THE OBENSON REPORT

(Josh Brolin as George W Bush, and director Oliver Stone) I wonder what this scene is about.

I certainly didn't expect the film to be one long Saturday Night Live skit, but I also didn't think that words like "sympathetic" would be used to describe it. I'm even more intrigued. Oliver Stone, an unabashedly liberal democratic filmmaker making a film that empathizes with George W Bush? Hm... ok.

Found this piece printed in today's L.A. times. Here are a few poignant snippets:

- Stone, Brolin and the filmmaking team believe they are crafting a biography so honest that loyal Republicans and the Bushes themselves might see it.
- "When Oliver asked me, I said, 'Are you crazy? Why would I want to do this with my little moment in my career?'" (Josh) Brolin recalled. Then, early one morning during a family ski trip, Brolin read Weiser's original screenplay, which covers Bush from 1967 to 2004. "It was very different than what I thought it would be," Brolin said.
- "It's not a political movie. It's a biography. People will remember that this guy is human, when we are always [outside of the movie] dehumanizing him, calling him an idiot, a puppet, a failed president."
- Stone, who was briefly a Yale classmate of Bush, is clearly no fan of the president's politics but said he's amazed by the man's resilience and ambition. The movie is basically divided into three acts: Bush's hard-living youth, his personal and religious conversion, and finally his first term in the Oval Office.

Read the entire article HERE.