Oliver Stone's "W." -- A Catastrophe Worthy of the Worst President

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Oliver Stone's "W." -- A Catastrophe Worthy of the Worst President

By Eileen Jones, eXiled Online. Posted October 22, 2008.

You can practically feel Oilver Stone sitting behind you, breathing on the back of your neck and willing you to see the brilliance of his vision.



You ever sit through the rough cut of your friend's independent film? Well, I have, lotsa times, God help me, so seeing Oliver Stone's W. really brought back some nauseating memories. It seems to run about eight hours and is so boring, so fatheaded, and so full of lame attempts at profundity that it's just like the rough cut of almost every terrible independent film ever made. You can practically feel the director sitting behind you while it unspools, breathing on the back of your neck and willing you to see the brilliance of his vision.

For reasons that elude me, the majority of major film critics are playing along with the director on this one, at least to the point of expressing their criticisms very, very gently. This makes me wonder if most of them were actually with Oliver Stone, at some point, in a seedy rented screening room where rough cuts are so often shown. Perhaps they felt the obligations of friendship that weigh so heavily after the screening, when the fatheaded pal asks, "So whadja think?"

One of the few critics who's apparently not a coercible friend of Oliver Stone's is Anne Hornaday of the Washingon Post who lets loose with this insightful heart's-cry:

Why this movie -- a rushed, wildly uneven, tonally jumbled caricature -- and why now? Why, when Americans and citizens around the globe are still coming to terms with the implications of so many Bush policies, would they want to pay money at the box office to see what amounts to an extended "Saturday Night Live" skit?

Why, when so many people are familiar with the vignettes that drive the episodic narrative of "W." -- the Time Bush Choked on a Pretzel, the Time Bush Quit Drinking After a Brutal Hangover, the Time Bush Invaded Iraq -- would they want to see it all reenacted again, albeit through Stone's occasionally stingingly satirical lens?

As Bush himself might say, the answers to those questions are between you and your God.

The only problem I see with Hornaday's take is that she makes the movie sound too good. Calling Stone's lens "occasionally stingingly satirical" is giving that lens way too much credit, and the strain of praising Stone is probably what caused her to overdo the adjectives and muck up her sentence so badly. Even comparing W. to an extended Saturday Night Live skit is way too generous: some of those skits are pretty funny for a minute or two, anyway, and now is exactly the dire time when we all want to watch those skits. But at least Hornaday's observation gets us closer the experience of the film itself. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/movies/103963/oliver_stone%27s_%22w.%22_--_a_catastrophe_worthy_of_the_worst_president/