and despite the fact that, according to some youtube comments, i’m a “far-left whiny little bitch,” i must say that this movie didn’t do it for me.  now, i wasn’t necessarily looking for a bush-bashing film, and in fact i had heard that w. actually takes on a sympathetic view of the president–and i would’ve been cool with that.  especially with today’s political climate, seeing something that intelligently and introspectively sides with bush would’ve been a refreshing change of view.  so politics aside, the movie was just hellllllllllllaaaaaaaa boring.

maybe it was the repetitive soundtrack, or the lack of a climax in the story, or the fact that the events in the film are so recent i felt like i had just seen half of them on the news this week, but in creating a biopic about perhaps one of today’s most controversial public figures, director oliver stone forced himself to be so non-partisan and non-opinionated that all that was left was monotony.

sure, stone gets his jabs and embracements in.  there are points in the script where you can tell they inserted famous bush-flubs for laughs, like his pronunciation of “nuculer” or him choking on a pretzel.  but the film was draped with a lingering sense of self-consciousness, in not wanting to poke fun so much that it became a widescreen version of Saturday Night Live, but at the same time not wanting to be so sympathetic to the protagonist that it was seen as conservative pre-election propaganda. the conflict here is obvious–the point of a story is to make you love the main character, but because of the timing of this release, stone had to consider the fact that a large portion of the audience don’t want to love bush.

unfortunately, by not choosing a side, w. resorts to hopscotching between the two extremes, and at best falling flat dead in the middle, and not taking the audience anywhere.  and because the audience isn’t taken anywhere (and in stone’s defense, the story that he was trying to write technically isn’t over yet because it’s still going on) when at the end of the film the words “the end” pop up, i was left feeling like instead the words should’ve been, “that’s all.”

even still, the acting is pretty good and the backstories of bush’s career obstacles and strained relationship with his father will unearth new perspective to many audience members.  but if you’ve ever taken a poli-sci class or sat through an episode of anderson cooper, there won’t be much that’s new.

but perhaps what overshadows all of this is how WEIRD it was to see laura bush and condoleezza rice played by parker posey and thandie newton, two hella sexy actresses who have had nipple slips.

awwwkwarrrrrrrrdddddd…