Forty-three years ago, two men enrolled at Yale University. One of them
dropped out a year later, volunteered to fight in Vietnam, then made a movie
about his experiences entitled Platoon. His name is Oliver Stone. The
other dodged combat and went on to become the 43rd President of the United
States. His name is George W. Bush.
If all this sounds like the premise of a Hollywood blockbuster, then it is –
sort of. The movie is W., a Bush biopic that – and here’s the twist –
is directed by Stone. It will be released in America a mere 19 days before
the 2008 presidential election and is the Times Gala film at this
year’s Times BFI London Film Festival.
Of course, with Stone being a peacenik Buddhist liberal and Bush being a
militaristic evangelical Christian Republican, the result isn’t expected to
be in any way flattering to the departing leader of the free world. Then
again, the pair have an awful lot more in common than you might think. Both,
for example, are world-famous hedonists. Bush’s cousin once confirmed that
the President is “a riot” when loaded up on beer. Stone’s Hollywood parties,
meanwhile, were once described by a participant as “basically pagan Rome,
AD26”.
Both have also been accused of lying to advance their careers: Bush on Saddam
Hussein’s WMDs; Stone on the circumstances of John F. Kennedy’s death. And
both have suffered from what can be described only as biblical-scale “Daddy
issues”. Bush Sr cracked the whip so hard that Bush Jr once challenged his
old man to a “mano-a-mano”. Stone’s father hired a prostitute for his boy
when he turned 16. Hence Bush invading the country that his dad had declined
to conquer 12 years earlier. Hence Stone spiking his father’s whiskey with
LSD.
But that is where the similarities end. For while Bush exits the White House a
pariah, Stone hopes that W. – a $30 million project funded partly
with Chinese money because no big Hollywood studio would touch it – will
salvage a career that has been taking on water for more than a decade.
Indeed, Stone’s previous movie about an American president, Nixon,
cost $44 million to make and recouped barely a third of that at the American
box office. This time, Stone is betting that the saleability of Bush’s
failures will serve to guarantee his own success.
When I meet Stone at his office in Santa Monica, the 62-year-old film-maker is
rubbing his eyes after another epic editing session. W. is being made
under extreme pressure: only 46 days of shooting, a mere 300,000ft of film
(as opposed to the usual million), and barely two months of post-production.
A tall order for a movie that jumps back and forth in time and promises to
tell three stories – the Bush bum years, the Texas governorship and the
presidency – simultaneously.
“I’m not sure that we’ll succeed,” Stone concedes when I ask why the very same
electorate that has made Bush the most unpopular President in American
history would want to hand over money to see a two-hour biopic about him.
“But this movie is not for the 12 per cent who still approve of him – it’s
for the other 88 per cent. On the other hand, I don’t think there’s anything
in the movie that the other 88 per cent would have any reason to detest. It
is a human portrait of a man, not meant to insult people who believe in what
Bush believes in.”
This, claims Stone, is why he made W. – to understand, to walk in the
man’s shoes. “It’s my job . . . if I’m dramatising his life . . . to step
above my hate,” he says.
Stone never even knew that he’d been to Yale with Bush until the two men met
at a function in 1998. Stone says that the then Governor of Texas knew more
about him than the other way round.
Republicans will almost certainly use W. as an opportunity to burn
Stone as an effigy of the liberal media. But Democrats might also very well
attack him – for giving them a bad name on the eve of the Most Important
Election, Like, Ever. But Stone can’t seriously be afraid of exile. That
fate befell him a long time ago, as is demonstrated by the location of his
company, Ixtlan Productions, a long and sweltering drive away from the
all-powerful studio lots of Hollywood and Burbank. Stone lost a lot of
friends during the mega years. The blow-ups, the manipulations, the
bollockings – they’re part of this town’s folklore now.
He also lost his second wife, Elizabeth Cox – they divorced in August 1994,
the same month that Stone’s Natural Born Killers was released.
