comment #1

D.Z. says ...

Too bad it's gonna bomb because Stone waited so long when he should have been at the forefront of the idea, but at least it doesn't look as limp as I expected.

comment #2

BurmaShave says ...

This movie is going to be face-meltingly insane. Glorious.

comment #3

D.Z. says ...

Man, if Stone really wanted to have impact, he'd make a McCain movie.

comment #4

Mr. Gittes says ...

Yeah I'm excited to see this. However, I wish Stone would have done James Vanderbilt's "Against All Enemies" instead. Script is a bigger indictment on Bush than W.

comment #5

George Prager says ...

He should make an Audie Murphy movie.

comment #6

SmilingPolitely says ...

Good teaser.

I hope Pinkville can get back off the ground. That's the one I was looking forward to.

comment #7

markj says ...

Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney = worth the price of admission.

comment #8

alynch says ...

Man, you can see Glenn and Dreyfuss chewing scenery in that trailer even though neither of them speak.

comment #9

MilkMan says ...

Looks strange. I'm kind of surprised. Maybe it won't be as bad as I think. I didn't know Stone was going to make a black comedy. At least, that's the impression I got from the preview. I could be wrong. And I hope Stone doesn't answer the question of how Bush got from A to B. I hope he takes a phildickian approach to the story, and has W. just wake up one day as Prez, completely confused like the rest of us.

comment #10

Karsten says ...

I don't dig the unoriginal use of Louis Armstrong in this teaser trailer. I love the cast though, except that I (surprisingly) feel something is off with Cromwell's take on Bush sr.

Yet of course I'm going to see this film.

comment #11

PastePotPete says ...

That looks far better than I had expected... if Stone maintains this tone then it could be something of a return to form for him.

comment #12

Geoff says ...

Did Brolin use a wig during the shoot? I saw his arrest photo and he was bald. Perhaps because of it being a quick shoot and having to change hair styles it was easier to use wigs.

comment #13

Mr. Gittes says ...

And no...he's not a Kennedy.

When do we get our RFK biopic? How about Matt Damon as Bobby?

comment #14

JustThisGuy says ...

Wait, there was a script based on Against All Enemies!? Sweet Jesus! Where can I find a copy?!

comment #15

George Prager says ...

I'm gonna suck this movie's cock!

comment #16

nemo says ...

That trailer makes me think this thing might actually be pretty good, because it looks as if Oliver Stone himself heavily identifies with that guy who is "Fighting, chasing tail, driving drunk."

Scott Glenn's hair and makeup as Donald Rumsfeld are awesomely terrible. He looks ridiculous. Glenn is probably good choice to play a guy who likes to make everyone think he eats nails for breakfast.

Everybody else looks pretty good, even if they don't look that much like the person they're playing. Best look-alike prize to Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice and Toby Jones as Karl Rove. He's perfect for that embryonic homunculus look of Rove's.

Too bad they didn't get Michael Sheen to play Tony Blair again.

Very much looking forward to Richard Dreyfuss as Darth Cheney.

comment #17

Hickenlooper says ...

Ugh. Someone needs to give poor George W. Bush a break. I remember how much they hated Ronald Reagan too. Yes, it looks pretty good but in the end no one really cares. If someone does make a McCain movie though I look forward to the scenes of Jane Fonda frolicking around with the NVA while poor McCain is being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton only a few miles away.

comment #18

MilkMan says ...

"Someone needs to give poor George Bush a break."

That's pretty funny, Hickenlooper. You could build an act around that joke alone. I'd pay the two drink minny to hear more in that vein.

comment #19

SmilingPolitely says ...

C'mon Hickenlooper... SOMEONE NEEDS TO GIVE GEORGE W. BUSH A BREAK?! That's all that motherfucker has had in life! And he's pissed it all down the drain, taking his name and America's down with it.

comment #20

Hickenlooper says ...

I know I am not exactly a fashionista when it comes to the herd's view about W., but I frankly think history will play a very different tune about George W. Bush thirty years from now as it will Bill Clinton. Just as it did to Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter who were not exactly the bellas of the ball in their own time. Just my opinion. No need for insults.

comment #21

chappiesan says ...

>>> I remember how much they hated Ronald Reagan too.

Your sentence would work much better if you noted that the "they" still hate Reagan now as much as "they" did back then. They of course being those Americans that like the middle class, social services, unions, affordable college tuition, a balanced budget, and, at least, a modicum of corporate regulation.

