Duba-U

****
Oliver Stone’s light satire, feeling mercifully less agenda-than-entertainment driven, soaks the screen with a 131 minute psychology profile of a character who might just as easily have been a store manager at Walmart as President of the most powerful country in the world. In the current atmosphere, W. could have been a hatchet job or a total tragedy. It’s neither. It is a well researched, nearly evenhanded if hastily put together- shot in May for November release- silhouette of the Bush Jr. Presidency.

I’m not a fan of Stone films, often finding the Director’s objectivity filled less with fact than personal ideology corrupted most often by his politics. But this brazen attempt to display the trials of a sitting President- the first ever of its kind- attracted me right off. I’ve been strangely drawn to the commercials of the film and I think it’s simply because, like everyone else, I’ve wondered just how an administration could get so far off track so fast.

Using flashbacks, dream sequences and bits of newsreel, the film jiggits its way unapologetically and a bit too jarring through George’s life. With glimpses of the party-boy, failed business and political ventures, and the worst of his alcoholism we get a view of a man who matures into his failures until touched by the hand of God and led to the promised land of the Presidency. All of this is backlit by the meat of the story, life in the administration after 911 and during the early days of planning the invasion of Iraq. Here we begin to see just how W. might have been led to war as easily as he was led to the Presidency; a delusion of purpose, driven by the desire to please.

This truly could be the story of a man whose highest goal is to prove to his father his worth by becoming the manager of a Walmart. W. is a father and son story lacking substantial depth and too often veneered by odd cuts of George’s dream job as owner of a baseball team. But, W. has one great plus . . . a wonderful cast that resembles the White House ensemble both physically and in temperament. From Richard Dreyfuss as the cunning Dick Cheney to Thandie Newton as the nearly boot-licking Condi Rice, the over-the-top cast revolves around James Brolin in his first leading role almost as if he were the real deal.

W. is a good pick for a matinee or an evening’s DVD choice if you’re a center-of-the-road moderate. If you want to see him strung up, there’s not enough rope here, and if you want to see him deified you’re going to have to wait until after the Rapture hits Hollywood.

Hot Cast Burns

****
The fabulous Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, are certainly two of the more eccentric filmmakers in Hollywood these days. I often wonder, like the break-up of the Beatles, what complexion their work would take on if they made films separately. Which one carries the humor, which the hatchet?

Burn After Reading is another in the Coen’s series of dark humor montages. There’s no wood-chipper at the end but there is the often used hatchet, and as familiar as Hitchcock’s pacing there is the unsuspecting victim- amazed that their own death is so startlingly straightforward. What is revealed to us, and never the characters, is the complex manner in their end arrives. That, as always in the Coen’s work , is only part of the fun of this film.

CIA analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) has just lost his job and plans revenge by writing a tell-all book. This is perfect timing for his philandering wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), to throw him out on his ear. She can now pressure Harry (George Clooney), the man she’s been having an affair with, to leave his wife. But Harry’s sleeping with several other women and he’s not crazy about the idea.

Meanwhile, at the Hard Bodies gym phys-ed instructor Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) is obsessing over her looks and trying to figure out how to get the money she needs for unnecessary plastic surgery. When she acquires a CD disc left in the gym with Osborne’s book notes on it she and fellow trainer Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) believe they have fallen into a trove of secret government “stuff.” They plan to blackmail Osborne or sell the information to the Russians.

As the film winds it’s way through the tight twists and hairpin turns it becomes disjointed in parts and seems to scurry from scene to scene, often without pause leaving characters in the lurch, but it’s the cast binds this screwball mess together, delivering all the laughs at the right moments. If you loved McDormand in Fargo, Clooney in Oh Brother, and just plain love John Malkovich, you’ll love this film. Oh yeah, then there’s Brad Pitt like you’ve never seen him … totally lovable, dude.

Thunder Skewers Hollywood

It’s not often that we see an industry submit itself to the hack vulgarity of examined self recrimination and blue collar guffaws. For example, we’ll never see Detroit point out, with reserved chuckles, how isolated they are from reality and how many years it’s going to take for them to get their pants back up from around their ankles. We’ll never be privy to a journalistic Q & A with a Wall Street mogul who’ll describe, with coy embarrassment the disgusting greed that powers their business. This comic honesty is the charm of the Hollywood-centric “Tropic Thunder”.

While shooting a Vietnam era war film, the director, who has his professional neck and other parts of his anatomy on the line, becomes convinced that the only way to get the best from his crew of bratty thespians is to drop them in the middle of the jungle where they will be forced to face reality. Through a series of mishaps the actors become entangled in a real-life struggle with a gang of Asian drug runners. Of course high-jinks ensue - that’s what happens when there’s mishaps. And, while the high-jinks are regular movie stuff there’s enough here to keep you laughing as you watch the skewering of almost all the typecast “types” that we know and love.

The lampooning of Hollywood begins before the film starts and it doesn’t end until the end with what is the best cameo of the year by Tom Cruise. As stellar as this Cruise bit is it is outdone by the whining, drug-binging, narcissistic, pseudo-philosophic actors Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) who have become caricatures of themselves in the illusory maze of Hollywoodland.

“Tropic Thunder” is funny and if I critique anything too harshly it’s the third act of the film where the plot bogs down becoming entangled in it’s own story. It’s at this point where the protagonist’s must begin to redeem themselves so that we’ll cheer them in the end. This is handled in much the same manner as many Hollywood films and it becomes just another Talladega Nights. But, it does redeem itself and pull out of a complete nosedive to give us more Hollywood hosing right at the end.

Not a recommend for a full-price night viewing, but this is a good ride to catch on a hot afternoon.