W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

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tavernier
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#226 Post by tavernier » Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:45 pm

Barmy wrote:If this makes less than $20 million in its first 10 days, I will leave this Forum.
Fixed!

Soothsayer
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#227 Post by Soothsayer » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:25 pm

Jeff wrote:Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.
This is one small example of why I am so on the fence on how to feel with this film. I found it a huge error of Stone to even use this quote in the film. Not because it's such a "shooting fish in a barrel" quote(and one of the easiest of them all, out of a HUGE barrel), but for how carelessly Stone takes the quote out of context to use it to illustrate Bush as somehow cute to his peanut gallery.

It adds a whole new dimension to view this film so closely to his actual deeds as President, to see someone try portray him as a simpleton on a stage(edit: I'll note I don't see this as any singular theme in this film, but certainly something Stone tries to emphasize). While in itself it may be relatively harmless, it's simultaneously almost condescending to think that somehow *this* is a portrait that could be portrayed as a memory of Bush to future generations. Surely this is just a paranoid vision, but then again, so is the Bush legacy.

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domino harvey
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#228 Post by domino harvey » Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:12 pm

Oliver Stone is a fascist says Richard Dreyfuss

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Barmy
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#229 Post by Barmy » Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:39 pm

I didn't realize how retarded The View was, until now.

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aox
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#230 Post by aox » Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:46 pm

Barmy wrote:I didn't realize how retarded The View was, until now.
better late then never.

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tavernier
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#231 Post by tavernier » Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:59 pm

Barmy wrote:I didn't realize how retarded The View was, until now.
But think of how less retarded it will be if brain dead Hasselback leaves!

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Barmy
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#232 Post by Barmy » Tue Oct 28, 2008 2:12 pm

She can't leave--there won't be room on the couch for any plausible replacement.

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tavernier
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#233 Post by tavernier » Tue Oct 28, 2008 3:51 pm

Palin will be available soon.

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Lemmy Caution
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#234 Post by Lemmy Caution » Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:35 am

Although a little silly at times, I found the film pretty entertaining throughout. Not sure we learn much, and it's certainly far from subtle in pressing the conclusion that W. wanted to prove himself to his father, but it was interesting to see a dramatization of Bush's formative years. While the film is rather jumpy while making quick hits on various moments of the Bush presidency, the pace is brisk and the tone shifts interesting (if not always successful). But it's an attempt at a psychological portrait rather than a political document

Loved Dreyfuss as Cheney. Brolin is solid as Bush. And part of the fun of the film is picking out who is who. Thandie looked great as Condi, but had nothing to do, and did what little she had poorly. I got Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz mixed up at times, as the actor playing Rummy didn't look much like him. Rumsfeld had that 50's throwback Vitalis look, that for a time made him a sex symbol among the geriatric set (anyone remember that wretched interlude?).
The film of course swirls around the not very introspective George W. Bush, but the supporting cast sometimes was left with little to grasp on to. I quite liked one scene where Bush abruptly leaves a meeting in exasperation, and we wait and watch to see who follows him out and tags along.

The music choices throughout were rather odd and unusual. For some reason the final scene or two put me in mind of Woody Allen (I think it was the use of music and the look). I kind of liked the whimsical open-ended conclusion. Though if the film had been shot later, I would have ended the film with Bush ducking the incoming shoe during the Iraq press conference.

Two oddities I wanted to point out:
1) There seemed to be one scene where a post-conversion Pres. W. is watching a college football game, eating pretzels with his dog and drinking a beer. Perhaps it was an earlier flashback I lost track of, and it's not positively shown to be a beer, but that seemed an odd moment/comment if indeed it was after W. was self-proclaimed dry.
I thought Stone was making some comment about hypocrisy or backsliding, but it was dropped and not followed up on.

2) In the big meeting scene early on, debating about going after Iraq, Cheney walks over to the projected map, and Tibet is shown as not being part of China. I know that the Chinese have old maps showing Mongolia and every island in the South China Sea as part of China, but are there really Western maps with Tibet separate from China? Seemed an odd thing to show the top US leadership working from such a map.

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Gary Tooze
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#235 Post by Gary Tooze » Mon Feb 09, 2009 6:04 am

1) There seemed to be one scene where a post-conversion Pres. W. is watching a college football game, eating pretzels with his dog and drinking a beer. Perhaps it was an earlier flashback I lost track of, and it's not positively shown to be a beer, but that seemed an odd moment/comment if indeed it was after W. was self-proclaimed dry.
I thought Stone was making some comment about hypocrisy or backsliding, but it was dropped and not followed up on.
It was an O'Douls Beer (Non Alcoholic).

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Lemmy Caution
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#236 Post by Lemmy Caution » Mon Feb 09, 2009 6:49 am

Okay, that would make sense.
I guess they showed the label? (I'm not familiar with O'Douls).
Thanks for the explanation.
That beer drinking was noticeable and had me expecting something more. My mistake.

