All comparisons between Dick Cheney and Darth Vader were rendered moot recently when George Lucastold Maureen Dowd, of The New York Times, “George Bush is Darth Vader. Cheney is the emperor.” In response to that clarification, David Edelstein wrote a piece in this week’s New York magazine in which he attempts to find another movie villain who Cheney resembles even more than any character in Star Wars. Ultimately, though, he settles on the former vice president being something of a villainous mutt: “Cheney is Palpatine with a soupçon of Sauron, a pinch of Voldemort, a dash of Mabuse, a jigger of Fu, with some Elmer Fudd and Richard Nixon folded in.”
That’s an interesting conclusion, but do we really need to soil our memories of these cinematic evildoers by likening Cheney to them, and worse, vice versa? It’s bad enough the guy has shown up in a lot of contemporary movies, both officially (W.) and unofficially. In Jim Jarmusch’s new film, The Limits of Control, which opens this week, a certain character is an obvious, albeit somewhat veiled, stand-in for Cheney. And at least seven other recent films similarly feature a character who is a dead-ringer for the old VP. We count them down, in order of most intentionally Cheney-like, below. …Read more
I’m not expecting to learn anything from Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic, W., but it’s possible that I will. After watching this clip depicting the first encounter of the future President (played by Josh Brolin) and the future First Lady (Elizabeth Banks), I’ve already learned something I didn’t previously know: that Laura was a Democrat, one who even campaigned for ‘68 Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, before meeting the conservative, Barry Goldwater-reading man of her dreams at a backyard barbecue.
Surprisingly, Stone’s portrayal of how George and Laura met is accurate. At least, it is if Wikipedia is to be believed. And I guess that only guarantees me that the setting is correct. The dialogue is probably only based on speculation. Not that I mind. I still love Stone’s The Doors and have no problem with the romantic fabrication of how Jim Morrison and Pam Courson meet in the film, and as a Doors fan, I know how ridiculously false it is.
After watching the trailer for Oliver Stone’s W. a few weeks ago, I had the impression that the George W. Bush biopic wasn’t going to be an impersonation fest. Of course, we only really got to hear James Cromwell as George H.W. Bush, and he didn’t seem to be bothering to sound like anything other than himself — not that I was expecting him to do Dana Carvey doing the senior Bush, but a bit of a change in voice, in order to make me not feel I’m watching the junior Bush getting yelled at by L.A. Confidential’s Captain Smith, would have been appreciated.
Fortunately, as we can now see in some new behind the scenes footage courtesy of Access Hollywood, Josh Brolin is making an effort to sound like the man he’s portraying. Maybe it’s not so perfect that he’s mistakable for the real deal when you listen to the audio alone, but at least he doesn’t just sound like Josh Brolin, either. The video also gives us additional glimpses of Toby Jones as Karl Rove and Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush. The latter can be seen studying actual footage of the President (and likely the First Lady) and practicing mannerisms, and thankfully providing a tiny bit of playfulness to an otherwise too-serious looking set.
Now, when do we get to hear Banks speak? And, for that matter, when do I get my anticipated impersonations of Condi, Colin, Karl, Don and Dick?
If you still haven’t had enough goodies from Comic-Con, feel free to check out the bootlegged clip of the new traiiler for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Personally, I’m ready to move on, and so here’s a look at another superhero story: Oliver Stone’s W. Or, as I like to call it, U.S.-President Origins: George W. Bush.
It looks a little more serious than I anticipated. For all we’ve read and heard about the campiness of the script, the thing is now at least being marketed as a drama about a clash between father and son. Even the roll call of characters (captioned as such, rather than crediting the players) makes each part look less like caricatures than I’d expected.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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