Remember in April when scenes from the script for Oliver Stone’s ‘W’ were leaked and greedily pored over at NYM’s Culture Vulture? Major media analysts were aghast at the sophomoric dialogue, packed with every trite Bushism repeated ad nauseum on late night TV for the past 8 years. We here at AD even wondered if those exceedingly weak excerpts were some kind of sick practical joke — if not scraps left over from a sub-par SNL sketch, abandoned for being too crudely amateurish.
Sad to report, having now read the complete screenplay, I can assure you that the groaners we saw two months ago were the good parts. The teaser poster publicity material doesn’t try to pretend that ‘W’ intends to portray Bush as anything except an embarrassing joke. But guess what? I don’t find war crimes very funny. Yuck it up Oliver Stone. Nudge us in the ribs and ridicule this administration as buffoons and clowns all you want. I’d hate to take my kids to a circus where the clowns drop bombs on babies and torture teenage “detainees.” Or maybe it’s the economic collapse, and telecom eavesdropping, and billions of dollars in war profiteering that’s so hilarious. If so, this piece of trash I’ve read doesn’t deliver those clever punch line very clearly.
I know we usually try to focus on awards-worthy movies, so I want to be first to predict multiple nominations. In fact, W might sweep the Razzies! (No, I’m not done yet. Rant continued after the cut.)
Oh, I know what you’re thinking. “It’s not all about the screenplay, Ryan, you devilish word snob, you.” True enough, so maybe we can hang our shredded hopes on some of these other fine filmmakers. Cinematography by Phaidon “camcorder” Papamichael (Walk the Line, Sideways), to guarantee that the look of the film will surpass any Lifetime Original Movie ever made. Stunt casting by Sarah Finn (Crash, In the Valley if Elah) to insure dozens of walk-of-fame walk-ons for as many celebrity cameos as possible, in case we might acidentally go 3 minutes without being yanked out of the movie without a jarring association by somebody last featured on Comedy Central. Production design by Derek R. Hill, whose highest-ranked credits on IMDb are 57 episodes of “House” (which takes place in some of the most propped-up laminated-plastic hospital sets since Dr. Kildaire).
At least there’s Transportation Coordinator, Jerry Jackson, who parked cars for movies as cool as 21 Grams and The People vs. Larry Flynt, so I’m looking forward to seeing if he can somehow salvage this sad debacle — maybe by repeatedly running over the camera negatives with a truck.
But I don’t want to end this post with negavitivity, so here’s some heartening news. The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco has gathered enough petition signatures to vote on renaming one of its largest sewage treatment facilities to honor George W. Bush, in what supporters describe as ‚Äúa fitting monument to the President‚Äôs work‚Äù.¬† The renaming ceremony will take place to coincide with Obama’s inauguration on January 19 next year. (No word on whether or not ‘Turd Blossom’ souvenirs will be handed out).
So if you’re really dying to see a monumental piece of doo-doo with Bush’s name on it, please take my advice. Skip the movie and go tour the sewage plant. It’s bound to be a better example of strained and filtered shit than this script.
