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Excited About 'W'
So, reading my October W magazine today, and they have a feature on leading male actors today, one of which is Josh Brolin. Well, kudos to his PR team, because he may have sold me on going to see the movie W., the biopic about George W. Bush. (I know, too many W's in that paragraph, right?)
Anyway, here are the excerpts about the film in the article:
[Brolin] lost 30 pounds to play Bush as a frat boy at Yale--"not because it's cool to lose weight, but because it makes you look younger," he notes--and his body appears sinewy beneath his tight T-shirt. He shaved his head to ease the discomfort of wearing various Bush-style hairpieces in the sweltering Louisiana heat, and with his hair still fuzz-short, he could pass as an offensive-line coach at an NCAA powerhouse.
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Contrary to a recent gossip report that Streisand was angry at her stepson for playing Bush, Brolin says, "She seemed very intrigued by the whole thing, really happy about it."
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As President George W. Bush, Brolin shot 103 of the film's 108 scenes. The story derives its impact in large part from the young Bush's almost mythic struggle to win his father's approval and, later, to make his own mark on the world by conquering the old man's geo-politcal nemesis, Saddam Hussein.
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While avid readers of The New York Times op-ed page may hold the opinion that the two-term presidency has been a tragedy, W. turns that political analysis upside down. "The thing I kept saying to Oliver was, 'It's a comedy, it's a comedy, it's a comedy,' even though it's not," Brolin explains energetically. "You go through every emotion with it. It's pathetic. It's absurd. It's darkly humorous."
The script reads as a relentless and sometimes outrageous drama of an administration in love with neocon ideaology and arrogantly dismissive of facts. But Brolin promises the film will rousingly and sharply satirize the Bush era. ("I'd call it, if anything, something mixed between serious and buffoonish--a form of farce," offers Stone.) Brolin mentions that the first day he played a scene in full Bush regalia, the crew actually cracked up, which he considers a high compliment. Still, the actor insists that he wanted to avoid making W. into a feature-length Saturday Night Live skit. He obsessively pored over news footage and scoured Bush biographies for insights into the president's mind. To his surprise, he wound up liking hte man behind the presidential seal, especially after Stephen Mansfield's book The Faith of George W. Bush drew him deeper into the store of Bush's religious conversion. As Brolin connected wwith what he boldly describes as Bush's "humanity," he came to believe that his earlier view of the president was superficial.
"It's the most compelling story because you see this guy trying to find his niche. You see him fail and you see him succeed," says Brolin. "Like it or not, good or bad. It's perfect drama."
When it's suggested that Bush's harshest critics may not agree and argue instead that the president succeeded only because of his surname, Brolin's friendly demeanor goes suddenly stony. "That's an impossibility," says Brolin, with a hard and suspicious look in his eyes. "That's like people saying that I have my success because my father was an actor."
He acknowledges with a terse "of course" when asked if he can identify with Bush's struggle to come to grips with a famous family name. But then, relaxing a bit, Brolin points out W's ability to communicate with voters in the 2000 election, a skill that set him apart from his dad. In a final comment on the subject, one that seems to resonante with the echo of his own oedipal striving, Brolin adds: "He had more oomph than his father had."
Re: Excited About 'W'
wow, the spin is incredible on that piece. I'm jealous. Speaking of which, I really need to get some work done.
my read shelf:
Wait, Brolin's spin or W Mag's spin? Nothing in fashion mags I read is ever presented with the pretense of objectivity.
For example, in a flash article about a new clothing line:
"...That Astarabadi has started a fashion line of her own this year falls seamlessly into that chic, clotheshorse persona. Hearing her talk about it does not."
Or what about the intro to this piece about Christiane Northrup:
"There are many activities that can make two minutes seem like an eternity--getting a tattoo, say, or anticipating an important phone call. But most of them pale in comparison to struggling to keep your eyes shut, your palms facing skyward and your laughter stifled while receiving the 'healing stream' allegedly emanating from the spirit of a dead German man whose photo sits before you, as eerie classical music blasts in the background."