W: Oliver Stone's New Film

Big Magilla
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Post by Big Magilla »

The Hollywodo Reprter takes a look at Stone's screenplay. I copied it but kept getting an error message when I tried to send it, so go here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080408/film_nm/bush_dc_1
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Post by criddic3 »

OscarGuy wrote:You boil things down to the most simple terms and still can't figure out what the fuck you're talking about.

First of all, don't put this down as my anti-Bush sentiment. I wasn't referring specifically to Bush. I was referring to Born Again Christians...That Bush is one works against them, but had nothing to do with my entire point. I don't like Mormons either. And I have more respect for Muslims than I do most Christians.

Evangelicals (aka Born Agains) are a similar fringe sect to the radical Muslims that make up Al'Qaeda. You look at their dogma and their beliefs and they differ so greatly from the core beliefs of those faiths that they may as well be practising something different.

And for someone who you say "open and compassionate", he sure is working hard to live that reputation down. I mean the whole Faith-Based Initiatives was a plain and simple government endorsement of Christian-based religions. You try being a Wiccan, wanting to run a faith-based program and try to get funding. you won't. That's a compassionate attitude right there...but you can't see that b/c your boy can do no wrong.
Not true. The funding is not only allocated to Christians.

I wasn't saying that you dislike Born Agains because of Bush, but I do think that anything I say about Bush will be taken further just to underline the point that you do dislike him.

I don't view Mr. Bush as a religious zealot, a fringe believer. He's a guy for whom religion was found late. I don't think he's handing out leaflets to the neighborhood folks, like some religions do. But he believes in his faith and calls upon it for stregnth. That is not fanatical, or even unusual.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
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Post by OscarGuy »

You boil things down to the most simple terms and still can't figure out what the fuck you're talking about.

First of all, don't put this down as my anti-Bush sentiment. I wasn't referring specifically to Bush. I was referring to Born Again Christians...That Bush is one works against them, but had nothing to do with my entire point. I don't like Mormons either. And I have more respect for Muslims than I do most Christians.

Evangelicals (aka Born Agains) are a similar fringe sect to the radical Muslims that make up Al'Qaeda. You look at their dogma and their beliefs and they differ so greatly from the core beliefs of those faiths that they may as well be practising something different.

And for someone who you say "open and compassionate", he sure is working hard to live that reputation down. I mean the whole Faith-Based Initiatives was a plain and simple government endorsement of Christian-based religions. You try being a Wiccan, wanting to run a faith-based program and try to get funding. you won't. That's a compassionate attitude right there...but you can't see that b/c your boy can do no wrong.
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Post by criddic3 »

Oscarguy, your obvious bias against Bush is getting tiresome. I mean, if I say he's a Mormon, you'll say "he's worse than all the Mormons I've ever met." If I say he's Jewish, you'll say "not as friendly as all the other Jewish people I know." Please! Besides, it's completely insulting and hypocritical of you to dismiss all people of one faith or another. Even President Bush has been more open and compassionate when it came to the Muslim faiths.
--

The movie Nixon was a movie that, if a person watched it with an open mind, they could get to know the characters and maybe care a little bit about what is happening on the screen. Stone still takes liberties with people and events, but he is more accurate about Richard Nixon than most previous accounts. It made for great drama. The usual version of the scheming, lying "Tricky Dick" would have gotten old and stale long before the 3 hour running time ended. That's what I meant when I said people are more interested in fully developed human people, instead of cardboard cut-outs and Saturday Night Live caricatures of the people.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
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Post by OscarGuy »

I loved Paul Sorvino as Kissinger.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Bush is a Methodist in name only. He caters to the Evangelicals.

The only thing I liked about Nixon (the movie) was Joan Allen's portrayal of Pat Nixon.
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Post by Damien »

criddic3 wrote:I referred to Stone's excellent Nixon, because it portrayed the former President as an intelligent man who had a great sense of paranoia that led him to perpetuate his own downfall. Nobody wants to sit in front of a movie for 2 or 3 hours just to see a caricature.
And no one wanted to see Nixon. It was a bomb.
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Post by OscarGuy »

I started my life as a Methodist and Bush acts nothing like the actual compassionate, accepting and open Methodists I knew. He acts more like a Southern Baptist. Of course we were United Methodist, he's probably another sect of Methodism that is at odds with the more open and embracing United Methodists.
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Post by criddic3 »

i'm not sure that President Bush is considered "born again" in the same way that is traditionally meant by you. But he did convert to his wife's religion, which is Methodist, though he had attended Episcopal and Presbyterian churches in the past.

There is a whole book on the subject of Bush's spititual journey called The Faith of George W. Bush, by Stephen Mansfield.

It explores how his religious beliefs have affected his view of the world and his policies, but it focuses more on how it affected his personal life.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
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Post by OscarGuy »

Born Again Christians want to make it sound like they've had some miraculous revelations. The Born Agains are the ones who are most notably anti-freedom. They're the ones who want to clamp down on the freedoms we've obtained over the last quarter century. I respect Christians. I respect Catholics. I don't respect the fringes of either side exmplified by the Born Agains and the Catholic League. The Born Agains are the ones who follow the televangelical method of religion, which is at vast odds with the more traditional forms of religious expression.

