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the audience applauded

Such a frustrating disappointment

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

No, it's truly awful. There is no factual basis for any of the movie, which is made up almost entirely of private conversations which there is absolutely no way to confirm the existence or contents of. So as it is, it's just a smear against Bush.If you hate Bush and conservatives, it will probably be enjoyable on those grounds. Otherwise, just skip it and try watching a historical movie that actually has some body.

-W. is a 2008 American biographical drama film loosely based on the life and presidency of George W. Bush. It was produced and directed by Oliver Stone, written by Stanley Weiser, and stars Josh Brolin as Bush, with a supporting cast that includes Ellen Burstyn, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Scott Glenn, and Richard Dreyfuss. Filming began on May 12, 2008, in Louisiana and the film was released on October 17. -W was Oliver Stone's third film in a trilogy he made about the Presidency, set in the time from the 1960s to today: the set began with JFK and continued with Nixon. Critical response: W. received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports 59% of critics giving the film positive write-ups, based upon a sample of 212, with an average score of 6/10, compared to audiences giving a 42% positive review (3/5) based on 109,205 ratings. The website summarized the reviews of the film by calling it "A surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of the 43rd American president, W. is fascinating in spots, but merely rudimentary as a whole." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 56, based on 36 reviews. Giving the film four stars in his review, Roger Ebert wrote that it was "fascinating" and praised all the actors, noting that Richard Dreyfuss, in particular, was "not so much a double as an embodiment" of Dick Cheney. In contrast, Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called the film "a rushed, wildly uneven, tonally jumbled caricature." Film critic James Berardinelli negatively compared the film with Saturday Night Live skits, saying of the actors that "None of them are as dead-on as Tina Fey as Sarah Palin." The Bush administration never officially commented on the film. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who is portrayed in the film, called the sibling rivalry portrayed in the film "high-grade, unadulterated hooey" and said that Stone's exploration of the family dynamic could have benefited from actual conversations with the Bush family. Slate Magazine 's Timothy Noah, however, noted that "most of the film's more ludicrous details" are actually directly taken from non-fiction sources, and argued that the film was too kind to Bush in omitting certain historically recorded dramatic events, most notably Bush's alleged mocking of murderer Karla Faye Tucker, a woman put to death during his tenure of the Texan governorship. However, the incident is disputed by Bush himself, and as such is also unconfirmed. In a March 2010 "Screen Test" interview with The New York Times ' Lynne Hirschberg, Josh Brolin claims Bush did in fact watch the film. Brolin said Oliver Stone met with Bill Clinton in China and Clinton told Stone he'd lent his copy of W. to Bush. Reportedly, Bush himself "liked it very much" and "thought there were sad moments." The film appeared on some critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News named it the eighth best film of 2008, and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times named it on his top 20 list (he did not assign rankings). Newton's performance as Condoleeza Rice was criticised as 'awful."

I put off seeing this until 2012 because of the reviews here. When I finally watched it I was irritated that I allowed short-sighted reviews to ruin my chance to see it in a fun group setting. I have since learned to read between the reviews.This was a fantastic performance by Josh Brolin, who nailed the publicly perceived persona of Dubya so well! The movie was a brilliant satirical depiction of the caricature the mass public created of Dubya. It was also a great impersonation of the public opinions of Cheney and other characters from this infamous administration.This, while depicting true events and basic facts of the life and presidency of this man, what a balance to maintain! While portraying the caricature, it still gave a sympathetic portrayal of his childhood, family relations and life events which actually had me wishing I could help the adolescent and young man rise above the emotional turmoil which created the grown man he became. It was done well.

My personal favorite Oliver Stone film is NIXON (1995), a really in-depth and well-rounded look at a controversial and polarizing figure. Despite Stone being politically the opposite of Nixon, he delivered a surprisingly strong portrait, which managed to be sympathetic, critical and tragic. In early 2008, I first heard about plans for a similar film about George W. Bush and grew excited. Sadly, Stone would not be able to pull NIXON off again.I remember seeing the first teaser trailer for W. It showed Josh Brolin in character, being told "You're a Bush! Act like it!" by his father, followed by a montage of all the key players set to "What a Wonderful World." I sent this teaser to my father, who had had no idea that this film was being made. He responded "Is this a trailer for a real movie, or is it an Internet skit?" He wasn't joking; he genuinely didn't know. And that right there sums up the whole problem that the finished film would have; it's VERY confused about it's identity and tone. My father managed to articulate it all perfectly.W. never quite gets off the ground as a film. It seems to want to be a serious biopic in the tradition of NIXON and your typical Oscar-bait bio, but it constantly veers into caricature and outright parody. In fact most of the marketing made the movie look like a comedy, with Bush Jr's malapropisms appearing on the posters. Part of this is due to the decision to rush the film into production while Bush Jr was still in office, making the events seem too recent and not really reflected on. By 2008, we had seen so many caricatures and spoofs of the Bush administration and this film didn't seem to be doing much of a new spin on the material.But anyway, onto the film itself (I'm not discussing politics in this review. Either you love or hate the Bush family and administration. I'm discussing the film's version of events and how they play as a film). The main narrative arc of the movie is that Bush Jr is forever living in the shadow of his family legacy, in particular clashing with his stern father and his brother Jeb being the preferred son. As such, Bush Jr, initially written off by his parents as a drunken failure, eventually enters politics and becomes president to prove himself. His entire reason for invading Iraq is to show his father "I did what you couldn't do." Yet his presidency is ultimately viewed as a failure for the country, and he has tragically only damaged the family legacy he so wanted to measure up to.This angle is an interesting one, and the scenes involving Bush Jr's youth and entry into politics play well. However, the whole storyline is just too thin, and all the scenes depicting the actual presidency and Iraq invasion lack any real weight. The film offers no real political commentary; just a dramatization of the life of a man who isn't all that interesting. Unlike Richard Nixon, Bush Jr isn't a very interesting or engaging protagonist, and he never seems to be directly responsible for what happens to him, and thus is neither heroic nor tragic. When the film ends at a brisk two hours, you are left with a very superficial portrait that seemed to barely skim the surface.One final point to bring up involves Richard Dreyfuss, known for being very politically active, and who plays Vice President Dick Cheney. I remember hearing at the time that Dreyfuss was considering retiring from acting, but came back to take on this role specifically out of desire to criticize the Bush administration (although Dreyfuss ended up appearing in further films afterward, so maybe it was just a story). Dreyfuss ended up being disappointed with the finished film and called Stone a fascist. Perhaps a bit extreme, but Dreyfuss made two very good points about the film that summed up its problems: 1) It never reaches any real conclusion about its subject matter, and 2) It's missing a very important character: the American people. As such, we're shown the highs and lows of Bush Jr's presidency, but not the impact it had or consequences for the average citizen, and the films ends up lacking real historical context.In the end, W. is a film more interesting in its concept than its execution. Supposedly it was rushed out in an attempt to influence the 2008 election, but in the end, the film had some hype at the time, only to be generally forgotten after the election. Had Stone waited twenty years, he could have made a more nuanced biopic from the perspective of later history, as he did marvelously in NIXON. Instead he gave us a tiny film with nothing to say.