It was Cox who revealed the insanity of Stone’s upbringing in New York by a
French mother and Jewish-American father (the original family name was
Silverstein; Stone’s real first name was William). “That little boy didn’t
stand a chance of any sort of normal life,” she told a reporter.
Stone had married his first wife, Najwa Sarkis, an attaché at the Moroccan
mission to the United Nations, when he was working as a yellow-cab driver.
Stone now has a third wife, Chong, a Korean, with whom he has a daughter, in
addition to his two sons with Elizabeth.
Ixtlan’s offices are housed within a space-age campus of tiny production
outfits and rent-by-the-hour editing suites, yet manage to be absurdly plush
for all their utilitarian surroundings. The floor is covered in a
yellowy-beige carpet of such a luxurious pile that I entertain the thought
that during one of Stone’s more spectacular acid trips he might have killed
and skinned a pride of lions and sewn the manes together. The chairs in the
lobby are gold-leafed, like thrones. Behind them, on a wall the colour of
arterial blood, hang framed posters for Scarface, Wall Street, Platoon,
and JFK. Looking at them you think, my God, this man has made some of
the finest cinema of all time.
Then you notice the accompanying displays of oped columns and political
cartoons, in which Stone is excoriated for factual inaccuracies and
antiAmericanism. And you think, this is how he chooses to begin his working
day: by walking through an exhibit that might as well be entitled My
Indisputable Greatness, And How They Persecuted Me For It.
These days, Stone conducts business looking like a cross between a professor
and a safari guide – wilted shirt, dangling spectacles, handsome in a
dishevelled way. His is a smile that’s too demented to be gentle, but it’s
trying, it’s trying hard.
His eyes shift around a lot, always deflecting. The voice is low and calm, but
with a hint of something unspeakable being held at bay. The only time it
rises in irritation is when I wonder ifW.is primarily comic in tone.
“It’s a comedy only in the sense of tragic comedy,” he winces. “You laugh in
your mind, because Bush is a goof-ball, because he’s awkward, but at the
same time he has a stubborn-ness, a John Wayne ethos, an anger, an
impatience, that make him fascinating. You may hate Wayne’s politics, but
you may well enjoy his company on screen.”
It remains to be seen how sympathetic Stone’s Bush will turn out to be (the
trailer caused me to splutter with laughter). The director certainly has a
habit of making his villains more likeable than his heroes – just look at
Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gecko in Wall Street. Much of it will
be down to Josh Brolin, an unknown when he was cast but now a solid A-lister
thanks to his role in last year’s Oscar winnerNo Country for Old Men.
Brolin’s co-stars include Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, Richard Dreyfuss as
Dick Cheney, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice and James Cromwell as Bush
Sr.
“I think Josh gives Bush the benefit of the doubt and makes him charming,
which I think he is,” Stone says. “I think he is a wonderful salesman,
charismatic to many people and he has a politician’s ability to touch and
reach, which his father never had. So he did outdo his father – as a
salesman.”
Stone has said repeatedly that if Bush had fought on the ground in Vietnam he
would never have gone to war against Iraq (he also maintains that if Bush
had been president during the Cuban missile crisis, “we would have been in a
nuclear war. Definitely. Wiped out. We wouldn’t be here talking.”). So I ask
him what he makes of John McCain. After all, the Republican presidential
candidate was both a supporter of ousting Saddam and a long-time resident of
Vietnam’s “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp.
“I think McCain’s a very special story because he was never a soldier,” Stone
says coldly. “He’s said he never saw the results of his own bombing. I saw
the damage we did, I saw the corpses, the decay, I smelt the flesh, I saw
people who’d been napalmed, people who’d been killed by shrapnel, mutilated.
I saw horrible things. McCain was a prisoner and he has a siege mentality.
He doesn’t see a balanced portrait of cause and effect – there’s something
missing in the man, mentally."
And McCain’s running-mate, the moose-wrangling, gun-toting Alaskan beauty
queen Sarah Palin? “She’s very ignorant. Ignorance is an American
characteristic. To me, Palin and McCain look like a poster for a San Diego
news channel.”