But, you're right, I'm sure other circles remember Reagan very fondly.

comment #22

D.Z. says ...

Hicken: Actually, Nixon sweeped twice in a row, and was generally on good terms with the public, until Watergate. And Reagan was probably a bigger celebrity as President than he ever was in movies. I think the only reason Nixon's considered more "balanced", in retrospect, was because the real conservative nutjobs weren't yet in office. Reagan, on the other hand, has generally been forgotten, because people are embarrassed about everything associated with the 80s, due to the crappy clothes, mullets, and the hawkish thugs like Rummy who make us look like cavemen with bombs.

comment #23

SaveFarris says ...

Shreveport has never looked better. Otherwise, this is a waste of celluloid.

comment #24

D.Z. says ...

As for Clinton, I imagine he'll be remembered as a guy who helped out the economy, and who occasionally dabbled in world affairs with mixed results, but who was an otherwise unspectacular footnote in our history, like Coolidge.

comment #25

Mr. Gittes says ...

Just This Guy: Yeah, man. James Vanderbilt(Zodiac) penned the script and it's 205 pages. Goes by fast...

comment #26

Hickenlooper says ...

Chapp, with all due respect a recent poll showed that Ronald Reagan to be the most popular president after George Washington and Abraham Lincoln -- and before FDR and JFK. In a retrospective article in 2006 Time Magazine declared Reagan one of America's "great" presidents. I myself was shocked by this remembering how much the magazine hated him in the eighties. At Yale as an undergraduate I remember him constantly being referred to as a "war monger" a man only interested in the rich and someone who was completely incompetent. Sound familiar? It is really only the media elites who are in their 40s and 50s who wallow in the cynicism of the early 1970s (because their Birkenstock wearing Utopian experiment of the 1960s failed) and carry that sour postmodern tone into our newsrooms and media outlets today. This is why Bush and Reagan are so hated, so loathed. It has very little to do with reality but more to do with the herd who enjoy parroting what political pundits like Chris Matthew and BIll Maher tell them to...

comment #27

Hickenlooper says ...

With respect to Clinton he completely sold out the Democrats base platform to get himself elected in a country that was still relishing the glow of Reagan's tenure. Clinton ran completely on a conservative platform and he himself did not boost the American economy. He inherited an economy that started to thrive in the early nineties because of economic reform and policies that Reagan began in 1981. In fact Clinton so sold out the DNC and its platform to the conservatives that the Democrats have been scrambling to recover until Barack Obama who I actually find refreshing and who I think many Republicans like myself want to see succeed. He is perhaps the only one who can end the acrimonious partisanship that is poisoning this country.

comment #28

JustThisGuy says ...

D.Z.: Sounds awesome, now I really need to read it!

comment #29

chappiesan says ...

Oh god, another one of my Ivy league bretheren spouting off about the greatness of the conservative regime. Fortunately, I don't blame it on you; I blame it on the education you received. You're just a product of the system, my friend:

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.html

Ronald Regan is the degernate son of Eddie Haskell. He's the sort of kid that walks into your home, smiles and nods, vacantly asks about your work and compliments your wife on her cookies, and then goes upstairs and pounds your daughter in the ass.

comment #30

D.Z. says ...

Hickenlooper: "Chapp, with all due respect a recent poll showed that Ronald Reagan to be the most popular president after George Washington and Abraham Lincoln -- and before FDR and JFK."

I'm not sure where you got the poll, but I'm assuming it's due to the fact that most of the people who'd personally remember FDR and JFK are dead and/or never had to deal with the Cuban Missile Crisis and race riots.

"In a retrospective article in 2006 Time Magazine declared Reagan one of America's "great" presidents.I myself was shocked by this remembering how much the magazine hated him in the eighties. At Yale as an undergraduate I remember him constantly being referred to as a "war monger" a man only interested in the rich and someone who was completely incompetent. Sound familiar?"

TIME's currently run by people who benefited from Reagan's de-regulation of media monopolies, and who blindly repeated Bush's pro-Iraq War talking points in exchange for more deregulation; so of course they'd tout The Gipper. As for Bush being remembered in a positive light like Reagan, it's not going to happen. He'll kill the party the way Johnson killed the party after the Vietnam War.

