Change Your Image
bobdobbs888
Reviews
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Magic made this movie about magic.
Nice to see good work go pop for a change. My only reservation at calling this 'a real creative work' (there's very few of these in audio/video, at least that I've heard of) is a question I should have to ask if this IS a real deal: lots of the 'working actor' level is written in cliché. Of course, this fits in this kind of realism (frequently Spanish). The probability is that it is on purpose, whew, I can keep my inspiration from this film. There is a lot of it, though. The casting of Keaton cries out as he is ALWAYS FUNNY, and Galifianakis (who I've never liked in a movie) ditto; they're surreal from the get-go. >>>>> Best hand-held EVER. Combined w/the 'painterly' 'live' mix (lots of single quotes, this guy is ALIVE) it becomes a kind of 3D swim. >>>>> Inarritu planned the action-painting, instead of 'finding' it amidst years of pre-planning preparation more usual by actioners. Audio/video makes for a kind of tight milieu because of the whole history of the gestalt; kind of a modal-guard in place. Of course, the planned structure/tactics allowed for all kinds of spontaneity, so, more than enough air to fly. >>>>>> I hope this film stimulates like "Pulp Fiction" cause we sorely need for this kind of A/V to proliferate. >>>>> The binary system we live in would be awfully dull but for a number of treats in the mix, such as '2 for 1', e.g.. Being binary, triads abound, both outside and within the 'set'. However one can find this trick of transcendence in the box of Kracker Jax will always pay off. Being in one set is a necessary limit to allow for seeing outside the set which is 1+1 making a third, a triad which allows you to move on to the next level (finding the origination outside the set within the set itself, self-reference, another hot concept). All this SOP for creativity. >>>>> Levels woven by hand-held and various other segues, brilliant. Kudos to El Negro! >>>>> I especially loved the study of modes as useful in making the levels. Modes are so great, so are modals. "Everything is alive!", allows for subtlety using the components of modes, styles. It allows for 'corny' dialog, clichés, etc. You almost have to use them in this kind of environment. >>>>> Best of all was the layer of the spiritual (Inarritu's fiery Mexican trumping the shiny metal of the USA). >>>> I create this way and know it well. Lovely to see it done so well. I was inspired by it; that's what creativity does. (I particularly enjoyed the nose shot: pride.) Similarities to "Vanilla Sky".
In Time (2011)
How to make a cool flick--baby, it ain't hard, just rare
Yeah, Justin TImberlake can do it. He's talented and probably can do any of the related star turns in his general gestalt. Add him to a quality production where the writing takes a lesson from the cable model of writer-produced shows and it's a simple result—a movie worth watching, worth giving to. Not too many of these in cinema these days. The writer's touch is all over this with witty dialogue. Youth-market stuff is kept succinct and doesn't pander (too much). Craig Armstrong does good music, although not as good as his regular stuff. Really good electronic music is sooo powerful in film but rarely used. "In The Valley of Elah" is a good example with Mark Isham doing original stuff.
Andrew Niccol is the man here. I don't follow all the filmography (or discography), but as soon as I heard he wrote "The Truman Show" I (had to use IMDb... As Niccol is quoted Hollywood is reluctantly getting some real talent from abroad, esp the UK/empire. His earlier "Lord of War" was excellent, as was "Gattaca".
Enough can't be said of "The Truman Show". Masterpiece. As a metaphysician, this film plays with "the only new show in town". And gets it really right, not just partially like many Hollywood rewrittens. I guess they left his script alone or mostly.
"In TIme" is nothing like Truman, but shows how 'easy' it can be to write intelligently (and film the f'er). A handy analog of today's Occupy/Leftist story done really well. A good stock of UKish actors (how many of these Western pretties have they got over there eating bad cooking and staying thin? This is another invasion we need in Ad-America. He started in non- American commercials like the Scott bros (excuse all my ignorance where it shows, I have no resume for the "New Yorker" et al).