Which brings us to Barack Obama. If Stone believes that the Government
conspired to kill John F. Kennedy – as his 1991 movie JFK
suggests – then surely he must also believe that those same forces would go
to work on a liberal black president. Stone nods, but says it’s less likely.
“In those days, with Kennedy, you could kill somebody and that was more
palatable because we’d done that abroad with many people: it was in vogue,
it was part of the James Bond thing. Now you don’t need to kill – the media
can kill for you.
“And I don’t think Obama could [frighten] the Pentagon in the same way.
Kennedy was shaking things up: with Cuba he was ready to sign a deal, with
Vietnam he was pulling out, with Khrushchev he was signing a deal.”
While the subject of war continues to fascinate Stone, the biggest issue of
the 2008 election – the economy – just seems to depress him. But it’s not
enough to make Stone want to direct the long-anticipated sequel to Wall
Street. “It’s so tragic, it’s a repeat of the market of the Eighties,
but much bigger,” he sighs. “I don’t even think a Gordon Gecko could exist
in 2008, not as an individual buyer or seller. He’d have to work for a bank.
Those [Wall Street] guys – they pigged out, man, to a degree that I never
thought was possible.”
All of which raises the question of what Stone will do after W. He’s
still working on a sympathetic documentary about the Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez. His interview with the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is
off the table (although Ahmadinejad quietly retracted a statement calling
Stone part of the “Great Satan”). As for the fate of Pinkville,
Stone’s movie about the My Lai massacre in Vietnam – billed to star Bruce
Willis – that was jettisoned amid the troubles at Tom Cruise’s new
incarnation of the United Artists studio.
“It was a bad experience,” Stone says. “I don’t like working for a company
that’s fearful – it infects everything. I’ve managed to make 17 movies the
way I wanted to make them in an atmosphere free of fear. I don’t want to be
sweating it every day, having calls from some executive saying, ‘We can’t
show a bullet in a baby’s head’, or ‘How much massacre is there going to
be?’”
Although Stone says Pinkville might be rescued, there will be no more
war movies from the master of the genre – especially not about Iraq, which
he says is too much of a “bummer” for Americans to handle on screen.
Besides, he says: “I’m older, I can’t go out and do a war film, it’s
exhausting. I’d get killed, probably. With W. I’m interested in
the mindset of war.”
W. is the Times Gala film at The Times BFI London Film
Festival on Oct 23 2008 and is released on Nov 7 2008
I will be interested to see a movie about Bush in about 50 years after time has passed, information is de-classified and we can see a movie that is historical in nature and not made for political jabberwocky. What serious person, liberal or conservative, could draw a conclusion from this?
Julie, Cincinnati, United States
Oliver Stone looks like Richard Nixon- he could star in a role as Nixon co-directed by Michael Moore. Those two factualizing politics and tieing into the future of American politics would be dangerous.
Mike, Brooklyn, U.S.
Here is the view of someone outside the US. George Bush is the worst president the United States has produced since the Second World War! None of you have as yet seen the film, yet you all appear to know what it is about. This explains how Bush got elected...twice!
Lorraine Paul, Melbourne, Australia
You all have too much to say about your poor rich boy Bush. It's just a movie making fun of the past horrific eight years. Lets just hope McCain gets elected and cures all our economic woes. See you on the corner when your homeless due to his plan. Move on with your life and care about others.
dan, boca raton,
A pilot in the US Air National Guard? Hardly combat.
Mike Oldham, Toronto, Canada
'funded by chinese communists'...... hmmm, kinda like everything our current administration has done-where do you think we are getting our liquid money for the war, the bailout, etc...borrowed from china. are you people seriously that out of touch with what is going on?
Joe, west lafayette, United States
George W. Bush was a pilot in the U.S. Air National Guard during Vietnam war - hardly a combat dodger as your first paragraph incorrectly implies.
