Oliver Stone to make movie on Bush. (1 Viewer)

[RebSaint]

Oliver Stone casting film on Pres. Bush - Yahoo! News

"Stone has said that the film, which will focus on the life and presidency of Bush, won't be an anti-Bush polemic, but, as he told Daily Variety, "a fair, true portrait of the man. How did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?"

Yeah, right.

 

[RazorOye]

Stone does to history what Zeffirelli does to Shakespeare.

Just because it's called Hamlet, doesn't mean it's actually Hamlet. It's his screwed up version of Hamlet.

I expect Stone's take on Bush to be no different.

 

[billinms]

won't be an anti-Bush polemic

alcoholic bum

Riiight.

 

[saint hdawg]

I wonder if anyone would watch this?

 

[RebSaint]

I wonder if anyone would watch this?

Plenty went to go see JFK, Nixon, Wall Street, Platoon, etc.

 

[DadsDream]

I cringed when I heard that a teacher at my daughter's high school was screening "JFK" as part of a History class.

Afterward, I subjected my daughter to the History Channel myth debunking show about the assassination.

 

[saint hdawg]

Plenty went to go see JFK, Nixon, Wall Street, Platoon, etc.

Oh, I meant to watch a documentary about Bush. I like Stone as a director, but I guess it wouldn't appeal to me. I'm pretty sure it would be interesting.

 

[RebSaint]

I cringed when I heard that a teacher at my daughter's high school was screening "JFK" as part of a History class.

Afterward, I subjected my daughter to the History Channel myth debunking show about the assassination.

Why? Were you privy to the whole lesson, or just assumed that the teacher showed the film as reflecting historical truth?

He/She might have shown the film to point out the historical inaccuracies and America's fascination with conspiracies.

I showed parts of Birth of a Nation to my class, not because I think the film reflects any historical accuracy, but explained that it's a snapshot of dominant attitutudes about race relations in 1915.

 

[DadsDream]

Why? Were you privy to the whole lesson, or just assumed that the teacher showed the film as reflecting historical truth?

He/She might have shown the film to point out the historical inaccuracies and America's fascination with conspiracies.

I showed parts of Birth of a Nation to my class, not because I think the film reflects any historical accuracy, but explained that it's a snapshot of dominant attitutudes about race relations in 1915.

True, without the classroom context, there's no telling the full intent. Still, I made sure my daughter compared the movie's dramatic "single bullet theory" courtroom segment to the History Channel's computer simulated dissection of the actual positioning of Gov. Connely and Pres. Kennedy. Big difference.

You showed part of "Birth of a Nation"? Cool...in the context of a collegeate History classroom.

Make sure to point out that the source book was written by a college classmate of Woodrow Wilson. Some apologists have asserted that Wilson's positive comments about the movie were either made up or that Wilson didn't know the content and was merely praising an old classmate. Yeah, right.

 

[RebSaint]

True, without the classroom context, there's no telling the full intent. Still, I made sure my daughter compared the movie's dramatic "single bullet theory" courtroom segment to the History Channel's computer simulated dissection of the actual positioning of Gov. Connely and Pres. Kennedy. Big difference.

You showed part of "Birth of a Nation"? Cool...in the context of a collegeate History classroom.

Make sure to point out that the source book was written by a college classmate of Woodrow Wilson. Some apologists have asserted that Wilson's positive comments about the movie were either made up or that Wilson didn't know the content and was merely praising an old classmate. Yeah, right.

I wouldn't be surprised if the teacher did pass it off as historical fact, but that movie makes several glaring errors; I think I saw the same history channel show on JFK.

Well, I didn't show the whole thing, just parts of it. I also pointed out that despite the historical inaccuracies and the racism, it was a pretty ground-breaking film for the time.

 

[killah]

I am going to be very interested to see who plays Bush. I hope it is Frank Caliendo.

 

[SoonerJim]

Josh Brolin, Barbara Streisand's son in law, will play Bush. This will be great viewing. I've seen all of his works, and like the "over the top" style he employs. A Stone bio of Bush needs the sibling death, oil failure, fistfight between Bush 41 and Bush 43, cocaine, drunken driving charge in Maine, frat years, the slur against Bush 41 by William Sloan Coffin, the "lost decade", Laura forcing a choice between her and the bottle, House of Saud financing, baseball windfall, slurs against Anne Richards, and that's not even the conspiratorial stuff. ;=)

Movies convey truth by virtue of the sheer magnitude of the effort, and in the past, the lack of any significant counterhistory. "Birth of a Nation" was DW Griffith's effort to tell the other side of the recent conflict, toning down the overt racism of the book on which the story was loosely based, "The Clansman". He had a brief interview segment at the beginning of the film expressing a desire to provide the "southern viewpoint". There were some protests at the film's showings, but no riots. Adjusted for inflation and the prevailing price of tickets, it was one of the great moneymakers of all time, a fate unable to be duplicated by his next film "Intolerance". The arc of his career forever shifted, although there were some artistic successes in the early 20s. He began as Oliver Stone and ended up as Francis Ford Coppola, with "Intolerance" subbing for "Apocalypse now". From a technical standpoint, Griffith was one of the greats, propaganda merits aside.

 

[TDH]

This guy can play the perfect Bush:

The movie is going to be a comedy, right?

 

[jpcdolphan]

I think they should cast Artie Lange as Bush during the "party hard" years...

 

[Mamba]

I wouldn't be surprised if the teacher did pass it off as historical fact, but that movie makes several glaring errors; I think I saw the same history channel show on JFK.

Just several glaring errors? The only thing "JFK" got right was the victim (Kennedy) and the location (Dallas). And seriously, that's not much of an exaggeration.