Several good leftist (truth) points made as the conceit plays out. Could actually be a great one season TV series if we traced the origin of the genetic plot and the cabal behind it, etc. Cillian Murphy and whoever played the head of the 'Minutemen' stand out.
This Niccol cat (New Zealand) reminds me of Christopher and Jonathan Nolan—INTELLIGENT. How'd they get into LA w/o being mediocre? Is a 'revolution' of some sort going on? btw, there's no end to what smarts can do with audio/video—guess how many genius scripts (as Mort Sahl once said) are in drawers in LA?
Adam Resurrected (2008)
The novel's original title: "Adam, Son of Dog"
Paul Schrader graduates into the "you can mix anything with anything" school of film making and does it with a national treasure in Israel. An Israeli/German/American production, Jeff Goldblum gives his best performance as a Geman-Jew performer/magician who goes through the 3rd Reich syndrome of modern imagined hells in order to describe a loving relationship between two humans lost in the performance/performer confusion. Schrader's strict Calvinist upbringing has always had him swimming deep into deepness and here he's once again in his element. He goes into detail on the commentary about his new thing in directing going from Hollywood classicism to the "anything goes" of today's transcendence into free-style mixing coming out of the electronic music revolution of the '90s. He talks about this at the following times on the commentary: 37:16—43:15, 45:50—48:52, 49:49—59:02, and 1:21:18— 1:24:09. Adapted from Yoram Kaniuk's '70s novel, Schrader needed to 'get hip' to have a chance with this creative masterwork. So did Goldblum who is working against his own past gestalt of clowning and goofing. Here he ironically can utilise a lot of this schtick; and he outdoes himself actually acting as good as he 'teaches' in LA (to get lots of legendary ass). Not a masterpiece, but ably offers a real adaptation of a very complex novel, a very rare accomplishment as Schrader talks about in the commentary and panel discussion. Fossilized Hollywood gets real stupid regarding 'translating' since they think they will miss the original product and lose the magical 'free' $. Art is actually required. Schrader is an honorary Jew and very similar in personality. Looking forward to the second half of his amazing career.
Starting Out in the Evening (2007)
The process that made this movie is same as how you watch this movie
So fine! Refined. Very impeccable. Reminds me of "The Hours" by Stephen Daldry from Michael Cunningham's novel and screenplay (w/David Hare). Probably beautiful book becoming an exquisite film.---------Andrew Wagner directing (from his and Fred Parnes' screenplay) is something rare in pop (film)—quality not dumbed down. Gem of an Indy, this is very good work from a very good book (I haven't read it). Add very good acting et al, and you get 'very good'. I'd say great, but that's so hoary and 'pop'. Real work, here. --------–One of the best commentary's, too—Wagner write-speaks—a real gentleman. 'Smart' is more fun and better all around. Finally.------—Real sense of beauty in the writing. No clichés, movie 'arcs', or 'story' fodder. As McLuhan and Mountain Men said, "the process is the message, stupid". Paraphrasing Wagner, we let the characters alone to find their way but we didn't let them fall into the ruts; definitely not (!). This was never going to be a May/December romance".----------–They filmed in 18 days, $250,000—"we let the urgency make us confident in out choices (not the other way round)". Very much like "The Hours"—you don't need to say, eg, "the acting is good". You don't need to say anything; just be inspired, changed. Change doesn't happen in time, so that's where you will be.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Forget the cutting room floor, it's on director Richard Kelly's brain pan
Any one who claims to understand this is suffering from metaphysics-envy. Of all the great and near-great metaphysical films these last 15 yrs, this is a wannabe. Actually, this is a student film at some film school. Technically and acting-wise it is adequate for commercial release—however this got done.
Again, we have the newish problem of the director failing to put the subjective on the screen. What the f%##!? What's the problem here? It can't all be explained by 'being too close to the trees' thing. All directors have this problem; and painters, etc. These LA-spoiled twats just get stars in their eyes and go all manic-wow-wow on our asses. Won't ANYONE tell these dilettantes the truth?