From my experience, I've never met a Born Again who wasn't condescending, self-righteous and willing to ignore basic civil liberties if it meant they got to put their sanctimony to use by invading others' lives and telling them how and why they should live and castigating them to hell should they not change their ways. The Born Agains are the nutjobs of the 20th century and that's through personal experience and observations.
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Post by criddic3 »

flipp525 wrote:You're so reductive and pedantic, criddic. It's like you read someone's post, cherry-pick your way through it in order to come to a boiled-down generalization that suits the fancy of your reply. You'd perform horribly on the LSATs.

I never said that I'd like to see a "caricature".

Let's just hope that the film is more Nixon than World Trade Center.
Of course you didn't say it, but it is what you would be happy with. You obviously see him as "self-righteous" and you obviously think he's somehow evil. Having him portrayed as some dumb guy who fooled people into voting for him and "stealing" the 2000 elections, and using 9/11 for warmongering policies is exactly how you'd like him to be seen. Don't deny it.

I'd like to see a more realistic view of the President than that, which is a caricature, like the sort of nicely dim-witted portrayal you mentioned from the Comedy Central show.

From several accounts I have read and from what I have seen in interviews, President Bush doesn't come across as an idiot. In fact his whole background in politics and his life in general tend to be at odds with that whole media image that has become ingrained in the minds of Bush-haters.

Nevertheless, if Oliver Stone is as smart as I think he is as a filmmaker, he will realize that making the President out to be one of extremes, he is not going to be accurate. But maybe he doesn't want to be accurate. Maybe he wants to appease those who were hoping for a consipracy-laden story in World Trade Center and propose all sorts of 9/11 and Iraq conspiracy dramas.

JFK was fascinating because there was at least a modicum of plausibility in the notion that more than one person killed President Kennedy. But there is no plausibility to the notion that President Bush and the gov't attacked the WTC to start a war in Iraq, which was one of the conspiracies put out there by people like Rosie O'Donnell. All of that might make for a colorful fiction, but when you are portraying the life of a President (particularly a recent or incumbent President), some respect must be given to the fact that they are human beings. I'd afford the same to Presidents Clinton and Carter, although neither were a walk-in-the-park for the citizenry either.

My point is that President Bush's life, if Stone actually makes this movie, should be seen from several points-of-view. His policies may be debatable, but hopefully Stone will remember that this is a man who has tried to do what is right for America, from his perspective. And there are many who agree with his policies, or who at least respect how he arrived at his decisions.

At the very least, it will be a remarkably human story in terms of how he seemed rather aimless for many years and decided on the birth of his daughters to straighten himself out. He quit smoking, and he quit drinking and he "found religion." He's faithful to his wife, from all accounts. He's a loving father. While in the White House, he has remained personally free of scandal, has issued less than half the amount of pardons as Clinton or Reagan and won two terms as President. All of these things should be included, as much as the debate over whether Iraq was right or whether the Supreme Court Decision in Bush v. Gore was akin to "stealing an election."
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
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Post by flipp525 »

You're so reductive and pedantic, criddic. It's like you read someone's post, cherry-pick your way through it in order to come to a boiled-down generalization that suits the fancy of your reply. You'd perform horribly on the LSATs.

I never said that I'd like to see a "caricature".

Let's just hope that the film is more Nixon than World Trade Center.




Edited By flipp525 on 1206728184
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Post by criddic3 »

flipp525 wrote:
criddic3 wrote:Bush is a "born again" Christian.

The absolute worst kind. Self-righteous and repugnant people in general.

Hey, if nothing else, Stone's film should give you some good masturbation material, criddic. And by "hatchet job", I'm assuming you mean telling the truth of this awful man's life story. It's Oliver Stone, dude. I doubt it's going to be a puff piece.

Timothy Bottoms made a great W on that comedy awhile back.

See what I mean? By hatchet job, I mean telling the story from a biased point-of-view. I think that showing a person from their stregnths and weaknesses is the best way to tell a biography. Obviously, showing Bush as some kind of dopey dimwit warmongerer would make you happy, but it isn't really accurate. At the same time, it would also be wrong to portray him as infallible and some sort of genius. He's neither of those things.

I referred to Stone's excellent Nixon, because it portrayed the former President as an intelligent man who had a great sense of paranoia that led him to perpetuate his own downfall. Nobody wants to sit in front of a movie for 2 or 3 hours just to see a caricature. We want to get to know the person, to see a human being.

--
As a matter of trivia, Timothy Bottoms also played President Bush in a more serious TV movie called DC 9/11: Time of Crisis in 2004.
--
Being "born again" does not have to mean "looney religious believer." Only completely atheist or agnostic (or just plain unreligious) people would dismiss someone who found peace with God. This is not an issue of pious righteousness, but of a person who found a purpose through making peace within himself and with God. This allowed President Bush the confidence to set his life on a better path. That is not to say that everyone would choose this direction, but that he did.




Edited By criddic3 on 1206727935
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
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Post by Damien »

Toby Jones as Karl Rove is brilliant casting. Devious and brilliant.



Edited By Damien on 1206735715
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
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Post by dws1982 »

Big Magilla wrote:Why else woudldthey be talking about casting Robert Duvall as Cheney, Tommy Lee Jones as Rumsfeld, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell and Toby Jones as Karl Rove?
Sounds like disastrous casting, given that the actors range in age from late seventies to forty, and their real-life conterparts range from mid seventies to late fifties.
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