Wake Up With These:
The New York Times:
The Front Page
Summary of the NYT front page, Friday October 24, 2008.
NPR
Tell Me More:
Stories: 1) UNCH Pillay Set To Observe U.N. Day 2) Businessman Bob Johnson Invests In Liberia 3) Darfur Women Scarred By Fighting 4) Cultural Workouts, A New Fitness Trend
Fresh Air:
Stories: 1) Charlie Kaufman On Being — And Directing 2) The Many Facets Of 'Changeling' Eastwood
Slate:
Culture Gabfest
In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss the unexpected catharsis they felt watching Oliver Stone's W. Then, in a special lightning round, they revisit past Gabfest topics, including the ongoing Fey/Palin tragicomedy, Rachel Maddow, and the future of the current environmental movement.
Audio player after the jump. Or click here to launch the player in a new window so you can browse while you listen. Or, head over to The Media Bar and listen there.
I saw "W." this past weekend. In the movie, Oliver Stone humanized Bush in important ways (it's too easy to demonize him) by presenting Bush's large personality, his wanting to do better, his relationship with his family, and, most importantly, the relationship with his father. But Stone didn't do anything beyond that. He told us Bush was human, but that's something most of us already knew.
It's hard to tease out the good and the bad from a political movie with such a specific focus. Should it be judged as a movie entirely without factoring in the reality on which it is based? If it is factored in, where does a review of the movie become a criticism of the life it is based on? I'm inclined to do the former, to judge it as a movie removed from its inspiration, but every time I try to do that I find my thinking bleeding into the latter.
The movie is structured in a fragmented chronology, jumping backward and forward in time (like "Lost" or "Damages"). The fractures help to contain the largeness of Bush -- the movie holds what it can, and whatever it can't hold together, it lets leak out in between the time jumps. Josh Brolin's performance was very good, if not great, and he occasionally disappeared beneath the Bush character. Although, the times he wasn't able to disappear, I couldn't help but think of Will Ferrell doing Bush on SNL.
Review of "W." continued after the jump.
Thandie Newton, who played Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, was allowed by Stone to do a disservice to the real Rice. Newton's version was a bird-lik and sycophantic caricature, and she really did belong on SNL. That performance was a gaping hole in the cast of supporting characters. Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld, Toby Jones as Karl Rove, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney potrayed their real-life counterparts with a finer-tuned understanding. Jeffery Wright (of "Angels and America") as Colin Powell seemed awfully young and did strange, distracting things with his voice, probably in an effort to add the gravitas that the real Colin Powell possesses naturally. As some of the portrayals morphed into impersonations, the difficulties of portraying living breathing people became more and more apparent.
As funny was this movie often was, Stone also did a disservice by keeping the exploration of Bush's character an external endeavor. Based on this movie, W.'s was intimidated and overwhelmed by his father while being simultaneously and remarkably competitive with him. W. used is relationship with his father to polish and sharpen his own claws, but Stone misses an opportunity to add dimension when he refuses to offer the internal, nearly-pathological motivations of a man like W. If W. blames his father for all of his problems, then what kind of mentality exists that would use his father in such a way? W's representation of his father is an excuse to misbehave, to fight, and, ultimately, to be President. W's ego led him to the presidency, and it is his ego that will force him out of it so disgracefully.
But Stone's focus on the Iraq war as the ultimate symbol of W.'s failure as a leader points to a misfired arrow by Stone, one that went more than just shy of the personality bullseye. The same man who could invade Iraq so recklessly is the same man who could refuse to lead us during the financial crisis. What we did learn from this movie, which comes out at a time when we are hungry for information, is that W. is human and not pschypathic. What we needed to know is how an unchecked ego and a sense of entitlement can lead us to where are now. We do get that, eventually, but only when we combine the fictions of the film with the rest of the facts of W.'s presidency.
Synopses via moviefone.
I want to see this one for the same reasons everyone else does Manohla Dargis reviews the movie in The New York Times:"The pleasure of Mr. Stone’s work has never been located in restraint but in excess, a commitment to extremes that can drown out the world or, as in this film, give it newly vivid, hilarious and horrible form." 
Filth and Wisdom - After more than two decades as one of the world's most recognizable stars, Madonna steps behind the camera for the first time with this comedy-drama about a handful of bohemians struggling to make a name for themselves in London, which she both wrote and directed.
I mean, we all know that film is not her most flattering medium, but I feel kind of bad for her. She is getting divorced from her director husband. What if her own directorial debut bombs while she's trying to reestablish her independence? Manohla Dargis reviews this one as well. One of her kinder lines:"'Filth and Wisdom' is a ridiculously easy target, but it also creaks and strains with more ambition than most mainstream throwaways that just recycle the usual guns and poses."
More movies that I really don't want to see after the jump.
Max Payne - Rockstar Games' double-gunned action franchise comes to the big screen thanks to director John Moore (The Omen) and Mark Wahlberg, who embodies the title character of Max Payne, a widowed cop hell-bent on delivering justice no matter what the cost as he investigates a string of killings in his city. Mila Kunis and Chris O'Donnell head up the supporting cast, with Beau Thorne adapting the screenplay for the 20th Century Fox production. (PG-13)
The Secret Life of Bees - Dakota Fanning and Jennifer Hudson star as two friends who run away from home in order to solve the mystery surrounding one of their mothers in this adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's best-selling coming-of-age novel, The Secret Life of Bees. Queen Latifah, Sophie Okonedo, Alicia Keys, and Tristan Wilds co-star in picture as three sisters who take the two girls in and teach them to care for and raise bees. Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball) provides the adaptation as well as the direction for the Overbrook Entertainment production.
The Rachel Maddow Show is starting to hit its stride. I really like Maddow. I want to love her, but there are times when she seems to be standing on Keith Olbermann's soap box (although anything that keeps him from using it is probably a good thing). I wish she would leave that thing behind completely and just do what she does best -- talk TO her guests and not AT her audience.
Last night was one of her best shows yet. She sat down and chatted with both John Kerry and Oliver Stone (not simultaneously). In her conversation with Oliver Stone, Maddow melded the roles of politics and the arts into a united goal with this beautiful sentence: "It's a fuzzy line between changing people's minds and changing the world." I don't know if it's entirely hers (I kind of hope it is), but even if it's not, she used it almost the way Obama would have. And that's saying something. (Incidentally, I am not the only one who was struck by this line.)
I think the level of these two Democratic guests appearing on her show is a testament to the promise she possesses as a credible source of news. Is there any doubt that in an overwhelmingly Democratic Washington she is going to become the go-to source? I have a feeling that as much as Olbermann sees himself as Bill O'Reilly's good twin brother, it might be Maddow who steps in and shows him how a sister does it better.