All tied up in the tech/glam of f'in H'wood, fer chrissakes!
The actual time-travel plot is spottily described by RIchard Kelly on the DVD commentary, and besides being very vague, there is NO way anyone could see it from the film itself. So many films these days suffer from the same 'problem'. It actually is a form of apocalypse-insanity. EVERYONE has manic/depressive disorder. The 'lucky' ones with money/opportunity are ego- blown from where their maturity was arrested, and the rest of us are sitting on massive anger from our deprivation-torture in this Domination Reality (consensus reality). Anger we don't feel we have a right to have becomes guilt. Anger we feel we'll get in trouble for becomes depression.
Teeny-boppers think they 'get it' about this film. BTW, Jake Gyllenhaal has got to go. The Mossad has to whack this sucker. How does an average looking guy with barely mediocre talent get cast all over the place? This is the only thing worthy of discussion about this film/video. The only thing worth discussion re Hollywood, period
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
An Englishman to be proud of, but it's an adaptation only
In a deleted scene on the DVD, Smiley fries one egg sunny side up, not scrambled (a la Bond?); crass rock music playing loud. Is it from another apt? After about 30 seconds he lowers the volume a touch and begins frying. He then sits and eats.Tinker Tailor is a visually delicious meal somewhat unusual for England which still eats as though they're soldiers bivouacking; conquering cowboys.
Art on the edge of a bayonet, in England, the terminus of pure masculinity, the current world expression of the Domination Reality, the 'Matrix'. They 'invented' capitalism, our God. The bad God that dreams of humans becoming absolute machines, proving the system's prime thesis that we are an island apart (the inner fear all humans have long had as the lurking Bogey Man in all our philosophies).
Europe (white people) epitomises our only credo: domination by the masculine principle; logical thought only—no marriage with the feminine and subsequent offspring, synergy.
This rule by logic-only, excluding thought's feminine, the illogical, irrational, and definitely excluding the breakthroughs, the synergies, is played out in le Carre''s basic 101 on politics. The hidden part of thinking, lying, works because no one has or uses intuition. Spying is the world created by the artificial layer of lying or secrets; the best we can do with our truncation. It's easy to have this 'black curtain' world—civilization is a perfect straight man this Abbot and Costello, our comedy act. This same approach in finance can create excessive derivatives, visible and not, as we found out in 2007.
le Carre'loves to play with these mechanics in all his books, esp the Smiley Trilogy. Our hero has to decipher the layer creation here involving the double agent. 'Flipping' is the lingua franca in an inductive watery environment. Knowing is up for grabs with verification and trust on shaky ground; having no stability, like an incomplete electron ring. Intuition can't be used because it has been expunged from the system. Looking for lost car keys only under the street light because it's the only place they could be seen, science only works where it works; in fact a very small life raft in the ocean. How can we know the truth? We have to simulate it with checks and balances, eg loyalty, redundancies, tests, et al, which at best are inconclusive. We have to 'hope'.
The double, or mole, has to exploit these jury-rigged methods. Triples, quadruples (double doubles) likewise. We're talking some fun here (for those who enjoy this type of thing). Even the trilogy books don't get all over this stuff enough, but there's a lot more than in either the '79 BBC 6 hr or this one. It's a matter of analysing inductive data deductively, without blinking. Smiley's our master here. He's a personality type rarely seen on screen because he's so internal and not obviously noticeable. But it's this personality that's optimum for dealing with the world underneath; a Prince of Darkness, Batman character. le Carre'gets into it, but more as an observer (he models Smiley after his father). He's trying to apprehend how a Smiley would function. Oldman, same as le Carre', is faking it with exaggerated stillness and intimated 'mysterious aura' substituted for the real thing; Guinness was closer, being more this type in life.