Rianna, Chicago, USA
A lot of things are funded by Chinese money. They loan a lot to U.S. institutions.
Brenda, St Pete, USA
So what's wrong with the Chinese paying for part of this movie. They pay for part of the Iraq war. Seems like perfect bookends to me.
edlaw, EASTON , us
I'm not going to address Stone's politics or the content of the movie, just the attack about being funded by Chinese money. Well, China is loaning the U.S. Government a huge portion of the money to accommodate our Definicity spending, soo... we have a war in Iraq and Afghanistan funded by.. China
Jackson, Lincoln, United States
And we are suppose to believe this is a "truthful" movie on Bush coming from the Republican hating Stone during this election season!!! I'm saving my money for "An American Carol".
Phyllis, Illinois, USA
This is the same Oliver Stone who produced a film about Fidel Castro that was so overwhelmingly flattering to the subject matter that even HBO wouldn't show it. Sorry, Oliver - you have no credibility with me. I'll pass.
Tim G., Cuyahoga Falls, USA
Stone is a skilled propagandist who takes a few facts and makes 'new' American history...fortunately the word is out on him. I will not pay to see a Stone production unless he does one on the Clintons... that would be hilarious no matter which light he chooses to put them under!
Rick, St Michaels, MD, USA
What's next Stone? Taking Saudi money to film a movie about Israel?
Lewis Salem, NC, USA,
Because Oliver Stone puts it in a movie it must be true? It's such shame that people are so easily manipulated.
Chris Daugherty, Palm Harbor, FL,
Saw "An American Carol" and was impressed. Another Stoner movie ,and one that is anti-America, wow, how unique. Now even the Chinese know about these corrupt movie producers and want to fund them ...... can anyone say self-interest here?
mauren, orlando, usa
The American public aren't going to take to a move denigrating their president and presidency financed by Chinese communists through a washed up Hollywood director.
James, Concord, USA
Oliver Stone declares there were no WMD in Iraq therefore our invasion was a right-wing plot of the Neo-Cons. Conveniently, he fails to mention the 180,00+ Kurds who were massacred with a variety of chemical weapons ( nukes, chemweaps and bioweaps = WMD). Stone is dead wrong on WMD!
Bruce C. Lorenc, raleigh, usa
Does anyone besides me find it telling that other than "An American Carol" and "Flight 93," not one single pro-American movie has been made during the course of this war? Not one! Here's a secret for Hollywood: Americans want to see movies where we're the good guys. People will flock to see them.
Mike Wescott, Grand Haven, MI, US
Accepting Chinese money to bash an American president should be enough to keep most of us home. It's less than honorable. This movie will flop.
Phil, Rector, USA
Stone says that McCain "was never a soldier" because he didn't pound any ground. Spending nearly six years in the Hanoi Hilton doesn't qualify McCain as a soldier? Stone couldn't have done six minutes in that place. Stone "jests at scars that never felt a wound".
Patrick Curry, Irvine, USA
Yeah,a guy who drops out of college to go to Vietnam is sooo unAmerican. Do you people ever listen to yourselves? Ever think that a guy who saw what he saw may have some insight? Or you just like to call everyone who challenges the war liberal? My father lost his mind in Nam. What did you lose?
Staci, Las Vegas,
Bush bashing, very original! Imagine this if you will....
America HAS NOT.... and I say that again with all caps HAS NOT been hit by terrorists since 9/11, no civilians have died due to Terrorist actions.... Thanks Bush!
P.S. Happy GWOT (Global War On Terror: for you civilians) Veteran!
Jason Stange, San Antonio, USA
Mr. Stone really needs to get over himself. Typical arrogant liberal with all the answers!
Kelley, OHIO,
So what? The Chinese send George Bush 2.2 billion a day to fund his war. If the dollar devalues they'll probably want to collect don't ya think?
Tom, Humble, U.S.
