Movie Review-"W"

This will sound strange but I want to write a quick movie review of the movie W. The strange part of this review is that I have not seen the movie and have no intention of ever seeing it. I have two major problems with this movie. The first is the subject matter. I know I may be in the minority here, but I do not see a negative movie about our sitting president as appropriate. I understand our first amendment rights, and I am not suggesting we censor this movie, I just think it is classless and would go as far as unpatriotic. I am not one of those conservatives that go around calling liberals unpatriotic for everything they do, but in this case I believe the label fits. It is not unpatriotic to criticize the president, but making this movie crosses a line for me. I am of the opinion that if you do not like the man, fine, but respect the office he holds. Stone is not making a movie about Bush, he is making a movie about my President. I did not have a problem several years ago when Stone made Nixon, I disagreed with the context, but not the idea. If this movie came out in ten years I would not even have a problem with the idea of it, but Bush is our sitting president. I am not preaching a double standard here, with all the controversy surrounding the Clinton presidency; I would have disagreed with a movie being made about him (as if Hollywood would make a negative movie about Clinton). Even as a conservative, I encouraged my students here to go see both Obama and Hilary Clinton when they visited our campus during the primaries. I said one may become our next president, and you may never again have a chance to see and listen to a president. When Ex-President Clinton came to the University of Arkansas while I attended there, I went to hear him, not because I am a Clinton fan, but because he was my president. We may not like the man running our country, but he was voted in fairly and deserves some level of respect

The fact that this movie is based on real events is my other concern. Based on real events is Hollywood code for completely fiction. This movie is an Oliver Stone film, and Stone has a proven tract record when it comes to historical films, he does not let little things like facts or truth get in the way of him telling a story. Every historical movie Stone has ever made are full of falsehoods. I dread every year teaching about the Kennedy assassination, because at least one student wants to challenge me on the facts that they got from Stone’s JFK. What I have to explain is that the facts that are presented in the movie are not facts. Stone used creative license to make up facts to make his story better or to make the conspiracy bigger. Stone’s purpose of making historical film is not to educate but to entertain. “W” is not a biography of the life and presidency of Bush meant to educate the public, but just another partisan bash of a president that Stone does not like because he disagrees with his conservative policies. It is even more an attempt to make lots of money playing up on peoples dislike for Bush and in the process put one last nail in our president’s coffin. If Stone thinks it’s important to inform the public about the problems in the White House, where was his movie about the Clintons? Have we forgotten scandal after scandal occurring in the Clinton administration? This is a partisan attempt at defaming, and I for one find it appalling. I just hope more Americans agree with me, and do not give Stone your money so he can continue to attack an already wounded president and nation.