Oliver Stone's George Bush biopic

The Sunday Times ^ | August 10, 2008 | Christopher Goodwin

[Publius804]

From The Sunday Times

August 10, 2008

Oliver Stone's George Bush biopic

Oliver Stone's Bush biopic plays it for laughs, but it's every bit as controversial as JFK and Nixon

Christopher Goodwin

You have to admit it’s a great question: “How did George W Bush go from alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?” That’s what the American film-maker Oliver Stone says he wants to explain in his forthcoming movie biopic, entitled, simply enough, W.

Not surprisingly, Texas-sized dust storms have already blown up in Hollywood and Washington over the film, which is being rushed through production so it can be released in America on October 17, just three weeks before the presidential election. Starring Josh Brolin as George W Bush, James (Babe) Cromwell as former president George HW Bush, Richard Dreyfuss as vice president Dick Cheney, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush and Ioan Gruffudd as Tony Blair, the film will be the first big Hollywood biopic of a sitting president since PT 109, the 1963 hagiography about the heroic wartime exploits of John F Kennedy. The most recent president to be subjected to the Hollywood movie treatment was Bill Clinton, in a thinly veiled way, in Primary Colors.

Although Stone insists that he intends to paint “a fair, true portrait of the man”, many doubt that the director of extremely controversial films about the lives and deaths of two previous presidents — JFK and Nixon — and an avowed Democrat who is fiercely opposed to the war in Iraq, has any intention, or even the ability, to be objective. “His saying he is going to be fair to Bush is like Donald Trump saying he is going to be modest,” says Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy.

[Publius804]

Hat tip to www.dirtyharrysplace.com for the article.

[Mr. K]

The same way a know-nothing idiot became a major hollywood producer.

[seanmerc]

Oliver, go away. You’re an irrelevant, self-impressed liberal meathead. Hopefully someone will turn the tables on you. Let’s see how much scrutiny your life can withstand.

[Da Coyote]

It’ll sell as many tickets as Pelosi sold books.

[RexBeach]

Yeah, why doesn’t someone do a bio pic on Oliver Stone?

To explain, perhaps, how a hapless nobody turned into one of the biggest lefties in Hollywood.

I think that would be appropriate, and it would be fun to see Mr. Stone standing at the wrong end of the bowling alley for a bit. He certainly deserves it.

[gwilhelm56]

** The same way a know-nothing idiot became a major hollywood producer. **

Can’t improve on that statement!

[rjp2005]

I hope the film completely tanks.

[avacado]

Oliver Stone ponders: You have to admit it’s a great question: “How did George W Bush go from alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?”

*sigh*

Hollywood! Land of the Bubble-People.

[y6162]

W will be left wing science fiction.

Oliver is desperate for a hit after the gay Alexander fiasco. I bet W will make about $50,000. Huge bomb.

[Always Right]

The surest way to win an Oscar is to bash Bush.

[jveritas]

It will tank, there is no doubt about it.

[Artemis Webb]

This movie is going to be a box office flop.

[GOP_Party_Animal]

...Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice

Should have had Robert Downey Jr.

[hsalaw]

This movie has “BOMB” written all over it. A loser by a loser.

[advertising guy]

I met this fool at Filthy McNastys in LA for an actors party after THE DOORS was released......most arrogant man I ever saw and being 52, I’ve lived long enuf to meet a few.
Stone however is unparralled

[hershey]

Probably Stone is kicking himself for not making an adoring biopic about Obama. Well, not to worry. There’s still time since after losing in ‘08, the Messiah will probably run again in 2012.

[EagleUSA]

And why does not some Hollywood idiot producer do a movie on Barack Obama -— just think about all the interesting history and things that would appear in it ——

We would have Muslims, foreign countries like Indonesia, dual citizenship adventures, doing forged birth certificates, a walk on the beach in Hawaii, stumping for communism on college campuses, learning crime in the offices of Chicago, associating with anti-American terrorists and radical treasonous clergy, and actually becoming a U.S. senator for a short period before being SELECTED by the DemoRats to become President, preaching socialism, solving the nations health cost issues by raising taxes by spending TRILLIONS, jousting with the Clinton political machine, wow -— all the goodies they could include. This would be Academy Award material -—

This movie would clearly outsell anything about W.

[capydick]

I can already hear the back fire.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“why doesn’t someone do a bio pic on Oliver Stone?”
Looney Tunes is the only company that could do that subject correctly. Perhaps Woody Woodpecker could play Oliver Stone?

[liberallarry]

Born in the same year, he and Bush were briefly classmates at Yale, although they didn’t know each other there. Stone dropped out to fight in Vietnam, a battle-scarred journey that eventually led to his radicalisation and to two Oscar-winning films born of the experience, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July. Bush, of course, managed to avoid going to Vietnam by somehow winning a cushy noncombatant job at home with the National Guard...

Perhaps surprisingly, four presidential historians who were sent copies of the script felt that most of the historical incidents happened more or less as described...

“JFK was a case to be proven, Nixon was a penetrating biography of a complex and dark man. But I’m not bound by those strictures any more. Bush is not a complex and dark man, so it’s different. This movie can be funnier because Bush is funny. He’s awkward and goofy and makes faces all the time. He’s not your average president. So, let’s have some fun with it. What are they going to do? Discredit me again?”

Three snips from the article which struck me. Like him or not Stone has paid his dues.