Thoughts on "W." (Spoilers, I guess)
Josh Brolin does an amazing job of assuming Bush's mannerisms, posture, speech, gait, everything. The movie has a lot of hilarious moments, although just having a bunch of actors portraying people like Bush, Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, etc, is inherently funny because each actor has had to study and perfect imitating these real, nonfictional people. They all played their parts well.
While the movie's humour is frequently takes the form of simple Bushisms like "is our children learning?" and "misunderestimated", it also leaves you feeling a little sick. It's a dark, twisted kind of comedy, because you know that it's not a joke. It actually happened, give or take a bit of dramatic interpretation here and there.
It was very strange when they showed footage from all the anti-war protests before they went into Iraq, and then seeing the footage of the first bombings there and toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein and everything. Even though I remember seeing it all on TV back then, it caught me by surprise--we've become so accustomed to the war in Iraq being a constant presence in the world, it's kind of a wake up call to remember how controversial it was initially. Well, it's still controversial, but it feels like the topic has been exhausted every which way at this point. And that makes it all the more sickening to remember that it's still ongoing (and if McCain wins, it'll likely keep going).
Interestingly enough, the movie doesn't really make you hate Bush. The movie seemed to agree with my suspicions that it's not so much that he's evil or particularly vicious or anything, but that he's just not that bright. Or that the only way he can truly understand something is to oversimplify it to the point where any true meaning is lost and twisted to fit into his own world view. And those around him certainly help frame things around that simplistic world view, so as to better enable him to be able to stand by his administration's decisions with conviction. They really paint Dick Cheney and others as the real brains behind the throne, pulling the strings, and Colin Powell as the lone voice of reason who gets dragged along for the ride against his better judgement.
It's that which really gets me about that administration and everything that the US has done with Bush in power. The people surrounding Bush are mostly very intelligent and educated, but it's their ideology that bends, twists and shapes everything they do, see, and understand. It makes the whole thing seem all the more ridiculous, as it almost shifts responsibility away from anyone with power--like they're all just helpless characters in a play who have no control over the plot or their own destinies.
And that is what I despise about politics today. Politicians seem utterly incapable of shouldering any responsibility.
While the movie's humour is frequently takes the form of simple Bushisms like "is our children learning?" and "misunderestimated", it also leaves you feeling a little sick. It's a dark, twisted kind of comedy, because you know that it's not a joke. It actually happened, give or take a bit of dramatic interpretation here and there.
It was very strange when they showed footage from all the anti-war protests before they went into Iraq, and then seeing the footage of the first bombings there and toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein and everything. Even though I remember seeing it all on TV back then, it caught me by surprise--we've become so accustomed to the war in Iraq being a constant presence in the world, it's kind of a wake up call to remember how controversial it was initially. Well, it's still controversial, but it feels like the topic has been exhausted every which way at this point. And that makes it all the more sickening to remember that it's still ongoing (and if McCain wins, it'll likely keep going).
Interestingly enough, the movie doesn't really make you hate Bush. The movie seemed to agree with my suspicions that it's not so much that he's evil or particularly vicious or anything, but that he's just not that bright. Or that the only way he can truly understand something is to oversimplify it to the point where any true meaning is lost and twisted to fit into his own world view. And those around him certainly help frame things around that simplistic world view, so as to better enable him to be able to stand by his administration's decisions with conviction. They really paint Dick Cheney and others as the real brains behind the throne, pulling the strings, and Colin Powell as the lone voice of reason who gets dragged along for the ride against his better judgement.
It's that which really gets me about that administration and everything that the US has done with Bush in power. The people surrounding Bush are mostly very intelligent and educated, but it's their ideology that bends, twists and shapes everything they do, see, and understand. It makes the whole thing seem all the more ridiculous, as it almost shifts responsibility away from anyone with power--like they're all just helpless characters in a play who have no control over the plot or their own destinies.
And that is what I despise about politics today. Politicians seem utterly incapable of shouldering any responsibility.