Now this is what we were looking to hear about the Josh Brolin-Jeffrey Wright arrest incident last weekend! All we heard last Saturday afternoon was “one of the W guys wouldn’t leave at closing time, the owners called the cops and they all went to jail.” Yesterday the Chicago Sun Times‘ Bill Zwecker got the real story — right-wing rednecks vs. Hollywood lefties bustin’ heads over the suspected Bush-skewering content of Oliver Stone‘s W.

“Seems a couple of good ol’ boys got wind of the fact Brolin, Wright and their crew buddies were part of Stone’s film project,” Zwecker wrote. “Some folks in conservative Shreveport — while happy to collect the bucks spent by the filmmakers during the current down economy — are not happy their town is serving as the site for a movie about a president they have enthusiastically backed in his two runs for the White House.
“According to a sober source who was in the Stray Cat, a few profanity-laced barbs about Stone, his politics and the reported anti-Bush tone of W led to harsh words from Brolin — who is known for his own short fuse. Then a few pushes (it’s unclear who started the pushing) degenerated into punches being thrown.
“A W crew member reports Wright initially tried to play peacemaker, but that changed ‘after a racial slur was yelled’ and the actor got ‘into it as well.'”
I love, love, love that Wright tried to play the pacifist Gandhi card and wound up stomping redneck ass. Remember that scene in Deal of the Century when the born-again Gregory Hines tried to turn the other check with a hostile Hispanic couple, and then finally loses it and torches their car with a flame thrower? Wright has my respect for life after this. Brolin too, of course — BurmaShave has christened him “the New Nolte.”
I want to see a short film about this incident at next January’s Sundance Film Festival, and I want Brolin — a fledgling director — to direct and star in it. Please.
Everyone knows Brolin plays George Bush in the film, right? And that Wright portrays former Secretary of State Colin Powell?
“The situation was complicated when crew member Eric Felland, Brolin, Wright and several members of their party also refused to obey bar management’s request they leave — as it was past closing time.”
Here’s some more after-the-fact reporting from KYBS News.