So rare to find examples; try, Elliot Gould in "The Long Goodbye" and real life, or Gabriel Byrne in "In Treatment" )tv), close, like Guinness. Instead of having power over others, which Oldman seems to have; better would be others yielding to Smiley's vacuum, they co-opt themselves. Smiley, like a therapist, logs all they exhibit or imply and presents it to the one focus; how does it fit with the mole probe. Smiley 'seduces' others act and in so doing see the larger gestalt that it comes from, goes to. This is felt more than thought. Smiley is emotion first, thoughts and feelings always being paired. Emotionless seeming on the outside, he's mostly emotions inside, with incredible refining intellect sandwiching the data inbetween. A giant chewing jaw, God's stomach digesting. Any real question answers itself and Smiley is that process. He enjoys the meal with great pleasure. This ability to see the beginnings and endings of a given piece of data is visioning. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a vision is a thousand pictures. Like Merlin he just has to keep from being imprisoned in stone by unrequited love, the lovely Ann. It's love of humanity, after all, that drives this process and it's here, in Smiley's core that he can be susceptible, can doubt. The genius Karla read this in the India interrogation and instructed Hayden. Beautifully crafted by le Carre', however he came on to it. The sign of artists making theatrics are these intuitive finds—all the great movies have these unintended illogicals. Their passion leads them; we all have all in us to some degree, they see beyond the convention. Holism's a beautiful element in our boilerplate metaphysics.
With Smiley becoming head of the Circus at the end, Karla is next to fall and a sequel is signaled at the end.
Great set design and atmosphere throughout. Fabulous UK actors old and young, with Tom Hardy, the new Steve McQueen (who can act) and Stephen Graham set to take off if not already.
Being an adaptation, the film gives up being anything else, alas. Adaptations, which are a kind of sequel because they sacrifice all for reduction, must add something categorically new or they are a subtraction. The Godfather and French Connection II's are the few examples. Sequelling has been held hostage by the business of film. Contrary to propaganda, capitalism, Domination Reality here, does not spur innovation.
Drive (2011)
Film school teaches how to make parts of films, I guess...
Delicious disappointment—like when I make deep-fried calamari and the breading slides off sloppily, but is still very edible in a way. And the opening of Drive is so cool, too. (Cannes gave best director). -----–It certainly isn't "Vanishing Point" with Barry Newman driving to Heaven, driving to salvation in the '70's.------A lot of nice pieces of a movie but no vision to ground it and bless it with spirit so it can 'live on', like the great memorables. Actually, hearing the director's interview, it seems his vision had no way of translating to a grounded video. His ideas sound coherent and euro (it's another invasion), but he has no grammar skills or crafts to make it a movie. A tone poem recited with chamber music live on stage might have been an exciting night in Paris or Stockholm, but it can't find it's way to feature non-experimental video. To translate requires cats who can really hold a vision between their teeth while creating new and newish movie techniques all the while fending off the interlopers in HollyBollywood.-------Movies like this make me want to be a script doctor like Robert Towne; it would be sooo easy. This needed more of any and less of so many. The opening theme ends in ten minutes replaced by another cool concept (having the mob finance his pro racing career), only to be replaced several more times. Only one more encore of the opening, otherwise we have about five cool movies. The opening was so good I can't let it go. It's also the ad presentation for this flick. So much could have been done developing and evolving this idea of a pro getaway driver who monitors the police radio and has an asberger-ian memory of the enormity of LA's streets and police procedure. It felt partially like a video game, 'Matrix' style— absolutely the coolest; this could have been an iconic cult favorite, like the great ones. Ryan Gosling is the new Paul Newman/Brad Pitt. Add a little gameboy-and/or- spiritual philosophy and who knows how high this could have reached. Unlike all the quality long-form on cable TV, this 2 hr could have been an LA bullet train-to- the-front-brain. But, alas, actually falls to a failed indy style high voltage mess.