Oh MAN was watching Oliver Stone's "Nixon" a mistake...

[Robb]

Anyone see this thing? I have to say, I find the subject matter and actors fascinating and I still had to force myself to finish this monster.

I think cheap impressionism in film should be buried with the freakin' snails. Don't put a character in a crisis situation, and flash quick shots of his dead overbearing mother, then expect me to call you a clever director.

Not since "Castaway" (flamesuit on) have I been so mad at a director.... specifically the scene in castaway where the man returning to find his wife remarried is flanked by photos of the new family in the "oh, no" shot.

"Lookit... I'm directing...."

:grr:

[FlashHarry]

1. I hated Cast Away AND Forrest Gump.

Barf-inducing faux American mythology. ••flame-suit on••

[Wickerman]

2. Gump SUCKED

and as intriguing as a modern day Robinson C. was, I couldn't ring myself to see another piece of crap T Hanks movie.

Stone's tinfoil hat is on a little to tight for me, so avoided Nixon, too

[THUNDER HANDS]

3. Nixon had an AWESOME ending

Of RN in his final moments, walking though the halls of the White House. He stops at a photo of JFK (the famous one of him looking down, arms crossed) and says "When the American people look at you, they see what they want to be...when they look at me, they see what they are."

I thought it was a great film, but I just like Oliver Stone films.

[gratuitous]

4. Don't see "Nixon" looking for a documentary

The movie is remarkably overlong and tedious in many spots. But I've known too many people sit back and pick apart "Nixon" because of what it's not. It's not meant to be a History Channel Video of the Month. Stone is far more interested in figuring out who Nixon was and how he got that way than in chronicling his life.

For example, as Nixon was nearing the end of his presidency, he started tottering farther and farther to the edge of the diving board. His farewell address to the White House staff was larded with lachrymose sentiment and thoughts of his mother. Her influence on her Richard shouldn't be underestimated, and Stone's flashbacks featuring her are meant to convey that ongoing post-mortem voice in the back of Nixon's mind. As badly cast as I think Anthony Hopkins was for the Trickster, Mary Steenbergen was an inspired choice for Mom.

Stone clearly slips the moorings of history as he tries to divine from the meager evidence available a connection Nixon may have had to Kennedy's assassination. But the Nixon biographers I've read agree that he owed a great deal to moneyed interests and I regard the scenes where Nixon meets with the Texas millionaires and discusses eliminating Kennedy as representative of those business interests Nixon was so slavishly devoted to. I won't defend the depths of whatever else Stone was saying about Nixon being involved in some heretofore unknown plot to kill Kennedy, but certainly Nixon was in thrall to his political benefactors to a degree that was beyond the usual. Stone wants to make it an omerta thing, but leaving that detail aside, there probably is some dark explanation for his devotion.

The movie is meant, in my opinion, as metaphor piled on top of metaphor, and not as an historical recitation of facts. Stone tries, ham-handedly to be sure in some scenes but rather deftly in others, to explicate some deep truths that he senses about Nixon and his career, explication that doesn't lend itself to the usual modes of filmmaking.

[Cocoa]

5. Stone is just going for impact

I don't think he's trying to impress anyone, he's just doing what he does.

I agree some of his symbolis is a little crude, like the steak that was too bloody when he was discussing the Christmas bombing, but I just enjoy those scenes for the comedic value. :-)