I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Oliver Stone
OK. I admit it. I am a huge fan of films about presidents. Every time I find one, I buy it or rent it and I watch it.
And I admit to being an Oliver Stone fan. His “JFK” finds itself in my DVD player on a regular basis.
So when I had a few hours free this weekend to see a movie, I was excited to see Stone’s latest piece, “W.” Unfortunately, I was deeply disappointed. I am not a fan of George W. Bush, but I think this film was over the top in the way it presented W. stuck in some twisted mental battle for his father’s love and approval. First, I don’t think there is any evidence to support the presentation. Second, as much as W. plays the aw-shucks, guy-next-door persona to the point of edging near becoming buffoon-like, it is a carefully calculated creation for political expediency. Let there be no mistake: W. is not an idiot, and to create a film that presents him as one is a disservice not only to Bush but America, and to history.
Beyond this painfully obvious misrepresentation of W. as easily understood and described, there is the acting itself. This film has some great names in it, including Richard Dreyfuss as Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney, Josh Brolin as President George W. Bush, Toby Jones as Karl Rove and James Cromwell as George H. W. Bush. From a crop of actors like this, one expects a stellar performance of carefully crafted characters in three dimensions. People you can relate to, even if you hate them. Instead we got two-dimensional characters that do nothing to enlighten our understanding of W. or his inner circle.
I would go so far as to say that the presentations of Thandie Newton as Condi Rice and Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell were just downright wrong. Condi was presented as a cheerleader with a crush on W., while Powell was presented as the bullied high school nerd. Scott Glenn as Don Rumsfeld not only missed the mark, but the producers should demand their payments to him back. He didn’t even bother with a character — and when one is presenting Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense until 2006 and the most infamous face of the Bush administration notorious for lecturing the media from the podium in the Pentagon, they needn’t go very far to find a character to play. Instead we got nothing from Glenn.
To say I was disappointed in this film is an understatement. Stone is traditionally a fantastic film maker, and whether you believe in his real-world-based films like “JFK” or not, he can tell a story with a camera. In this case, he didn’t bother with a real story, about real people America knows, and as a result has insulted his own legacy in a cheap attempt to slap George W. Bush on his way out of office.
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