--—--Logically it connects, but emotionally it disconnects at every turn. It can't ground and be continuous. The continuity would build whatever you want to build and make all subsequent moments (let alone scenes) count and deepen. This is the foundation of melodrama which IS modern films, even comedies. The best thrillers compound all this, making the thing explode! ('...dancing' to the tick of a clock timer)----—So you have a fine moment that is allowed to evaporate and actually recede because it isn't allowed to touch the lingua franca, the syntax that IS a feature entertainment. No syntax is created. There is no 'time code', if you will, to monitor and act as referent to the cascading of activity. Usually this is done with a cementing 'quiet' sub-scene, or something that reiterates/adds somehow what's gone on recently. Compare to "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" by Sydney Lumet—it's a 'network' of pre and post referring that hones this into a sword of intensity. Drive had no chance of any of this once they introduced so many premises and didn't develop any. The internal narrative Winding Refn had in his head just didn't get over to the style gestalt that is a film. Have I reiterated enough to make the point?-------—I also don't understand why these indy oriented guys don't bring in 20-30 semi-extras to fill in all the spaces of a film, you know, like in LIFE. Wouldn't have to pay 'em much.-------–This could have been a Vanishing Point of the new era leading to so many roads cyber/cyborgian. Well, Oscar Isaac in a supporting role is someone to keep an eye on. The rest of the 6 or so cast were all very good actors/presences but actually contributed to the vision migration. Drive would be great to study in film school, or for all the new have-cameras have-Final Cut Pros out there never to be in a school for film.
The Help (2011)
No Summary
Two main things about this film. First is the matter of 'radical' politics, leftist politics — or, just plain, and frequently, as here, obvious truth. Common sense truth. In a crazy context such as our world of the 'masculine' principle dominating in a 'Domination Reality', truth looks funny, if it appears at all. Just attempting to tell the King he is naked puts that argument at several kinds of risks of being misunderstood. The best approach is to create a truthful world elsewhere and not participate in the Domination World except to leave FROM it (and to understand rather than be understood). ----------— From what I've just said, my point can be clearly seen. A secondary criticism of the film is the resemblance it has to classic 'Liberal (/Progressive) presentations; it looks manipulative. It 'looks' this way generally because the status quo Domination has the tilted playing field set as level. With out larger context we say "People are the same everywhere, survival of the fittest" etc. The obvious truths like in this film, as well as all the rest, our World doesn't even recognize. So we cant speak. "I must scream but I have no mouth", paraphrasing.-------–The other thing about "The Help" is the central emphasis on the key concept of domination in general — to dominate is to be/become dominated. This happens throughout, but is more obvious at extremes; like in this film with parenting forced on slaves who become the real Parent. This is nicely shown and is put central, where it belongs. -------–Btw, southern broads, yes, are generally just like these ditzes — they're not exaggerated.-----–The two main black women's acting is extremely good. -------- If this film were done in a more realistic and serious style it would be too hard to watch. Impossible to watch — the world would end.
