i don't think there are any good movies about politics, or at least, none of my favorite movies are 'politics' movies. politics isn't dramatic OR funny
i still wonder what happened to chris bray! dude was great
-- goole, Thursday, August 7, 2008 5:55 PM
Really?
― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:15 (fifteen years ago) link
politics isn't dramatic OR funny
whaaat
― Surmounter, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:15 (fifteen years ago) link
Dave
― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:20 (fifteen years ago) link
I kinda liked Wag The Dog!
I was about 14 when I saw it, mind.
-- Just got offed, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:20 (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Link
― Just got offed, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:20 (fifteen years ago) link
what about that Larry Flynt movie, people liked that
― Surmounter, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:20 (fifteen years ago) link
Bob Roberts
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:20 (fifteen years ago) link
-- Mr. Snrub, Thursday, August 7, 2008 4:20 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark Link
beat me
Does all the presidents men count?
― I know, right?, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:21 (fifteen years ago) link
a few good men?
― Surmounter, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:21 (fifteen years ago) link
the manchurian candidate
― akm, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:22 (fifteen years ago) link
RFK (okay I didn't see this but it was apparently good)
which is pretty preachy at times but is good satire and makes a gesture of addressing the military industrial complex (bob roberts i mean)
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:22 (fifteen years ago) link
-- akm, Thursday, August 7, 2008 4:22 PM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Link
which one
― Surmounter, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:22 (fifteen years ago) link
jessica fletcher freaked me out
― I know, right?, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:23 (fifteen years ago) link
word
― Surmounter, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:24 (fifteen years ago) link
The Parallax View The Candidate Shampoo (sort of) A Perfect Candidate Street Fight Advise And Consent The War Room
plenty of other good ones where that came from...
― Hatch, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:26 (fifteen years ago) link
why don't you play a game of solitaire raymond
vs.
denzel will totally surgically bite the mind-control implant out of you
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:26 (fifteen years ago) link
ooooh The CONTENDER
― Surmounter, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:26 (fifteen years ago) link
Philadelphia
― Surmounter, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:27 (fifteen years ago) link
which is the one with james garner and jack lemmon and dan ayckroyd
― max, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:28 (fifteen years ago) link
Distinct lack of British movies so far.
― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:28 (fifteen years ago) link
So, erm...Scandal?
― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:29 (fifteen years ago) link
Dave was okay, yes, but I tend to categorically hate "funny" movies about politics where oh, if only a normal Joe were running things, he'd definitely cut through it all and sort out sensible solutions for what Americans really want -- it's just kind of an idiotic notion. (Dave at least played it kind of soft and pleasant, but lots of movies seem to think they're really sticking it to the fatcats with this kind of stuff, at which it becomes bullshitty to an insufferable extent.)
― nabisco, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:29 (fifteen years ago) link
Movies have to have a bottom by their nature -- they are born in and grounded in and perhaps doomed to sensual experience. Politics have no bottom at all. You can be compellingly political in a book, and if that's done right, it pulls the floor out from under you and you walk around for an hour like you just took your rollerskates off. A movie that tries that trick is just annoying, because it has to cheat to even attempt to approximate that other level. This is not limited to politics. There are lots of things that movies are not the correct medium for.
― kenan, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:29 (fifteen years ago) link
The Thick Of It is being turned into a movie, and the feature-length Xmas/Easter special was so good it might as well have been one.
― Just got offed, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:30 (fifteen years ago) link
what about that one where robin williams is a robot who lives 200 years then becomes president
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:31 (fifteen years ago) link
Medium Cool wtf how has this not been mentioned yet
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:31 (fifteen years ago) link
I mean, doesn't Dave call his accountant friend to go over the entire U.S. budget and throw together some down-home common-sense corrections that effectively balance it? That kind of stuff is about on par with golden retrievers playing in the NBA, sense-wise, and yet it often gets played like it's congratulating the native intelligence of the viewer
― nabisco, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:31 (fifteen years ago) link
This reminds me of how dissapointing that movie Power was. How does Lumet directing + Richard Gere being smarmy + Gene Hackman being drunk + Julie Christie = such a boring movie?
