FROST / NIXON

I've got some rearranging to do. My top five (and/or ten) list of films for 2008 has been shaken by a Brit and a man who speaks with his jowls. I didn't see it coming! Bughouse!

I saw FROST/NIXON, which features both the Brit and the not-a-crook, in the waning hours of the last day of this past year. Michael Sheen was great as David Frost, the fast-talking Ryan Seacrest of his times that pulled an Oprah and interviewed the person that everyone was hungery to eat alive: Richard Nixon, played ridiculously well by the masterful Frank Langella.

Though only a wee little un-fertilised egg during the actual Watergate trials, I still felt connected to the cinematic retelling of this story, in part because of credible comparisons that could be made between the Nixon administration and today's outgoing hot mess. (That's right GWB--you're a hot mess.) Nixon's disastrous belief that "when a president does something, it's not illegal," was his undoing--and it's definitely a bit of a problem. Clearly, situations occur daily to which political powers must attend, swiftly and forcefully, at times before consulting any sort of "decency handbook" (Rule #79: No excuses. Play like a champion), but it is scary--though intelligent--to realise that many presidents may have had their hands involved in some slight or heavy amounts of law-breaking. Nixon is just the one that got caught. And subsequently pardoned.

FROST/NIXON, though not exploring all that, does make me view the highest seat of power in this nation (after Oprah's) with a heightened level of my usual suspicion, disdain and sympathy. Is one's standing at the precipice of power simply a jumping point into a pit of damnation? As a great faux-politician (a "faux-litition," if you will) once said, "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Think about it. And then you try running for president.

Good luck, Barack.

plot: President put under televised scrutiny.
thought: A chessgame of worthy opponents.
in five: 3.5/5

Everything-gate: http://www.frostnixon.net/