El ángel exterminador (1962)
No Summary
Paraphrasing this guy Ripstein, a Mexican producer's son who got to hang around during filming, "Time is deleted and now represented as space. It's moving, a circle." Leaving us to consider what the 'actions' in the spaces are. "Instructions from and to the unconscious."–-- —It's as long as a feature film. It's not entertaining. It wasn't and wasn't expected to be a success. Bunuel had to compromise on a lot of things and 'make-do'. He invented/discovered as he made it; a man creates.--------I guess it's a trade-off—a lot of work on a long block of time making a singular thing instead of many things, many hits in the ether. But it's a film —a considerable 'event', more committmenting than the 'smaller' things, at least during it's time. A butterfly for essentially, all the days.--–Of course film is sights and sounds together, the same as our quotidian metaphysical phenomena we're all 'fooled' by. Maybe that's the allure, unless it's a control-fest army project they're addicted to. But not creatives like Bunuel. He's one of my guys.-—Different but probably influential to "Savages" (1972 by Ivory/Merchant), the Michael O'Donoghue ejaculant that's good for what's ailin ya. At least, O'Donoghue goes about it differently — so beautifully showing the rape of the Feminine through All of Civilization. "...they know not what they do". "'F' it!" Bunuel's probably doing the same thing; it's a 90,000 year roadshow.---—Just watch out for the fakers with their structures and trappings. Like a lot of Woody Allen's last 25 films or so — purportedly showing this battle royal but bogged down by Howard Stern-like narcissism and self- importance. Can't get near a sub-conscious for fear of losing 'me'. Thus the fakers miss the real action and merely pose internal antipathies which wind up right-wing status quo.----— Back to the universal knowledge — creatives must override their personal agendas to transcend. After all, creating means making something that wasn't there before. One stands up in their moment; as their truths are alive and touch, it prevails.--—–Bunuel used archetypes, O'Donoghue language (very entertainingly!) — both are 'regular guys' you'd want to have an espresso with.
Savages (1972)
none
So Michael O'Donoghue wound up in this movie...alriiiiiiight!
Known as 'Mister Mike', first head writer, and the guy who essentially established the weird part (aired in last 1/2 hr) of Saturday Night LIve, and also co-founder of Natl Lampoon, among many other achievements.
A good bio, Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue by Dennis Perrin. Mr Mike was a literary terrorist who had a rare thing, the 'killer instinct'. A lefty, he fought against what he perceived as soft things like New Age, romanticism, and other nicenesses. He was a hip wild man with a brain tumor. An angry man.
While the main idea for "Savages" was Ivory/Merchant and the general layout was probably Trow's the dialogue must have been pure Mr Mike. Not a 'complete' movie, but as a presentation of O'Donoghue it's gold. Because of Merchant/Ivory the production was quite good which makes for a paradox—normal-seeming film, but absolutely far out.
Literary all the way, O'Donoghue deconstructed the deconstruction (throw a part of another decon in there and you have magic (transcendence)—2+, or three-ish, if you will. Three being the first resolution of the first bifurcation—1 manifesting as phenomenology (polar opposites, 2), creating movement between the two, or change (3).
A basic theme in this grand satire of culture/civilization is the domination of masculine over feminine, of ration-only over rational AND irrational together. Of logic-only over logic and illogic together. This is played out masterfully, eg, in the Miramar discussion in the Dinner Party, but runs throughout. Style is used creatively to great effect—style being so misunderstood by almost everyone. Here it is portrayed as a mode or gestalt that holds together long enough to convey a subset of mores, folkways et al. Then it is pitted against another style, all within the scene itself—just like modal jazz. Add to this that the dynamics involved are esoteric and you have the main reason this film is not well understood or appreciated—it would just look like weirdness, however amusing. In fact, most creativity IS modal, which is basic flexibility, freedom of expression. Staying in musical 'keys' is essentially rigidity, like the Well Tempered Clavier of the rigid masculine-dominating West. Move like a Queen in Chess, in any direction—the killer instinct to be sure!
All components of literary convention are in play here, even surrealism, which completes the self-referring second deconstruction. It's like 'anti-magic'; everything disappears.....of course, Mike was an angry man.
Another very interesting thing is Mike's satiric usage itself—by showing 'Bletology' as 'itself' and thus hogwash, Bletology (occult system of elements as integrated through all of Life, eg, "9 Star Ki" from Japan) is presented in all earnestness to great effect, as though it is real. It is carried obviously too far, but the hogwash effect gets lost in the style experiments going on all over—'it's real'. Like other scenes 'making fun' of these hidden intelligences of Life, such as the damage modern buildings can have magnetically, the effect comes out 'sideways', like the whole sensibility of the film—perhaps normal. Hmmmm...
In "The Masks are Off" pool scene exhibiting the 'wearing off' of cultural personas gets really far out, even for this film. Brief aspects of "Vanilla Sky", metaphysically; "The Shining" nr the end where the veil lessens and ALL the ghosts appear—chaos rampant, even bits we're not to understand.
