daily Show, is kinda old news. As Eugene put it, "Most people -- whether or not they accept it -- have already absorbed the meme that Bush is an arrogant, reckless, hard-drinking buffoon, and I'm not sure that this perception merits its own movie." I completely agree -- and I'd much rather have watched Stone return to Vietnam with Pinkville than sit down for a feature-length version of a joke that's way past its prime.