Now about that map ...
[And incidentally it's disconcerting that my image of The Big Board has now been replaced by a boring Powerpoint world map]

Nasir007
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#237 Post by Nasir007 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:28 am

This is a totally random post but I just learned today that this film made it to a commerical release in theaters (not festival showing) - 3 months after the last day of filming.

How on earth! Even Clint couldn't do this.

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Never Cursed
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#238 Post by Never Cursed » Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:48 am

That's a fast turnaround, but it isn't close to the fastest on record - Only Angels Have Wings finished principal photography on March 24 1939, underwent reshoots in late April of the same year, and, just twelve days after the reshoots finished, premiered on May 10 with a wide release on May 12 (and that's only the fastest turnaround that I know of, I'm sure there are faster).

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swo17
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#239 Post by swo17 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:54 am

My daughter routinely shoots movies and then debuts them to us the same day

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knives
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#240 Post by knives » Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:13 pm

Herzog did that recently with Romance Limited LLC which debuted just a month or two after principle photography started.

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#241 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:41 pm

There was a time where it wasn't unheard of for Hong Kong films to go from conception to release in about a month. I suspect the Poverty Row studios and B-movie units sometimes worked on similar schedules.

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domino harvey
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#242 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:43 pm

Soderbergh cuts daily so he could probably turn a film around the day after shooting if he coordinated the scoring along the way

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mfunk9786
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#243 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:05 pm

If I recall correctly, this played as though it was shot and edited in one day.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#244 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:10 pm

This thread bump reminds me that I never saw this one, I think because I was told it was just completely uninteresting rather than eccentric in being good, bad, bombastic, etc. The casting is so silly I don't know how that's possible though.

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mfunk9786
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#245 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:17 pm

It is the worst kind of bad film in that you hit the nail on the head - it's overwhelmingly uninteresting, far too close in time and perspective to its subject to have any kind of lasting relevance, and shoddily acted by almost everyone involved just because one gets the sense they didn't really have the resources necessary to do anything but a poor job. Stone just wanted to get there first.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#246 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:21 pm

Considering I like maybe two Stone films, I'm not very surprised. Bummer, Brolin is such an absurd casting choice alone that I feel like you'd have to go out of your way for that not to be interesting whatsoever.

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mfunk9786
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#247 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:24 pm

Nowadays they'd just call Lorne Michaels and do this over the course of an excruciating 8-12 minutes before someone yells "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!"

Unfortunately too, though, the entire sketch would be about what a wholesome and wonderful person George W. Bush is and have jokes galore about him exchanging gum with Michelle Obama or whatever because we live in hell

beamish14
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#248 Post by beamish14 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:45 pm

I've never seen this film since opening weekend, but I still vividly recall how the theatre howled with
laughter the second Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice appeared.

I'm fascinated with movies that make the decision to have a single actor portray someone from adolescence/very early
adulthood to middle age (or even beyond), like Robin Williams in The World According to Garp.
Having Brolin play Bush, Jr. from approximately age 21 on was just nuts.

James Cromwell was better as Prince Philip than Bush 41.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#249 Post by Roger Ryan » Wed Jul 29, 2020 5:07 pm

Never Cursed wrote:
Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:48 am
That's a fast turnaround, but it isn't close to the fastest on record - Only Angels Have Wings finished principal photography on March 24 1939, underwent reshoots in late April of the same year, and, just twelve days after the reshoots finished, premiered on May 10 with a wide release on May 12 (and that's only the fastest turnaround that I know of, I'm sure there are faster).
A more recent example would be Ridley Scott's All The Money In The World (2017) which, famously, had one of its lead actors replaced and completed eight days of re-shoots within three weeks of its premiere.

Nasir007
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Re: W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

#250 Post by Nasir007 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 5:32 pm

I would consider reshoots to be not be the same thing (though I know many would disagree). Since by the time of reshoots, you have to film something extremely specific, targetted and particularized, literaly just get the footage and drop it on the timeline so to say and apply the surrounding post production in a second. It ain't a bridge too far.

What seems remarkable is even editing a releasable film in 3 months. Simply as to logistics - people like Spielberg and Clint can edit in camera. But today's scatterbrained film-makers like JJ and most of these blockbusters, shoot I would guess maybe even 50:1 or 100:1. You would need a few weeks to just review the footage and then begin assembling a cut. Once you have a locked cut, you need to send it to the composer, to the to the foley artists, VFX, color grading and then keep editing in things and back and forth and you are getting notes from hundreds of people.

Modern technology would seem to aide faster turnaround. But in some ways might even seem to hinder it? With the facility to change things on a dime, film-makers are tinkering these days until literally when the hard disc has to be plugged into the projector for the premiere. (These days when no prints have to be struck and distributed and the movies are sent as a download to the theaters, you can make changes even AFTER a movie is released as happened in the case of Cats.)

But yes, for Hollywood, 3 months seems a tall order, unless there is a very discplined director, a tight script that they shoot word for word, a humble musical score and relatively little VFX work required.

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