You get a Mr Mike 'sampler'; it's a lesson in how to appreciate what would otherwise be discounted as 'weirdness'. Remember, "all the things are like the real things, only here they're very small".
Michael O'Donoghue was an angry killer and a creative genius who made beauty. There are (begrudged?) moments here that are all the more so for the immensity of scale, the 'whole world' they take things to task in. Those enemies of, besmirchers of, the precious. They are felled and done away with; not in our life any more. Any who put themselves vulnerable for art are protected, they can count on it even if it doesn't look like it. Thanks, Mike.
Mr. Saturday Night (1992)
"Don't get me started!..."
I agree w/a previous reviewer--Billy's Masterpiece!
It's because it's a masterpiece that people don't get it enough. Totally solid drama that, like Billy, is funny as hell.
The name Buddy Young Jr. is already funny. I don't know the precious history of Jewish comedy, but we get a sense of it here with a negative classless lout who is 'funny as hell'. "Ohhhh, this is a tough room!"
SNL bit made into a feature that isn't padded/incompetent like most. Paymer makes his mark w/poignancy here. Billy blows it all away--this guy is as funny a genius as has ever lived. Having him watch Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" is the cherry on top; Sid is another of those geniuses and Your Show of Shows was the best of that era of geniusJews.
W. (2008)
no summary
Ollie got one part right and thother not. He showed this guy as he is, helping ma and pa America see what's what. A double 9 in Japanese system: hates to lose, is selfish, gets stuck on particulars/can't see whole, emotions of glass, social charmer, very very comfortable on camera, star. Mix these with a spoiled privileged birth, absent father, and most of all, the Ruling Class family machine ready to run him, finally. He just had to say 'go'. Not stupid, as many would like to think, he had great memory for names and specifics but no concept of what anything meant. And he had Karl Rove who he called 'genius guy'. He followed what he was told and outdid his father at last, so to speak.
Where Ollie failed is in the geopolitics, in understanding the purpose of the post 911 aggressions. He buys the party line of wanting to cement future success in a cross Asia oil pipeline and thus invading Iraq for no reason. While this is true, the real reason for such an outrageous Nazi-style attack was to give trillions of dollars to the oil industry corporations— Poppy's fabulous Rolodex. The private sector's prime concern since 1776 has been to get into the hen house of the public sector's tax monies. This has been the only reason for war for a long long time. War requires lies and this is costly. These days, however, virtually NO lies are even required. Americans, with the evangelical fascists in tow finally, can't do ANY math. We don't know what time it is. It's overwhelmingly probably that 911 followed all the historical precedents (Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin, Phillipine War, et al) and was, at least, allowed, if not set up by the Bush group to green light what followed, including Patriot Acts, 1,2 and the 'attack on credit' that led to the greatest bank heist of all time. We didn't need a 'depression' this time, the wealth stolen was so big—half the world's money value. W was the 'perfect President'. While Reagan started the right wing end-game move, W presided over the greatest wealth transfer". W was the greatest President of all time! "JFK" was the best-made underground movie ever, but Ollie paid for it and has been cowed ever since. I'd love to do an all-night moon-howl with him—he is so smart and a fire personality himself. Not all of them are in as low a form as W, thank god (or his wife, Laura). ......................... this project would have been much greater if a mini-series or longer TV show. Instead, it's just an incomplete work at 2 hrs. But, I doubt Ollie would have wanted to hang around this horrid subject a minute longer. Josh Brolin was excellent (w/some fanny fat padding), Richard Dreyfuss disappointing as Cheney. Every now and again Ollie put in some hint of the brilliant genius sound design/w/video he originated in "JFK" and over-did in "Natural Born Killers". The very last scenelet captures the W-guy right on the money—lost in a spectral fantasy forever, blinded by the light.