More Of-Less of #3

More Of: Absolutely Ridiculous Clips Like This

Watch till the end and see what party the Congressmen from Florida belongs to. Fox is brilliant.

(By the way, that counts as two "Highlighted Clips of the Week" in the bag)


Less Of: Oliver Stone Movies

Why is it that the only major director making political movies in America (aside from Michael Moore), is a complete nutball? While I loosely admire Stone's attempt to tackle historical episodes (assasination of JFK, Nixon, Vietnam, 9/11) he does it so poorly that he does more harm than good.
I have four major criticisms of Oliver Stone:
1. He's Crazy.
Anyone who's seen JFK realizes that Stone is basically a nutty conspiracy theorist. Although he does have some prescient points, his overall arguement (that JFK was shot so that LBJ could reverse JFK's pullout of Vietnam) is a serious underestimation of Kennedy's stupidity.
2. All form and no substance
Any Given Sunday is a good example of this trait. Instead of making a movie about football (which I don't know why you would), Stone uses fancy camera angles and completely ridiculous scenes (a QB with a penchant for vomiting uncontrollably between plays and a player who loses an eye after getting hit) to make a movie that has nothing to do with the sport. There was absolutely no point to making this film. Cinematically it was superb...but why make the movie?

3. Once he makes a movie nobody else can
Because of Stones bizzare portrayel of Nixon in which you didn't really learn anything about him except that he was paranoid, no one else can make a movie about one of the most fascinating political figures of the last 40 years. World Trade Center will probably have a similar effect. Stone's best movies are about topics that have been beaten to death (like Vietnam) because he's adding an absurd, eccentric quality to those events. If his movie is the ONLY movie about a particular event, than all he does is seriously distort reality.

4. Alexander
What the hell was this?? The worst movie I've ever seen, that's what. Not only did it have WAY too much gay stuff, but the battle scenes and storyline were TERRIBLE.

I must admit that Stone has made so many movies that some are actually quite good. For example, Platoon, Natural Born Killers, and Born on the 4th of July. But for everyone of these movies he has made movies that had no reason to be made (U-Turn, Heaven and Earth, and Talk Radio) or were just...blah (The Doors, Wall Street.)