― mizzell, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:32 (fifteen years ago) link
JFK is totally awesome
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:32 (fifteen years ago) link
or the new one where kevin costner is like a contestant on american idol
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:32 (fifteen years ago) link
or the Postman
― akm, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:33 (fifteen years ago) link
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:34 (fifteen years ago) link
Young Mr. Lincoln Taxi Driver Z (this might be the best on of all) Tanner '88 Medium Cool
― Hatch, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:34 (fifteen years ago) link
The Queen
― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:34 (fifteen years ago) link
my point was basically two things:
movies have to have a shape, the conflict involved has to be resolved (or at least, some kind of stopping point, but movies rarely have 'unsatisfying' endings). this is always a problem when you're trying to deal with a political conflict because those are never finished.
the other thing is that drama is about individual people and politics is about the persistence and contest of ideas. characters can be of a 'type' and stand in for a set of ideas, but then you're already a step removed from what the movie is supposed to be 'about'. you could have a great biopic of luther, but that wouldn't be 'the reformation' in toto.
lotta xps
― goole, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:35 (fifteen years ago) link
1776
― kingfish, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:35 (fifteen years ago) link
Election!
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:36 (fifteen years ago) link
Election YES
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:36 (fifteen years ago) link
PICK FLICK
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:37 (fifteen years ago) link
JFK is pretty dopey, especially for fooling the gullible into thinking Kennedy was certain to leave Vietnam.
BULWORTH
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:37 (fifteen years ago) link
BULWORTH NOOOOOOOOOO
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:38 (fifteen years ago) link
oh I don't believe a single thing in JFK I just enjoy all the pulse-pounding conspiracy-mongering and goofy cameos
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:38 (fifteen years ago) link
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
― zappi, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:39 (fifteen years ago) link
t/s bulworth vs. head of state
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:39 (fifteen years ago) link
ooh yeah Fog of War is great
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:39 (fifteen years ago) link
Triumph of the Will haha
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:40 (fifteen years ago) link
Yep, The Contender
― Eazy, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:40 (fifteen years ago) link
Malcolm X
Citizen Ruth
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 20:41 (fifteen years ago) link
oh, and Punishment Park! rent almost any Peter Watkins, in fact.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:12 (fifteen years ago) link
the challopsian in me wants to defend bulworth, seeing how many people hate it. i really liked it in middle school; maybe it works better if you pretend its a kids movie.
― max, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:13 (fifteen years ago) link
Lumumba Great political films are often great because the give us foreshortened, visual means to grasp the abstract mysteries of political change. I was fascinated by the verisimilitude with which Raoul Peck was able to capture what it feels like when one political moment transforms itself into another — here, in the case of the process of independence for the nation of Congo. It certainly rung true enough for the ex-CIA hands depicted in the film, who forced HBO to bleep out his name by threat of lawsuit if they showed it.
and here i am arguing that this can't be done w/o losing something essential... haven't seen lumumba btw, i heard it was really good.
― goole, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:15 (fifteen years ago) link
i'd heard of punishment park before, thx for the tip on watkins.
― goole, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:18 (fifteen years ago) link
To be fair, Morbius, I couldn't even get through enough of The New World to have an opinion beyond "this is tedious and I have no inclination to finish watching it." Maybe it got way better after that.
Goole, I think Citizen Ruth works much better if you avoid interrogating it for political opinions about abortion and focus on Ruth undercutting that (alternately, it's fun to pretend the judge at the beginning is still actually his character from the Police Academy movies)
― nabisco, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:20 (fifteen years ago) link
maybe it works better if you pretend its a kids movie.
No max, don't defend it.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:21 (fifteen years ago) link
what could never occur in film is a woman with her shit reasonably together who gets an abortion for whatever reasons; it's a big deal and a lot to think about, but not a monumental crisis
Fast Times at Ridgmont High Last American Virgin
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:22 (fifteen years ago) link
amy heckerling, come back, your country needs you
― goole, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:25 (fifteen years ago) link
bulworth is a movie about a breakdown. it's meant to be embarrassing. dont think for a second warren beatty ever thought he was cool doing those terrible raps. it's a brave performance.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:26 (fifteen years ago) link
amy heckerling came back and made loser
bulworth 2: a brave performance
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:27 (fifteen years ago) link
(That's not the way I meant it was embarrassing, s1ocki!)
― nabisco, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:27 (fifteen years ago) link
yay s1ocki!
nabisco should give the tedium test to Peter Watkins' 5-hr film on the Paris Commune....
