With a single dessert and just two glasses of wine our bill was kept in check - but the effort of doing so was not much fun
Babbo
Film
This is a film with beautiful performances and a visual style that urges you towards reflection
Bright Star
Theatre
Although the first half of Kwei-Armah’s production is pacy, funny and intelligent, the energy level then drops off
Seize The Day
I loved this film from start to finish. Take the girlfriend, tell your mum - I'd see it again tomorrow and will buy the dvd.
I saw this last night and can't remember the last time I was so moved in the theatre.
I have been to many of London's so-called best Japanese restaurants and none have been as good as the food that I've had at Aqua Kyoto
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Oliver Stone.
Cast: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, Thandie Newton, Richard Dreyfuss, Ioan Gruffudd, Scott Glenn, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Noah Wyle, Jesse Bradford, Jason Ritter, Rob Corddry, Jeffrey Wright, Toby Jones
Description: Oliver Stone's portrait of the 42nd President of the United States sketches the rise to power from the early years when George decides to follow in the footsteps of his powerful father and pursue political office, meeting his wife Laura and gaining his first foothold on the ladder of success as Governor of his home state of Texas. Sweeping to power in controversial fashion, Bush becomes the 43rd President of the United States of the United States and faces some of his country's darkest days including the September 11 attacks and the decision to invade Iraq.
Country: US. 2008. 129mins
Dubya double: Josh Brolin plays the President as a politician who overcame his early demons to believe in his destiny as the world’s most powerful man
Oliver Stone has called his apparently well-researched but essentially fictional biography of George W Bush “a Shakespearean tragedy” — even though it ends long before the ascent of Barack Obama to the Presidency and the rather Lear-like end-game that will be played out by a toothless Republican administration for the next 70 days.
The essential reason is that Stone feels Bush Junior could never fully satisfy his patrician martinet of a father, whose one-term Presidency committed America to the first Gulf War but not the continuing mess of the second invasion.
Shakespearean? It is hardly that. There are many moments which don’t gel with one’s own memories of Dubya’s first term as president — but W is still a great deal better than some have said, and worthy of comparison with JFK and Nixon, Stone’s two other essays in imagined history.
Its chief virtue, apart from the acting ability of the excellent Josh Brolin as Bush and a pretty good cast, is that it strives mightily to be fair, despite the fact that Stone regards the strange Texan at its centre as the worst President since the war (Truman, amazingly, is second and Nixon third).
He does not seek to portray Bush as a bad man but rather a natural neo-con whose mistakes led his country into three unwinnable wars: Iraq, Afghanistan and, worst of all, the war on terror.
We see Bush and his kitchen cabinet discussing at length what to call his foreign enemies and finally deciding on the “axis of evil”, despite General Powell’s opposition to putting Iran, Iraq and North Korea into the same box. We also see how, once his limited mind is made up, an innate stubbornness kicks in which nothing will dislodge.
He is furious that no one told him earlier that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, and so was unwittingly bluffing in front of his own people, believing America would never invade.
But his real and continuing worry during his presidency is what Bush Senior, beautifully played by James Cromwell, thinks of him. The reason behind this is that he was a failure at everything he did up to the age of 40, thus shaming himself and besmirching the Bush dynasty.
Even when he gives up drink in a not very convincing sequence, gets God (in a better one, via the agency of Stacy Keach’s evangelist pastor) and manages to push his way to the top, he never believes his father has come round to him.
All this is feasible, but it’s clearly not the whole story. The present scenes in America remind us that real facts can be stranger than anybody’s fiction, and in this case the whole truth might have seemed less credible.
Stone starts his story with the young Bush at Yale, where he is tormented in one of those appalling freshmen inductions, loses a local election to a good ole boy Democrat, tries a variety of jobs badly, courts his librarian wife (who incidentally once voted for Lyndon Johnson) and is then persuaded to take up politics more seriously.
The tale ends just before 9/11, as the anti-war movement gathers pace and Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction seem a figment of American and British imaginations. We see him, in an unwise piece of magic realism, on the field of his favourite sport (baseball) trying to catch a high ball which never comes down into his gloves.