Another liberal biased viewpoint. Nice to know that liberals will go to any length. I guess Hollywood "celebs" makes so much money for doing nothing that the internal guilt must be so great that they have to spew garbage to convince the world that they are relevent.
bob, Detroit, USA
Funded by the Chinese Communists. Nothing more need be said.
J.W. Wright, Memphis, USA
"Master of the genre" of war films?
Maybe for the anti American left, certainly not for anybody with a brain.
Phil, Rebuck, USA
If Stone was a citizen of China, Venezuela, or Cuba and wanted to direct a film critical of the government, do you think it would actually happen? Yet he aligns himself with our enemies. Bush has kept us safe and appointed supreme court justices. He has done his job.
Bret , Royal Oak, US
How about doing a film on Bill Ayers? Timothy McVeigh gets the death penalty and this traitor is teaching english in Chicago? It's just like the left to invent conspiracy and then look blindly away at the cold facts. Ayers = McVeigh. Obama entered the house of Ayers ONCE is enough for me.
Susan, New York, USA
RE: Bush loaded on beer - Bush stopped drinking decades ago. Given the enormity of the tasks / issues that have landed at his feet in 8 years, he should be congratulated for remaining sober. He hasn't cheated on his wife, he hasn't engaged in the ugly rhetoric of his detractors.
Deb, Edmond, USA
About the Chinese money thng...who the hell do you think is financing half of the whole U.S. economy right now? How many American conservatives will have their snouts in the trough (Chinese or otherwise) if there's a buck to be made out of it? Give me a break...go back to your guns and religion.
Mike, Melbourne, Australia
Bush and Stone have alot in common - they're both liberals. The difference is that Stone is a liberal who wants to caress our enemies. B. Hussein Obama = Stone.
Steve McNary, Pensacola,
Chinese money ? What a huge surprise.
Al, Raleigh, US
I like a good laugh as much as the next guy, and even though I voted for Dubya (twice), the trailer for Stone's movie got me chuckling. I'll probably wind up renting the DVD at some point. What bothers me is that he's hustling to release it just before the election. Coincidence? Not.
Glen, St. Petersburg, FL, USA
Isn't he Sharon Stone's dad?
Someone above said that the previews look like the movie will be a hoot. Looks more like a characature to me. If it were less cartoonish, it might be worth watching, but who would take a cartoon seriously? It's a joke - and hardly historical.
Sue, Fargo, USA
The movie is for entertainment that's it, but you cannot deny the fact that George W. Bush is a total failure as a president on every level.
Sean Harling, Northfield, Minn., U.S.
Where does lying about WMD's come from? Less than a month ago the big news topic was that the US shipped tons of Uranium out of Iraq. Bush said it was there, and the media confirmed.
Chris, phoenix, USA
This will be an utter failure in the US, and will be huge in Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Syria and North Korea. Hey, he's just preaching to his true audience, right?
Mark, CA, USA
I never really understood who was behind the horrible murder of John F. Kennedy but Oliver Stone's movie made it quite clear: conservatives who wanted war in Viet Nam. The same type of neocons who got us into war in Iraq and brought us a failing world economy. I am looking forward to seeing this!
colin, san francisco , USA
Financed by Chinese money?? Why does this not surprise me??
Sean, Chapel Hill, United States
I look forward to this film. Bush has built his career in politics on lies, from the way he became governor to the WMD's to the Iraq war to the economy, and he really seemed to believe them all. It's really sad, if he hadn't done so much damage to the USA in the process. Hope Stone gives insight.
Mary, Dallas, United States
Oliver Stone is an ugly vengeful man. Compared to the awful Clinton, who made my skin crawl before he was president, Bush is a saint. The darling duo from Arkansas whose lives are ripe with lies and terror will never be a subject however Stone will film. WMD's did exist. Lying was Clinton's forte.
E. Nelson, Arkansas, USA
Americans are tired of self-righteous movie producers producing hate-filled, left-leaning propaganda. We're also fed up with pampered movie stars telling us how to vote. Most of them never finished high school. They have instant access to media while the average American doesn't.
