CRY HAVOK!!!

We watched Oliver Stone's W. last night, and it was good but a little underwhelming. This being a political biopic (and my political knowledge being rudimentary at best), I really expected to come out of this movie with a greater understanding of what's been going on these last eight years. Strangely, though, there's really not much here that I didn't already know. Still, I find it intimidating to write about these events, not knowing for sure how accurately they were portrayed in the film, so I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet.

The performances are mostly quite good, even though Josh Brolin is significantly more handsome and well, capable looking than Dubya could ever hope to be. As Justin pointed out during a scene where the college-age Bush gets up and starts dancing on the bar with his then-girlfriend..."This looks way cooler when Josh Brolin does it than it would if the real George Bush was doing it". It's actually believable that the man portrayed by Brolin could inspire enough confidence in the public to be elected president, whereas in reality Bush's election, and re-election, simply boggles my mind.

The one annoyingly bad performance is Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice. She goes waaay over the top into Scary/Date/Epic/Disaster Movie-like parody with her portrayal, especially the voice. I actually looked up video of the real Condy speaking to make sure I wasn't being too harsh, and no, she definitely doesn't sound like a circus freak on meth. Also, Dick Cheney doesn't really sound a lot like Heath Ledger's Joker persona, but that was actually kind of an appropriate stylistic choice on Richard Dreyfuss' part.

Anyway, W. is an interesting and enjoyable take on George W. Bush's journey from drunken fratboy (and cheerleader, which I'd have liked to see onscreen) to a completely out of his depth president. Just don't expect it to blow your mind or anything.

We're most likely going to go see Push tonight, so look for our thoughts on that soon.