What we don’t see is the reaction to 9/11, to the New Orleans hurricane mess and to the credit crunch which destroyed his economic policy at a stroke. That is surely another film — one day it might be mounted, by someone other than Stone.
Some of the performances are more convincing than others, though nobody should expect more than (often effective) nods to the physical attributes of those we have come to know so well.
We have Toby Jones as a wily Karl Rove, Jeffrey Wright as Powell, Scott Glenn as Rumsfeld, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney and Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice. It is not Martin Sheen as Tony Blair but Ioan Gruffud in a rather gentle and brief cameo, while Ellen Burstyn and Elizabeth Banks are Barbara and Laura Bush.
All these are able performances, though Newton is asked to be a rather creepy approximation of Condi, whom most of us would probably consider one of the more intelligent and liberal of the odd group around their master.
Brolin, of course, is on screen most of the time and manages to make Bush less of a figure of cartoonists’ fun than one might have expected. His Bush is more of an ordinary Texan politician, a man who bravely overcame his early demons and came to believe implicitly in his destiny as the world’s most powerful man.
Clearly there are many other ways of making a film about Dubya. But Stone’s version should at least be respected. It may be only half the story but that half contains enough to make us think, and keep on thinking how the hell it all happened.
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Ah those snobby superior Brits don't ya love 'em. Of course they get it right every time. Irony anyone?
- Patricia, London
"Americans will, of course, believe it is a purely historical non-fiction film." How acutely observant of you, Liz, to realise (Brit spelling) that we befuddled Yankee dudes and dudettes couldn't evaluate Oliver Stone's film as partial fiction. Actually, there are millions of intelligent, alert, aware Americans who in many instances can leap the selfsame intellectual hurdles as you, London Liz. I've made twenty-two trips to Britain, and I was an exchange teacher in the provinces for two years. I can certify that there's virtually no intellectual difference between Brits and Americans, although admittedly your accent and scones are preferable. There are miilions of smart Americans and millions of bright Brits. Please give us a break, Liz. We're doing our best. We even managed to "get it right" by turning left in the 2008 election . . . finally. A tad less Yank bashing, please. After all, we love the U.K. a hell of a lot more than we love France. Cheerio.
- Stephen, Kansas City
I was lucky enough to catch it a few weeks ago (at the premiere, daaaaahling), and I think your recollection of the sequence of events is a little out of kilter, Derek. The tale starts in the months following 9/11, flashes back and forth, back and forth, and ends in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. This timeframe necessarily excludes a number of important events (including, as you point out, Katrina and the credit crunch), and one is left with the feeling that the story is unfinished. Nor does the film dwell on 9/11, although the reason for this is less clear. Perhaps Stone thought it still too emotive a subject which would have distracted from the principal subject matter, namely Dubya himself, and the central theme of his relationship with Aitch Dubya.
Overall I enjoyed it very much. I found it to be a far more balanced and thoughtful portrayal than I expected. That said, none of the central characters comes out in a positive light, with the exception of Colin Powell. The performances of Brolin, Banks and Cromwell all stand out, but Thandie Newton disappoints (just what is with all the mumbling? Does Condie actually do that?). One thing that did nag was not knowing how much of the movie was based on reported events and how much was simply conjecture, but this was more of an afterthought rather than something which affected my enjoyment of the film.
My rating: three-and-a-half thumbs up.
- Rob, London, UK
I saw the film on Tuesday night and thought it was very well done. The portrayal of Bush's life (to that point), his attitudes, how things happened and important discussions (e.g. to decide to go to war) were portrayed how I'd imagined it had all happened in real life. Bush was shown as spoiled, but charismatic, not exactly stupid but simple and ignorant enough to not be as eloquent as would have befitted a president, and to not particularly care either way. Thandie's performance was the only one to disappoint, but I suspect that this was as much down to direction as anything she did herself.
Overall - very good. Americans will, of course, believe it is a purely historial non-fiction film.
- Liz H, London
Morning:
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