Posted on 10/17/2008 8:51:05 PM PDT by holy joe
“W.” is a “fair and balanced” movie, says its creator, Oliver Stone.
“I think in this present political state, the real George W. Bush might not approve of this movie,” Stone told the Chicago Sun-Times. “But this movie tries to understand George W. Bush: the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Stone definitely puts the emphasis on the “ugly” in the film, which opened in theaters Friday. He basically acts as cinematic shrink and psychoanalyzes the parent-child relationship between elder George H.W. Bush and junior George W.
Stone presents the son as a twisted foul-mouthed drunk with a daddy complex who becomes a religious zealot and accidentally ends up being leader of the free world.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Ha, I don’t understand, Bush won the electoral college by one state, what is your definition of handily.
1988
1984
1972
1996
1964
1956
Those are examples of winning handily.
2004 was a very close election.
We plan on seeing “An American Carol” this weekend to counter Stone’s movie.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=alexander.htm
Budget was 155 million. made 34 million domestically if you include the world it made 167 million. It did not turn a profit, you have to make 3 times your budget to turn a real profit, at a minimum twice your budget, now of course it all depends on how much money goes into advertising, so those are not hard and fast rules, but no way 12 million above budget turned a profit for this movie.
Maybe I will get attacked for saying this here but I think Stone should get credit for volunteering to go to the Vietnam War, he could have stayed in college and avoided it.
I’m sure we can all agree that we don’t like many of his political views but the beauty of this country is he has the right to say them and for what it is worth I have a high amount of respect for his military service. How many Hollywood types can you picture volunteering for a war, and for the infantry, here is a blurb from Wikipedia:
A veteran of the Vietnam war, Stone served with the U.S. Army from April 1967 to November 1968. He specifically requested combat duty and was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, and was wounded twice in action. His personal awards include the Bronze Star with “V” device for valor for “extraordinary acts of courage under fire”, and the Purple Heart with one Oak Leaf Cluster.
A fluke, no doubt.
Okay. Hollywood and the French have good relations. BFD
The $155 million budget I took to include advertising. The $167 million I took to be the profits. Wrong. According to The Numbers website, Alexander lost over $71 million. The 14th biggest bust on their chart.
Per Bloomberg, the production budget for "W" was $30-miillion. With another $30-million in distribution costs. Stone can still get funding for his films.
You gave examples of landslides. Might as well cite the elections of Washington and Monroe while you’re at it, just to further skew the numbers.
Bush won by 3% in the popular vote and by 34 electoral votes. Given the fraud and the money spent by Kerry and other interested groups, Bush won handily. Certainly he crushed Kerry compared to the 2000 election.
I loved his movies when I was younger. When I go back and watch them now, I see nothing but wall-to-wall propaganda.
Nixon was his best film, though. He’s been completely unhinged since U-Turn.
Josh is a superb actor (he was great in “American Gangster” and “No Country For Old Men”), but something tells me this is not going to be one of Oliver Stone’s good movies.
I enjoyed “World Trade Center.”
Wall Street was the only decent movie Stone ever made. Hollywood hasn't made more than a handful of good movies in the last 30 years!
"W" was made to trash Bush43 on his way out the door and damage Republicans as much as possible in a big election year.
I’ve seen the trailers and man, does this ever look like a bomb!
I heard Babs was livid about Josh doing this movie until she learned it wouldn’t be anything complimentary about Bush. What a sow.
I thought Anthony Hopkins made a good Nixon.
Yes, forgot about U-Turn decent small movie, and the thing about movies like Platoon and Wall Street was that although a message was contained, he had colorful characters with different perspectives, go back and watch Platoon again, as you get older you might find yourself more on the side of Barnes, of course nobody can agree that Barnes was correct in killing Elias but I’m talking about Barnes’ world view.
But this is one of the reasons Hollywood is suffering, make entertaining movies, present both sides, use subtle messages.
Go to boxofficemojo and look at the list of top 20 hits from each year starting in 1980, entertaining and fun movies, where have they gone, Hollywood does not make them anymore.
Long, long ago Stone descended into irrelevance.
I respect that, although I thought Platoon was a fair treatment of Vietnam, I’m just saying whenever I see somebody who goes out of their way to serve this country in battle, I step back in awe, it is rare.
However that is not the issue, nobody in this thread is attacking his patriotism, just his views, which I admit have gotten more crazy as the years go on.
I’m sure some of you remember what he said after 9/11, something about the Towers of Babble and that...I can’t remember, I’m sure somebody can paste the exact quote, it was bad though, ranked up there with Chomsky equating the 9/11 attacks with Clinton bombing a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.
I disagree. “Platoon” was excellent, and so was “World Trade Center.” I also loved “JFK,” even though it was historically ludicrous. Brilliantly made film, albeit claptrap!
They did camp that up in the film, but I thought Bush's evangelist friend (portrayed by Stacy Keach) was played straight and fairly respectfully, not as a Robert Bakker metasleazoid.
They went after Bush 43 remorselessly, and I thought Richard Dreyfuss was going to bust a gut camping up Dick Cheney. Tony Blair was played straight and they played up to Colin Powell. George Tenet was probably fairly portrayed, but they played games with their portrayal of Dr. Rice.
Laura they knew to leave the hell alone and play by the book. They portrayed her straight, only they didn't give her as much credit as she deserves IMHO for pulling Dubya out of his alcoholism. She was a major factor.
They left most of the rest of the Bushes alone, probably because Bush 41, by shunning the run to Baghdad, implicitly condemned 43's determination to unseat Saddam.
They leave Clinton's policy toward Saddam untouched. Gee, wonder why? They also don't mention that Blair and Clinton had agreed on regime change in Baghdad -- so that's a lie by omission that plays into the hard spin Stone puts on the runup to war, and the recension of the war when Saddam's rope-a-dope strategy heated up.
They don't show the capture of Saddam or the killing of his wolf cubs, nor any of the pitiful scenes when Iraqis dug up the Ba'athists' gross handiwork.
Nope, just "shock and awe" and lots of ironic, sardonic, smartassic scenes with Bush's advisors, and the tune from Robin Hood playing in the background.
There was one unconsciously very funny scene about midway through. Karl Rove is tuning up Bush for a news conference during the campaign for Governor of Texas. Rove addresses a style point, telling him "do something about that Texas swagger you've got." "Swagger? In Texas we call it walkin'!"
Non-Texans might not get that. I laughed out loud ..... in a nearly-empty theater.
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