Misanthropy Today

“W.”  by Oliver Stone is a great movie about a mediocre man; or a mediocre movie about a great man; or– uh I’m not a good enough writer to keep going with that.

Here’s what I know:

W. was a little long or not well edited– I don’t know enough about movies to say which.

The beginning was great and moved along at a terrific pace– it was entertaining, and most of the viewers were in love with George W Bush for the first 30 minutes of this film. I swear.

When making George W Bush likeable, or at least not-hateable, Oliver Stone did a great job. When it was time to make him look bad, it felt flat-footed and minor.

Minor is the best way I would describe this film.

Everyone that came out of the theater was very depressed. The reason for this profound depression was not because the subject matter was depressing– not like “sigh, the sad state of affairs in this world”— no— we all felt like we’d just watched a biopic about Grover Cleveland.

What brought all of us to the theater was depressing. Lemme explain.

Most of us came expecting to see a dramatized Michael Moore film or at least a damning indictment of our country’s most brutal war criminal and Dictator In Chief– you know, all that stuff we heard about ad nauseam until the Democrats were pretty sure they had the election in the bag.

George W Bush’s crimes are minor, and his most respected critic, Oliver Stone, seems to fall in love with him while making this film and the accusations seem half-hearted— like when you go to punch your best friend and pull back at the last minute, landing a Mr Burns punch. Yeah it seemed like that.

I was so upset because although I basically consider Democrats to be full of shit and as power hungry as anyone (if not more), but idealistically, I almost want to believe that they believe their crap.

But they don’t. This movie proves that.

That this movie felt so slight is proof that everything i’ve been forced to listen to for the last 4 years was all complete crap. Political warfare. Propaganda. The most damning accusation that this film makes about George Bush is that he believed Saddam Hussein when he represented himself as having dangerous weapons (WMDs).

There’s a scene where someone says “So why would Saddam pretend to have WMDs?”

And someone else says ” He had to pretend to be powerful. His own people would’ve cut his throat if they thought their country, in lieu of everything else, was militarily weak. He had to pretend”

So George W Bush believed that Saddam had no reason to pretend to have WMDs, during a scary time for our country, and attacked him on the basis of he’s pretending to have WMDs and is threatening his neighbors again.

Ok?? That’s it. That’s the indictment— something everyone else believed.

I walked out thinking about how many arguments I’ve had and thought to myself:

None of that mattered. It doesnt matter because none of it was true. NONE of it was.

It was a battle cry. A power struggle.It all started because the Republicans tried to impeach Clinton for something stupid and then had the audacity to win a close election– the nerve. At that point the gloves were off.

Integrity and truth didn’t matter anymore at that point, only team-sports politics.

I cant believe i took it seriously.

If any of it were true let’s get ready to charge Bush with War Crimes.

Where are the charges against George Bush? He’s a war criminal isn’t he?

War Crimes charges? Why? The election is in the bag. The character assasination worked.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. (This refers to a joke they like to make about W on an aircraft carrier).

Oliver Stone made a nice movie about George Bush. I feel bad for the average person who spent the last 4 years blindly hating George W Bush when Stone, a critic with every resource available to him— money, top actors (excellently acted by Oscar Winner Josh Brolin), locations, artistic license made, an only slightly broken love letter to him.

Finally this movie either didn’t know how to end or had ten endings– with finale music and all–seriously there were ten times when I would’ve felt ok with it ending and it ended on the one time I didn’t feel ok with an ending.

It decided to end with a rather lame reoccuring theme of W in the outfield at the Texas Ranger’s field in Arlington, the “symbolism” was supposed to be that in the end, W lost the ball in the lights– or the sun– actually they used sun & lights. How stupid since the two are never on at the same time at a baseball field. Anyhow, that’s abstraction.

A better ending, in my opinion, would’ve been a shot of W— this guy that has been accused of abusing power, being hitler, being a dictator, blood for oil— you know all the charges.

Just a quiet shot of him standing on his ranch in Crawford after his presidency is over– Hollywood knows how to show time lapsed– So just W, out in the dust and yellow straw– just standing there; powerless, staring off into the distance wondering what the fuck just happened.

No related posts.