Georgina, Denver, USA
shocking hearing all of these quotes by fellow Americans....obviously it illustrates that the American propaganda machine has done its job!
Kat, Blacksburg, USA
People are mad that a film might make Bush look bad? Sorry guys, he did it himself.
Diane, Dallas TX, USA
To all of you who have had to endured the unfathomable ignorance posted here, I apologize. Oliver Stone is a hero. Americans know propaganda when they see it? Oh really? You mean the lie that bush legitimately won the election in 2000? That 19 hijackers trained on cubs and cessnas knocked over WTC?
Robert O'Brian, Ossining, USA
Oliver Stone works to humanize political figures, and he is open about his opinions as he struggles to be fair. I have found all of his efforts to be both entertaining and interesting. His documentary on Fidel Castro was utterly unique - can you honestly say you didn't find it fascinating?
Sweni Albash, Baltimore, USA
He's still making movies? Hmm... didn't know that. I will not see this one either.
kP, Fishers, IN, US
Oliver who????
Steve, Chatsworth, USA
Brian de Palma made Scarface
scott, oak creek, wi, usa
I have seen my last Oliver Stone film.
Charles B., Easley, SC, USA
Another Stone movie? Yawn...zzz....zzz...zzz
Denise Blake, Disputanta, va
Would not go see it if someone gave me a free ticket. It will be a piece of trash...just look at who the actors are that are in it...Josh Brolin, Ellen Brysten, Richard Dryfuss, etc. No need to say anything else, they are all left wing liberals. Remember Josh Brolin's step-mom is Barbra Streisand
Debbie, houston, usa
Hutch,we spend a trillion dollars for what? As soon as we leave Iraq,it will go right back to where it was.
These wars are both wasteful and ineffective.
Karachi,Pakistan is becoming "Talibanized".
Do we spend another $500 billion for that too?
Maybe domestic survelliance and action is better.
Dennis, Vancouver, USA
And in Orwells 1984, the left wing sheep only needed two minutes hate...
Tax Slave, Virginia, USA
On a lighter note, the previews look like this movie will be a hoot. I have already had a good laugh. Ironic that this was intended to be a serious submission, I assume, and it's just going to be funny as hell. Looking forward to see it.
Peter, Stroudsburg, USA
Mr. Stone needs recovery from his delusional mind. I would like to see him do a movie on Nancy Pelosi.
Chris, Lafayette, US
Bob, Everett WA,
The bible - the rights' history book. As accurate as any 2000 year old fable. We now have whole generations believing that some fictional guy created everything in 6 days, some 6000 years ago and did all that in the dark... And these people vote...guess for whom?
johnny, London, UK
In the USA it will be his biggest bomb ever.
Even the Democrats will be embarrassed by Stone's latest mushroom induced extravaganza.
Only Roger Ebert will like it.
Sue, New York, USA
Sigh, Oliver Stone is nearly as relevant as Mike Moore.
Alec, Jacksonville,
This movie will be seen(not a lot) for what it is, it is an Oliver Stone movie. Pretty much worthless and with zero credibility. He needs to get over himself already.
Terry, Sarasota,
It wont make money, but it might entertain. His critical successes come when he depicts fictional story's in a realistic setting. Trying to tell the story of actual events (JFK, Nixon) doesnt sell. He needs to stop trying to make a point and just make movies that entertain.
Chris, Burlington,
I think Stone's movies are very interesting and am anxious to see W. Not all films have to be historically accurate. If you want accurate history, watch the history channel. "The office of the presidency should be held above criticism"...Bush, nor any other president or person is above criticism!
Linda, The Valley, USA
above somebody said "I believe the office of the President should be held above criticism" Is that every president or just our president? Hugo Chavez ? How about Popes? Alexander the sixth?
Andrew G O'Donnell, Sacramento,CA., USA
Bring it on, Oliver! At least it'll be entertaining...