"It is really only the media elites who are in their 40s and 50s who wallow in the cynicism of the early 1970s (because their Birkenstock wearing Utopian experiment of the 1960s failed) and carry that sour postmodern tone into our newsrooms and media outlets today."

So the media elites comprise the 70% of the country which hates Bush?

"This is why Bush and Reagan are so hated, so loathed. It has very little to do with reality but more to do with the herd who enjoy parroting what political pundits like Chris Matthew and BIll Maher tell them to..."

Or maybe they're so hated and loathed, because they made us so vulnerable to attacks from terrorists and corporations [It's hard to tell the difference sometimes...], and they did more for their lobbyists than the human race.

comment #31

D.Z. says ...

Hicken: "With respect to Clinton he completely sold out the Democrats base platform to get himself elected in a country that was still relishing the glow of Reagan's tenure. Clinton ran completely on a conservative platform"

So you're saying that the American people liked Reagan that much that they were willing to not vote twice for a guy who pardoned Ron's Iran-Contra buddies and who
managed to save his own son, Neil, from being indicted in the Savings and Loan Scandal? Oh, and universal health care and giving women time off for pregnancies are now conservative platforms?

"he himself did not boost the American economy. He inherited an economy that started to thrive in the early nineties because of economic reform and policies that Reagan began in 1981."

Yes, that recession of the early 90s really showed the economy was thriving.

"He is perhaps the only one who can end the acrimonious partisanship that is poisoning this country."

You mean a "partnership" in which Republicans purge anyone who doesn't like Bush from their offices, regardless of their qualifications?

comment #32

Hickenlooper says ...

DZ, gosh I don't remember corporations like ATT or Exxon hijacking passenger planes and flying them into skyscrapers loaded with civilians. Yes they may be greedy but that's a consequence of capitalism. If one doesn't like capitalism the alternative is France, Germany, Denmark, and England which in 50 years will have their populations overrun by folks who subscribe to a religion that, oh yes, does hijack planes and fly them into buildings. The other alternative is... wait? Soviet Russia. Now there was a real hunky dory tea party...

Chapp ith respect to my conservative bent being a consequence of Yale, then my friend you are not a real Ivy League compatriot. Yale is, was, and continues to be a bastion of liberalism. What other university can boast having a member of the Taliban among their student population. Disgusting. In the late 1930s I wish they had thought of bringing Goebbles over to guest lecture.

And by the way for those of you who think the editorial staffs of the major media are conservative minded because of the corporate consolidation of their parent companies, then I think you should take a much closer look...

Anyway, good day gentlemen. It's always a pleasure to check in. The most important story of the day is that the Dodgers are back at .500.

Peace.

comment #33

D.Z. says ...

Hickenlooper: "DZ, gosh I don't remember corporations like ATT or Exxon hijacking passenger planes and flying them into skyscrapers loaded with civilians."

No, they just like funding death squads for diamond and oil pipelines.

"If one doesn't like capitalism the alternative is France, Germany, Denmark, and England which in 50 years will have their populations overrun by folks who subscribe to a religion that, oh yes, does hijack planes and fly them into buildings."

If they're so anti-capitalist, why is their currency worth more than the dollar?

"Yale is, was, and continues to be a bastion of liberalism. What other university can boast having a member of the Taliban among their student population."

They also let Bush in with crappy grades, so what's your point?

"And by the way for those of you who think the editorial staffs of the major media are conservative minded because of the corporate consolidation of their parent companies, then I think you should take a much closer look..."

So you're saying Katie Couric editing her interview to make McCain look good is liberal?

comment #34

D.Z. says ...

*diamonds*

comment #35

D.Z. says ...

Oh, and as for the "problem" with Europe's population accepting "undesirables", isn't the fact that it was viewed so negatively part of the reason we're in this mess today?
Your argument seems to be in alignment with Milosevic's behavior.

comment #36

nemo says ...

"Yale is, was, and continues to be a bastion of liberalism."

Are you talking about Yale, the home of William F. Buckley and countless generations of Bushes? Yale, that produced David Frum, John Bolton, and Scooter Libby? Yale, where countless conservative writers, businessmen, lawyers, politicians, and judges went as undergrads and to law school for generations?

I went to Yale as an undergraduate in the 70s and as a grad student in the 80s. I knew David Gelernter personally, both as an undergrad and as a professor at Yale. I took classes from Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Kagan, father of influential neocons Frederick Kagan and Robert Kagan.