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:27 (fifteen years ago) link
haha no but really, isn't bulworth a movie about a stuffy white dude who learns how to loosen up through the fateful intervention of black people?? yawn
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:29 (fifteen years ago) link
morbz unwavering love for bulworth is totally endearing
― and what, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:29 (fifteen years ago) link
what country has the best politics
― uh oh I'm having a fantasy, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:29 (fifteen years ago) link
uh yeah well uh
there's also this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0466839/
― goole, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:30 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=969ANF3GCX8
― uh oh I'm having a fantasy, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:32 (fifteen years ago) link
see if you change "warren beaty" to "julia stiles" and "politics" to "dance," suddenly "bulworth" looks a lot like "save the last dance"
― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:34 (fifteen years ago) link
no elmo, he is preachin' first TO black people that they shouldn't expect anything of him, properly.
Bulworth isn't stuffy, he's atrophied (hence the opening pics of him with RFK, King? etc), a la ex-McGovernites Billary.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:35 (fifteen years ago) link
haha forgot about odb in there
― uh oh I'm having a fantasy, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:35 (fifteen years ago) link
omg save the last dance - that is an awesome parallel
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:37 (fifteen years ago) link
seriously the fact that morbz thinks a movie where warren beatty tells a black church they need to stop eating fried chicken is some kind of awesome political courage & truth-telling is all you need to know about dude on politics ever
― and what, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:40 (fifteen years ago) link
hahahah
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:40 (fifteen years ago) link
xp: very clever out-of-context bullshit there, from a guy who thinks "and...what" is the apotheosis of hiphop.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:41 (fifteen years ago) link
Oh, another dumb idea I hate in movies about American politics (briefly touched in Bulworth if I remember right) -- the idea that if a politician just suddenly felt free to speak his mind and call it like it is, he would be adored by a public yearning for some straight talk.
― nabisco, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:41 (fifteen years ago) link
just like John McCain!
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:42 (fifteen years ago) link
man I really hope McCain does some embarassing rapping before this campaign is over
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:43 (fifteen years ago) link
Obscenity? The rich is getting richer and richer and richer while the middle class is getting more poor/ Making billions and billions and billions of bucks/ well my friend if you weren't already rich at the start well that situation just sucks/cause the riches mother fucker in five of us is getting ninety fuckin eight percent of it/ and every other motherfucker in the world is left to wonder where the fuck we went with it/ Obscenity?/ I'm a Senator/ I gotta raise $10,000 a day every day I'm in Washington/ I ain't getting it in South Central/ I'm gettin it in Beverly Hills/ So I'm votin from them in the Senate the way they want me too/ and-and-and I'm sending them my bills/ But we got babies in South Central dying as young as they do in Peru/ We got public schools that are nightmares/ We got a Congress that ain't got a clue/We got kids with submachine guns/ We got militias throwing bombs/ We got Bill just gettin all weepy/ We got Newt blaming teenage moms/We got factories closing down/ Where the hell did all the good jobs go? Well, I'll tell you where they went/My contributors make more profits makin, makin, makin, Hirin' kids in Mexico/ Oh a brother can work in fast food/ If he can't invent computer games/ But what we used to call America/ That's going down the drains/How's a young man gonna meet his financial responsibilities workin and motherfuckin Burger King? He ain't! And please don't even start with that school shit/ There aint no education going on up in that motherfucker/ Obscenity? We got a million brothers in prison/ I mean, the walls are really rockin/But you can bet your ass they'd all be out/If they could pay for Johnny Cochran/ The constitution is supposed to give them an equal chance/ Well, that ain't gonna happen for sure/ Ain't it time to take a little from the rich motherfucker and give a little to the poor? I mean, those boys over there on the monitor/ they want a government smaller and weak/ but the be speakin for the riches 20 percent when they pretend they're defendin the meek/ Now, shit, fuck, cocksuker, that's the real obscenity/ Black folks livin with every day/ Trying to believe a mothefuckin word Democrats and Republicans say/ Obscenity? I'm Jay Billington Bulworth And I've come to say/ The Democratic party's got some shit to pay/ It's gonna pay it in the ghetto/ It's gonna pay it in the-
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:44 (fifteen years ago) link
And the villain's a mellifluous type (Claude Rains, Frank Langella, etc) who somehow got elected and is a "veteran."
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:44 (fifteen years ago) link
i.e. he's so transparently crooked that you wonder how the common sense-loving voters picked him year after year.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:46 (fifteen years ago) link
But what we used to call America/ That's going down the drains
preaching to black folks that they used to have it better off in america, that's some insight right there
― and what, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:47 (fifteen years ago) link
you mean before Clinton abolished Aid to Families with Dependent Children? YUP
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:48 (fifteen years ago) link
I've still got McCain doing "Gimme That Nut" in my head.
