Frost/Nixon (2008) -vs- W. (2008)
Disgraced Republican Presidents Edition
The Smackdown. As the nation holds its collective breath, waiting for Inauguration Day and the end of the long national nightmare that was the Bush administration, Richard Nixon arrives at the multiplex to remind us all of another horrible yet riveting chapter of American history. The timing couldn't be better. As we carve our Thanksgiving turkeys, we are truly thankful for term limits and investigative journalism and award season films. While we make a wish for the rapid and full restoration of criminally bent (if not irrevocably broken) International and Constitutional law, we ponder this little holiday season headscratcher: Nixon or W? The lesser (or greater) of two evildoers?
The Challenger. Ron Howard's “Frost/Nixon” (2008) beautifully captures Michael Sheehan's and Frank Langella's much-lauded portrayals of the title characters as played previously on Broadway and London's West End. The film started shooting only a week after the play closed; its screenplay is a worthy adaptation by its playwright Peter Morgan. Few plays make it to screen so fully intact, and the audience owes a huge debt of gratitude for whatever behind-the-scenes dealmaking resulted in such a rare gift. Langella has already earned a Tony and a Drama Desk award and an Outer Critics Circle award, and he seems a sure bet to add an Academy Award nomination to his collection. Sheehan more than holds his own as Frost; it's not for nothing that Frost's name appears first in the title. The subject of the film is Frost's groundbreaking series of televised interviews that ended with Tricky Dick's game-changingly cathartic admission of guilt regarding his role in the Watergate scandal. Even though we know exactly how this one ends, the dramatic tension sustains.












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