Greg, Phoenix, USA
Scarface, Wall Street, Platoon. Stone has given us the gift of some of the most powerful storytelling and iconic movies of all times.
James Rockford, Malibu, USA
Oliver can make what ever movies he wants, I don't think this one will make much money. What ever these Bush haters say or do, W. kept us from being attacked on our soil since 9-11. Good job W.
H. Hutchinson, Finksburg, MD, USA
Look it will do well outside of the USA because its bound to tell the story the rest of the world already thinks.The most scary thing today is that it US want to replace Bush with Vice President who with her creationist views and Global warming denial make Bush look like a free thinking radical!
Simon, Bristol, England
Not many Americans will go to see this movie. Unlike Europeans and those from many parts of the world, Americans know propaganda when they see it. Also unlike other countries we will not prohibit his right to be an angry liar.
Dennis, Memphis,
I just don't trust that the movie will be historically accurate. I'm not a fan of Bush, however, I feel that historic representations have to be based on facts. When movie producers take liberties, they do a public disservice.
Lewis Salem, NC, USA,
What makes Stone think that this movies will make money? All of those anti-American, anti-Irawq combat movies that have come out within the last five hears have done nothing but lose money.
Juan , LA, USA
When the time comes that this country needs a really effective propaganda filmmaker, we will want Oliver Stone to do the work. Keep Oliver Stone around and keep him busy until that time comes.
Giani, Franklin, USA
As silly as its premise was, Oliver's best work was Platoon. His career has nosedived since then. Hollywood is filled with people like him trying desparately trying to recapture the glory of a once succesful career. As you can see, nobody wants to finance him anymore. That is the kiss of death.
Darren, Los Angeles, usa
Oliver Stone has made a career of rewriting history with his won lie-filled versions of it. Anyone who takes his films seriously is a fool.
Sam, Houston, USA
i love his work it is entertaining and interesting. i am not looking for a news reel or history lesson when watching his work . i just want to be entertained by a different point of view.
Darren, Memphis, USA
Stone makes (generally) very watchable films. I don't go to the cinema to be told what to think or how to act. I go to be entertained. I couldn't give a monkey's what Stone believes in. If it's entertaining, Im sold. I make my own mind up about things by reading. You guys all need to lighten up
adam, london, uk
Bush is going to be gone in 3 months. No one is interested in him or his life story. Stone's movie is going to bomb, just most of his other junk.
Patrick Curry, Irvine, USA
I wonder if these Americans have ever seen his movies ?
-perhaps they are afraid ?
Simin Cohen , Leeds, UK
stone is cool; he is a thinking film maker who takes risks and that is to be admired. he has also lived the things he films. he is not a documentary maker, but someone who captures the sense of the time very well. good luck to you mr stone and ignore the rabble comments here.
James , London, UK
History is the winners version. That does not make it the truth. I appreciate people who atleast attempt to search and state it.
Kocher, Chennai, India
Why is it so difficult for you all to accept a point of view that popular history differs with.
e.g. Clay Shaw was found not guilty by the jury in 40 min. Garrison stood vindicated at a much later point in time when CIA revealed that Clay Shaw did work for them. So who was right?
Kocher, Chennai, India
I really liked platoon, natural born killers and born on the 4th of july. JFK was boring as anything though. not interested in W. though.
R.Gold, Sendai, Japan
Oliver Stone is a talented filmmaker who makes rotten movies. His skills are negated by his whacked out mindset and his acceptance of every idea put forth by the looney left. This film will be a failure in every sense of the word.
Dave Sims, Atlanta, USA
Stone is a joke and was parodied in the movie "Dave" for his conspiracy theories. No one but victims of Bush Derangement Syndrome will watch Stone's movie.
Michael Kennedy, Mission Viejo, United States
I would be amazed if this film makes its cost back. Nobody wants to see it. Bush haters don't want to see a film about Bush. Bush lovers certainly don't.