― Noodle Vague, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:49 (fifteen years ago) link
fortunately re Claude Rains, there's absolutely zero politics in Mr. Smith
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:50 (fifteen years ago) link
Cromwell, Marie Antoinette, Nixon, also yeah, totally Dick. The kissinger impersonation there is so very good.
― s.clover, Thursday, 7 August 2008 22:51 (fifteen years ago) link
mr smith is the only good one
― J.D., Thursday, 7 August 2008 23:05 (fifteen years ago) link
except for election
― J.D., Thursday, 7 August 2008 23:08 (fifteen years ago) link
part of the reason capra's film is great = this DOESN'T happen.
― J.D., Thursday, 7 August 2008 23:09 (fifteen years ago) link
it doesn't?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 7 August 2008 23:10 (fifteen years ago) link
but we do get a proto Jimmy Swaggart confession.
While Smith talks, his constituents try to rally around him, but the entrenched opposition is too powerful and all attempts are crushed. On Taylor's orders, newspapers and radio stations in Smith's home state refuse to report what Smith has to say, and even twist the facts against him. Even an effort by the Boy Rangers to spread the news results in vicious attacks on the children by Taylor's minions.
Although all hope seems lost, the senators begin to pay attention despite Smith's utter exhaustion and the hoarseness of his voice. Paine has one last card up his sleeve. He brings in bins of letters and telegrams from Smith's home state from people demanding his expulsion.
― J.D., Thursday, 7 August 2008 23:12 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah, I remember liking that a lot -- it'd be interesting to see someone plot out something like that with modern communications, where a message the audience wants to see delivered gets twisted, countered, misrepresented, etc. as it seeps out to the public.
― nabisco, Thursday, 7 August 2008 23:20 (fifteen years ago) link
Secret Honor
― weatheringdaleson, Friday, 8 August 2008 03:02 (fifteen years ago) link
Eh, I still find Mr Smith creaky most of the time. The Great McGinty's a better film for mitigating its cynicism with corn that Capra might have liked.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 8 August 2008 03:17 (fifteen years ago) link
God, I love Allen Garfield in The Candidate: "Whatever you do, don't look up at all. Don't look up, don't look up--'cause your eyes are glazed, then you look cockeyed. You look like a moron."
― clemenza, Monday, 20 October 2014 01:25 (nine years ago) link
Couple of odd Godfather connections I noticed watching The Candidate tonight. 1) At one point, Crocker Jarmon says, word for word, the opening line of The Godfather: "I believe in America." 2) When McKay visits his famous politician father in search of a denial (to the story that the father is going to endorse Jarmon), it's staged very similarly to Michael's first visit with Hyman Roth in Godfather II (two years later).
― clemenza, Monday, 20 October 2014 03:03 (nine years ago) link
I've been watching a number of Trump-related films the past week. Looked at Bob Roberts and Bulworth yesterday for the first time since they came out.
Didn't mind Bob Roberts. It's the more predictable of the two, with easier targets, but a couple of the songs I actually kind of liked (in the way I like certain songs from Nashville--"complain and complain and complain," that one was good), and it was fun seeing all the familiar supporting players (even spotted a couple of character actors from Seinfeld, including the guy Jerry locked in a trunk). Robbins is good--same year as The Player, I think.
I wasn't engaged enough in 1998 to appreciate how specifically Bulworth was targeting Clinton and the welfare bill. That was the best and most interesting thing about it. But the same gimmick that made me hate it then was still there and still a huge problem: how painfully awful Beatty's raps are. And the fact that they're supposed to be painfully awful doesn't make them the least bit easier to watch. (The only thing I can really think of in movies or TV that I know is supposed to make me cringe and is carried off so perfectly that I find it compelling because of it is the Larry Sanders roast episode.) The two scenes where Beatty first starts saying whatever's on his mind--the speech in South Central and the heavily Jewish fundraiser afterwards--I don't know why he just didn't stick with that, those scenes were fine. And then he starts rapping.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 23 August 2016 04:01 (seven years ago) link
Watched A Face in the Crowd two nights ago. Above average for sure.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Tuesday, 23 August 2016 04:14 (seven years ago) link
I was thinking that Bob Roberts felt like a more polished, even cagier version of Lonesome Rhodes. Also trying to figure out how A Face in the Crowd related to Kazan's HUAC problem...was Rhodes supposed to be McCarthy and the film meant as an apology?
― clemenza, Tuesday, 23 August 2016 04:18 (seven years ago) link