Forty-three years ago, two men enrolled at Yale University. One of them dropped out a year later, volunteered to fight in Vietnam, then made a movie about his experiences entitled Platoon. His name is Oliver Stone. The other dodged combat and went on to become the 43rd President of the United States. His name is George W. Bush.
If all this sounds like the premise of a Hollywood blockbuster, then it is – sort of. The movie is W., a Bush biopic that – and here’s the twist – is directed by Stone. It will be released in America a mere 19 days before the 2008 presidential election and is the Times Gala film at this year’s Times BFI London Film Festival.
Of course, with Stone being a peacenik Buddhist liberal and Bush being a militaristic evangelical Christian Republican, the result isn’t expected to be in any way flattering to the departing leader of the free world. Then again, the pair have an awful lot more in common than you might think. Both, for example, are world-famous hedonists. Bush’s cousin once confirmed that the President is “a riot” when loaded up on beer. Stone’s Hollywood parties, meanwhile, were once described by a participant as “basically pagan Rome, AD26”.
Both have also been accused of lying to advance their careers: Bush on Saddam Hussein’s WMDs; Stone on the circumstances of John F. Kennedy’s death. And both have suffered from what can be described only as biblical-scale “Daddy issues”. Bush Sr cracked the whip so hard that Bush Jr once challenged his old man to a “mano-a-mano”. Stone’s father hired a prostitute for his boy when he turned 16. Hence Bush invading the country that his dad had declined to conquer 12 years earlier. Hence Stone spiking his father’s whiskey with LSD.
More:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/london_film_festival/article4861770.ece
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