I'm thinking it will go the way of all the films about the Iraq war.
gbj, Austin, USA
If Barack gets elected, and does not repeal the Patriot Act, does not suspend FISA and does not retreat from Iraq, will the Great One criticize him with the same gusto? Me thinks not!
Hypocrite thy name is Oliver Stone.
Bill, St. Cloud, USA
As long as it bashes the President, and paints him a useless dumb fool, then Hollyweird and the rest of the "moonbats" will love it.
David, Holbrook, USA
Oliver Stone - The liberals history professor. As accurate as the politics behind him. If history doesn't fit his opinion he just rewrites it. We have a whole generation that thinks JFK was killed by a gay Cuban and that Jim Morrison was God. Scarey. And these people vote...and guess for whom?
Bob, Everett WA,
It took a jury in New Orleans about 40 minutes to refute the charges brought against Clay Shaw by the megalomaniac DA Jim Garrison.
Forty years on, Stone still can't figure out that Garrison was a threat to justice and not a hero.
Real clarity of vision there.
LPB, New Orleans, LA, USA
I for one would not grace a theatre that show this film. Whatever one may think of Presiident Bush, I believe the office of the President should be held above criticism. I also will not line the pockets of a man who so obviously hates his counrty.
Andrea, Ridgefield, USA
Another Hollywood flop. Doesn't even beg the question, "when will they ever learn"? They will never learn.
GL, Burmis, Canada
This piece of trash will not salvage Stone's career in any way, shape or fashion. Kicking someone when they're down is hardly sport in America - it's hardly like it matters at this point and no one would alter their vote in the general election on Nov 4 based on anything seen in this film. A waste
DennisinOio, New Carlisle, OH, USA
If Oliver Stone has so many problems with our President, why doesn't he run for office. Too scared to play in the big leagues so he settles on getting his jollies making millions on a movie that ridicules our President. You don't have to like him, but to do this in the time we are in is sad ad sick
Jennifer, Tulsa, USA
Mr. Stone is not a relevant contributor to our culture! His perverse interpretation, and evaluation, of current events is crude, unsohisticated and, simply, analogous to an 'intellectual wedgie'!
Stones' work can measured against the plot themes in 'South Park'.
Len Hobbs, Carmel, USA
Stone portrays all his stories through the cracked lense of his own view of moraity and his own take on events. It would be a bummer being Oliver Stone.
Larry G, Columbus, AMERICA
Obama like W. has also never seen " the corpses, the decay, the smell of flesh, or people who have been napalmed" like Oliver. Both McCain and Palin have sons in Iraq. Put down the doobie and granola bar, Oliver, your celebrity certitute is tiresome.
Hugo Fonseca, Los angeles, Usa
All of which raises the question of what Stone will do after W. He’s still working on a sympathetic documentary about the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
Need we say more about liberal bias.
P, W River, USA
I'd rather see the comedy An American Carol. Im tired of Hollywood preaching to me from everything to the environment to who to vote for, I get that on the news everyday. Comedy is the best medicine. Stone more than often takes stereotypes and rumors and exploits them as fact to sell tickets.
John, Raleigh, United States
To call Stone's movie a biopic is to imply that it is at least an attempt to portray the life of Bush. Given Stone's body of work, I'm reasonably sure that bulk the factual portion will be limited to the fact that G.W. Bush is the president. The rest will likely be wild speculation and ranting.
Jeff, Luxembourg , Luxembourg
Oliver Stone makes horrible movies. It's not his political views that make them bad. If you watch Alexander, it looks like a 16 yr old made it. The views were just horrible, the acting and story made no sense. Libs don't have jobs so no it won't.
Jason, Goldsboro NC, US
In short, no he won't. The film, like most put out today, will run for a few weeks in the theaters and then be rushed to DVD before the Christmas holidays.
Dave, San Francisco, USA
Oliver Stone is both a peddler and a poster child of the ignorance that he pretends to be bothered about... and which is actually more common in places like Los Angeles than in Kansas City.
Joe, New York, US