[Sosfbay-discuss] Greencine} 10 Movies To Watch Before the November Election

Tue Apr 29 17:49:12 PDT 2008

I loved Man of the Year for sheer fun, but my all-time favorite is  
The Contender—it's fabulous and a good head trip for the serious  
political junkie!
See it for a satisfying denouement!
Andrea

On Apr 21, 2008, at 7:00 AM, Drew Johnson wrote:
> http://www.greencine.com/central/node/720
>
> Vote Early, Vote Often: Ten Movies To Watch Before the November  
> Election
> Submitted by underdog on April 20, 2008 - 7:26pm. Documentary | Lists
>
>
> by Monica Peck
>
> Unprecedented
>
> Buck up, folks. The Pennsylvania primary this week may be the  
> decider of
> the Democratic candidate in November. It's high time to revisit  
> some fine
> politically minded movies to stir our electoral souls. And with Jay
> Roach's Recount out next month (Kevin Spacey movie coming out this  
> year) -
> one wonders where that film will sit if we revisit this list later.  
> At any
> rate, here is some required viewing to gear up for another tumultuous
> election year.
>
> 1. No election year would be complete without Frank Capra's Mr.  
> Smith Goes
> to Washington. As poignant as it was in 1939, nothing beats those  
> election
> blues like hearing Jimmy Stewart's voice ring out that eternal  
> question:
> “What happened to freedom?”
>
> 2. On the opposite end of the spectrum, but no less relevant, is  
> Alexander
> Payne's Election, about ethical transgressions committed around a high
> school election campaign. Reese Witherspoon's character Tracy Enid  
> Flick
> has inspired troubling comparisons with Hilary Clinton: “[The  
> competition]
> think they can just all of a sudden, one day, out of the blue,  
> waltz right
> in with no qualifications whatsoever and try to take away what other
> people have worked very, very hard for their entire lives.”
>
> 3. Unprecedented is a great, hard-hitting documentary about the 2000
> scam-paign. Joan Sekler and Richard R. Perez take you through the
> premeditated Florida voter fraud courtesy of Jeb Bush.
>
> 4. In case this election campaign has sparked a little innocent  
> hope, be
> sure to douse it with Oliver Stone's audacious, epic psychodrama  
> Nixon,
> which features arguably one of Anthony Hopkins' best performances.  
> "They
> can't impeach me for bombing Cambodia. The president can bomb  
> anybody he
> likes."
>
> The Candidate
>
> 5. Robert Redford's Oscar-winning (for Ring Larner's screenplay)  
> campaign
> in The Candidate was highly cynical in 1972 and, alas, as timely as  
> ever.
> Peter Boyle and Melvyn Douglas lend capable support. (I've heard that
> Groucho Marx has a cameo, but have yet to spot him, so maybe it's
> apocryphal.)
>
> 6. For a dose of quasi-reality, hit up Robert Altman's Tanner '88.  
> This
> should have made it onto my last list as well, with its run time of  
> 353
> minutes. If you're really hardcore, follow up this election-flick  
> debauch
> with the sequel Tanner On Tanner.
>
> 7. For bleak, black comedy about the absurdity of war (which  
> doesn't hit
> home now or anything), I never miss an excuse to watch Dr.  
> Strangelove Or
> How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. One highlight: Peter
> Sellers' inimitable delivery (as the American president) of “You can't
> fight in here! This is the War Room!”
>
> 8. Which leads us to... The War Room, the illuminating vérité doc  
> about
> the 1992 Clinton campaign from D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus,  
> in which
> campaign manager James Carville becomes a star (and now he's really
> acting, playing the Governor in Assassination of Jesse James…)
>
> 9. Feed, the documentary about the 1992 New Hampshire primary, patches
> together raw satellite footage of candidates allowing for a
> behind-the-scenes-we're-still-putting-on-our-make-up feeling. Key  
> hitters
> abound, including Ross Perot. Remember him?
>
> 10. For a refresher on the perils of computerized voting, there's  
> Hacking
> Democracy put together by Simon Ardizzone and Russell Michaels.
>
> And one more:
>
> 11. Bulworth: Warren Beatty's squirmy, ballsy political satire on a
> politician who loses it - or does he - during a campaign, transforming
> himself into a hip-hop rhyming, no-BS, suicidal campaigner. (Sample  
> rhyme:
> "We've got people in this country that can't even buy a meal! Ask a
> brother who's been downsized if he's gettin' any deal. Or a white boy
> bustin' ass till they put him in his grave, he ain't gotta be a  
> black boy
> to be livin' like a slave. ") If only.
>
> Some honorable mentions:
>
> Barry Levinson's Man of the Year stokes the heart-fires of humor  
> around a
> computer malfunction that elects Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams).  
> Although it
> falls a bit flat in places, John Sayle's Silver City still deserves an
> honorable mention here if only for Chris Cooper's eerie resemblance  
> to the
> current president and Daryl Hannah's archery antics. Other honorable
> mentions include Wag the Dog; Frontrunner; and Voting in America.
>
> Also: Try to catch a screening of Charla Barker and Matthew Kraus's
> documentary How Ohio Pulled It Off. It outlines the voting mechugas  
> of the
> 2004 election in Ohio and what the filmmakers call "the theft of the
> presidency." As screenings are set, they'll post it here.
>
>
>
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