Posted on 09/12/2006 10:01:19 AM PDT by MikeA
NEW YORK Sparks usually fly, from one quarter or another, when actor Sean Penn meets the press, and it happened again this week at a news conference for the Toronto International Film Festival. Chances were greater there as he was touting a long-expected political drama screened there, the re-make of "All the King's Men."
Among the highlights on Sunday, Penn asked photographers to stop snapping so he could hear questions, and he called President Bush "a Beelzebub -- and a dumb one."
Penn stars in the new movie as a Huey Long-type populist politician in Louisiana, with Jude Law playing a crucial role as his friend, an alcoholic reporter.
"One could make the argument that George Bush is a good politician," Penn said at one point, seemingly offering praise. Then he added: "I think the issue is how you define politician. Once upon a time, politics was the organization of things to benefit the people."
An early review this week by E&P's VNU sibling, The Hollywood Reporter, hailed Penn's "charismatic" performance, but added that the movie "doesn't seem to know how to contain it. Writer-director Steven Zaillian's questionable solution is to fit this rambunctious portrait of unruly Southern politics in a monumental frame where Southern Gothic meets Leni Riefenstahl." Variety panned it as "overstuffed."
At the press conference, a reporter returned to the notion of Bush as a good politician, and Penn said the definition has changed -- much as it has for "good actor" which now means, he said, "contest winner" (he is an Academy Award winner himself).
"So that's the level of politician I think he's good at," Penn said. "Out of context, he's Beelzebub -- and a dumb one."
Another query: Could he name a good politician? Penn said he wasn't about to "rattle off the cliches....It should be obvious, those people who sacrificed of their talents and their commitment to their country or their people . . . we know who they are and they're not currently in the White House."
Penn has written several freelance articles for the San Francisco Chronicle in recent years.
By the way Sean, was Saddam a "Beezelbub" too or was he just the poor, charming, misunderstood rogue you liberals claim?
Let's have you and Bush compare resumes and educational attainment there, shall we Sean? You're a washed up actor. He's president. Bush wins.
LOL...when was that?
Sean, who's the dumb one?
He should have spent more time with Mr Hand.
Obviously another court jester who was raised by Oprah.
Exactly who was it that married Madonna?
George W. Bush has more brains in his little finger than Sean Penn has in his entire family.
Sean is a classic example of a usefull idiot.Why can't these hollyweird types stick to making movies?
Aye aye, Admiral Spicoli.
Trust Sean Penn ... he knows politics; after all he plays a politician in a movie.
It's because everyday they wake up and think to themselves, "I make my living by saying other people's words, I want to say something for myself."
We know who "they" are too -- Beelzebubba, also known as X42, is one of them, and praise God he/it isn't currently in the White House.
Actors spend most of their lives living in a fantasy world, it's the nature of the profession. When they try to step into reality, however, that's when they are out of touch.
Yeah Sean. Just shut up and bail. :-)
I'm a jeanyus!
Well, that settles it. If Sean Penn said, then it must really be true. Whoa is me - the entire foundation of my life just crumbled out from underneath me...
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