I knew plenty of less famous conservatives among both the faculty and students. Conservatives at Yale like to complain that they're a tiny despised minority, but their only legitimate complaint is that they don't have the whole damn place to themselves.

comment #37

Hickenlooper says ...

In which college did you reside? I appreciate your point but let's not forget Yale also served home to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Robert Massie, Naomi Wolf, Anderson Cooper, the entire current editorial staff of the New York Times and The Nation, and oh yes, Kingman Brewster who famously claimed during the Bobby Seale trial that a "black man can't get a fair trial in America." And this is just the tip of the ice berg.

comment #38

SpinDozer says ...

'I remember him constantly being referred to as a "war monger" a man only interested in the rich and someone who was completely incompetent. Sound familiar?'

Also sounds like a fairly rational assessment of his actual contributions rather than the fantasy persona TIME poll responders recall.

comment #39

Hickenlooper says ...

When it comes to making glib and fatuous comparisons to terrorism and al Al Qaeda, I think it's important to revisit that morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQNvmUqS3mM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuIACIpon7w

Gives one perspective. Let us not forget.

comment #40

SpinDozer says ...

'Gives one perspective.'

Well, at least the one Security Moms could justify voting for the current occupier of the WH. Not, coincidentally (or not), like the images al Qaeda uses to justify its position in recruiting more terrorists.

comment #41

SpinDozer says ...

Incidentally, tho not a fan of Stone in general, count me in on those pleasantly surprised by the trailer.

comment #42

actionman says ...

looks sweet

comment #43

Hickenlooper says ...

Finally, not to be misunderstood.. My comment about the Muslim population of Europe was not about immigrants moving to Europe, it was a reference to the rapidly diminishing European population and rapidly growing Muslim one. Muslims in Europe are having children at a rate of 5.5 times that of their native European counterparts. Also, Muslims, like most immigrants in Europe, don't assimilate as well over there as they do in the United States. In fifty years this will have a dramatic impact on European lives.

Also for the record, George W. Bush's academic records were better than John Kerry's at Yale.

comment #44

Mr. Blood Vessel says ...

and this Ladies and Gents, is why he won the second time.
He is EXACLTY like every single good ol' boy you will ever meet.

comment #45

SpinDozer says ...

'Also for the record, George W. Bush's academic records were better than John Kerry's at Yale.'

Yup:

W's cum grade: 77
Kerry: 76

BFD

comment #46

chappiesan says ...

>>> Also for the record, George W. Bush's academic records were better than John Kerry's at Yale.

And this means what, exactly? They weren't at the top of their classes, they didn't receive the "entitled A-" average that Ivy league schools hand out like Planned Parenthood hands out free condoms, and, apparently, they didn't develop any of the critical thinking skills necessary to wash away very myopic world views. As far as I'm concerned, comparing these two is like debating who's the best fighter from the 95lb.-and-under weight class.

Now, if you want to compare Bush's academic records to those of another Yale alum, Sinclair Lewis, be my guest. His political writings put your two knuckleheads to shame.

comment #47

Mgmax says ...

"As for Clinton, I imagine he'll be remembered as a guy who helped out the economy, and who occasionally dabbled in world affairs with mixed results, but who was an otherwise unspectacular footnote in our history, like Coolidge."

My God, D.Z. said something historically well-informed with which I agree entirely.

comment #48

D.Z. says ...

Spin: Of course, Kerry was actually in different clubs while he was in college, while Dubya was snorting coke. If Kerry was just a bookworm, he'd probably easily beat Bush's grades.

comment #49

frankbooth says ...

Maybe I'm just dim, but I'm not getting the "you're in favor of the most extreme form of Draconian cutthroat capitalism -- OR you support Muslim fanatics who fly planes into buildings and treat women like dogs" argument.

Is it really an either/or situation? And what does September 11 have to do with justifying unchecked greed?

There's a logical leap here that eludes me.

comment #50

SpinDozer says ...

DZ:

The point is that if Obama graduated say 893 out of 899 at the Naval Academy, I would hope no one would be dumb enuff to parade his "superior" performance as somehow justifying support for him over McCain.

comment #51

Mgmax says ...

Um, surely the point is that performance in college really doesn't matter much 40 years later?

comment #52

D.Z. says ...

It matters when you're against affirmative action on the basis that unqualified people could be allowed in, and yet you support a guy born with a silver coke spoon in his mouth who enters and exits with subpar grades...