In Contention

Tag: Nixon

  • Those underrated gems of the 1990s

    Miller's CrossingSo here we go again.  The 1990s were an odd decade cinematically, ripe with excellent films, ground-breaking work, innovations as well as a large number of duds. There were also films released to rave reviews that never found an audience.

    I combed through the decade and came up with 15 films worthy of discussion as the more under-appreciated of the 1990s, though I am positive you will all add immeasurably to the list, as you did with my take on the 1980s.

    The independent movement gave us many great films through this span, as well as some formidable new talent, but I must confess I grew tired of the studio slagging through the decade.  Among the critical community it became almost a rite of passage. There was some wonderful studio product here and there, of course: “Goodfellas,” “JFK,” “Unforgiven,” “Schindler’s List,” “Apollo 13,” “Saving Private Ryan” and “LA Confidential” are just a few.

    My list, in no particular order…

    In “Miller’s Crossing,” the Coen brothers do a masterful job of creating a funny and dark gangster film with superb performances from the great Albert Finney, Marcia Gay Harden, and the sleazy John Turturro in a film that gently pulls the audience into its story. Made on the cheap, the art direction and costume designs are great, and that story…man those Coens get so much out of, “What’s the rumpus?”

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  • Will ‘W.’ hold a candle to ‘Nixon?’

    Hollywood Pictures' NixonWith Lionsgate Films’ “W.” on the horizon, we are reminded of the last film Oliver Stone made about an American President: “Nixon,” a critically praised and Oscar nominated work that was the exact opposite of what most thought it would be.

    An angry child of the 1960s, having chronicled Vietnam on screen (some say definitively), Stone announced he was making a biography of President Richard M. Nixon and the feeling was that the film would be an attack on the man, who resigned office in 1974.  Yet when the film was released and critics got a look at it, they were overwhelmed by Stone’s work. Instead of an all out diatribe, he had created a study of a man who felt unworthy of the highest office in the land, even though he spent much of his life trying to get there, and was for most of his presidency a very good Commander-in-Chief.

    Stone’s film portrayed Nixon warts and all, the paranoia, the vulgar language he was known to use, his mistrust of even those closest to him, his jealousy of the Kennedy clan, and the strange hold his mother had on him, even in his later years.  The film displayed a brilliant statesman who struggled with his own sense of self worth, knowing that he could never be loved as Kennedy was, yet also aware of the good he was doing.

    Nixon opened relations with two communist countries, Russia and China, a huge move for him as he was a known communist hater and right hand man to no less than Senator Joseph McCarthy during the red purge of the 1950s that ruined many innocents. He would end Vietnam after having escalated a war he inherited, admitting defeat, and when the nation screamed for his impeachment just two years after being re-elected with the largest margin in the history of United States politics, he resigned in disgrace.

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  • ‘W’: bush league?

    Josh Brolin is George W. Bush in WI need to tread gently here and if offend that is not my intention…at all.

    I am not an American but I’ve always been fascinated with American history and politics. While I would never presume to know more about America than its own people, I must admit I struggle with the idea of George W. Bush as president for many of the same reasons Americans do. All of the previous individuals who have held office in my lifetime possessed intelligence — it burned in their eyes — but I do not see that in President Bush at…all.

    Time Magazine did a feature about a year or so ago asking whether or not Bush was the worst US President in history and I believe he won by quite a margin.  Is he fodder enough for a film?  Should it be right now? Should it be directed by Oliver Stone?

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