BS: Frost/Nixon

Subject: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Comrac (troll alert contact max)
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 06:42 PM

Just watched Frost/Nixon. Ron Howard's direction and story telling ability is brilliant. Great 70s's atmosphere from the start sets a solid stage for the superbly cast film.

Frank Langella & Micheal Sheen (Nixon & Frost) are great in the roles. Both actor's portrayals are a study of affectation and body language, pleasurably accurate and yet not simply an impersonation.

The film is not a two man show, quite the contrary. In fact, the wealth of supporting roles is perhaps the finest feature of this film.


Not to be missed, I am not convinced the part of Nixon's wife Patricia isn't played by William Defoe in drag !

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 07:03 PM

I haven't seen the film but last week I watched David Frost in an interview on C-Span's Afterwords program. It was interesting, of course, but it kept striking me how much more freely the secrets are told after the subject is dead. Frost related a lot of anecdotes.

Funny thing - I had been under the impression that Sir David Frost himself had died. ha

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 07:06 PM

I was rivetted, it's brilliant.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Riginslinger
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 07:25 PM

Haven't seen it, but working from memory, there are a few presidents for whom I have more dislike than Nixon.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: number 6
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 10:57 PM

Nixon was by far the worst of the worst.

I'm looking forward to see this movie.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 11:07 PM

Actually, the real Pat Nixon was Willem DaFoe's father in drag.................

I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: number 6
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 11:16 PM

"Actually, the real Pat Nixon was Willem DaFoe's father in drag................."

Good one spaw !!

Thanks .... I really needed a good laff.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Riginslinger
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 08:54 AM

"Nixon was by far the worst of the worst."


                It seems to me that Reagan, Johnson, and Bush II were all worse than Nixon, but that has nothing to do with the movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: number 6
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 10:06 AM

Bush .... a pathetic comedy

Johnson ..... a dramatic comedy with a very confusing story line

Reagan .... an exaggerated overly produced epic with a horrible musical score

Nixon .... a dark, sinister drama

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 11:21 AM

Nixon was the most sinister of the lot, for sure. He was also quite a skillful politician in certain circumstances, but his dark side, his deep paranoia and resentment of those he thought were out to get him, was the defining aspect of his presidency and is what brought him down. It became a self-fullfilling prophecy.

His final political demise, however, almost reduced the political cartoonists to despair.... ;-) It was so much fun for them to draw caricatures of the man.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Riginslinger
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 12:34 PM

His crowning feature was his nose!

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 12:59 PM

Kennedy... all style. He declared war on Vietnam, tried to assinate Castro, increased the arms race, bought the world to the edge of nuclear war, and pretended to support the civil rights movement but had to be coerced by Martin Luthar King into doing anything. Hopeless Pesident. Worse than Nixon.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Riginslinger
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 01:00 PM

Is that why Lyndon Johnson had him knocked off?

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: number 6
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 01:10 PM

"His crowning feature was his nose! "

along with his tiny corn cobbed short curly hair with the very pronounced widows peak.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 01:23 PM

Kennedy had the ability to inspire people. That's no small thing. It can make or break a nation. That's why I think he could have been a great president.

Furthermore, he pissed off the Mafia, the CIA, the Cuban exiles, and the Texan neocon right wing fanatics enough to get himself killed. Someone who does that can't be all bad as far as I'm concerned! ;-) I think he may have been on the right track.

Re Nixon - I liked the shifty eyes too. And the jowls. Very memorable features. I would rather see Woody Allen or Michael Jackson in the White House than see Nixon there again.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Riginslinger
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 01:33 PM

I'm not going to suggest that Michael Jackson is who we have now.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: number 6
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 01:36 PM

It's debatable I guess whether Kennedy would have been a great president if he lived through a second term ... anyway, it's all speculation. Good point LH about him pissing all the bad guys off (including Hoffa, via Bobby).

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Victor in Mapperton
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 01:40 PM

I think Nixon's heart was in the right place, I know he was disliked, but I liked him. Spiro Agnew was the best President you never had.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: number 6
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 01:57 PM

"Spiro Agnew was the best President you never had."

Nolo Contendere


biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 01:58 PM

Regarding Bay of Pigs...Kennedy inherited that whole mess from the Eisenhower administration. It had already all been planned and was set to go, and the hawks in the American military, such as Curtiss LeMay, were eager to back up the Cuban exiles with the US Air Force and other military support. Kennedy refused to do that. Because of his refusal, the invasion quickly failed, and he was bitterly hated by the Cuban exiles and the right wingers for that, but I think he did the right thing.

Kennedy obviously was not enthusiastic about the project from the beginning. He had not originated the plan, and he didn't like it.

The Cuban missile crisis in '62 was inevitable from the moment the Cubans starting bringing those missiles in, given the psychology of the USA, which feels that it can ring Russia with missiles in neighboring countries, but goes apeshit if the Russians try to do anything like that in return...it can drop A-bombs on people if it wants to, but nobody else can (except maybe Israel)...it can have military bases on the homeland of an official enemy, like Cuba, but nobody else can do something like that....(except maybe Israel)

Anyway, the crisis was inevitable. I believe the main reason Castro decided to bring those missiles in was because of the earlier invasion attempt at Bay of Pigs. He felt it likely that the USA would invade again sometime soon, and in greater force, and he wanted a certain deterrent to forestall that. That is the only sane rationale for a Cuban to put Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba...deterrence. To contemplate using those missiles at all would be totally suicidal, so their only conceivable value could be AS a deterrent to an American invasion plan.

However, the American mindset couldn't tolerate the presence of those missiles...so it provoked a crisis...and that was unavoidable. Castro should have foreseen that. Apparently he did not.

Given that situation, it was extremely difficult for all concerned. The Russians couldn't take the missiles out without looking weak and conceding that the USA can do stuff it wants to in the world, but they can't. That would be a very bitter pill for Krushchev to swallow. It would be a public humiliation.

Kennedy couldn't back down either, because he was already in shit with too many hawks over not sending in the Air Force at Bay of Pigs. And anyway, he just couldn't back down, period....but he did create more of an immediate risk with the blockade orders than I think was necessary. That's where the great danger lay. What if the Russian ships did not turn back, and fire was exchanged? It could have trigged a nuclear war.

Fortunately, both Kennedy and Krushchev were fully aware of the danger, and they were desperate to avoid such a war, and they found a way. The Russians officially removed their missiles from Cuba, the USA unofficially removed a bunch of their missiles from Turkey. The USA was seen to "win", for the sake of our media, but it was actually a negotiated deal, tit for tat.

We wouldn't be here talking about it if they had failed.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Bill H //\\
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 03:20 PM

I saw the film and, this is probably the minority view, I thought that the only performance worthy of note was Frank Langella. He was brilliant and captured the essence of Nixon and not just an imitation.

While it was an interesting film I surely do not believe (other than Frank Langella) it is much over rated---especially over-rated is Sheen.

Now for a picture that really rivets you and each actor in it is brilliant (incuding the Black mother in only 2 scenes)---DOUBT.


Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Bill H //\\
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 03:22 PM

Correction---I meant to say---- "...it is much over-rated..."

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 05:18 AM

Still not convinced that JFK was any good. Being able to inspire people is no good if you cannot lead, which he did not do. However, Bobby may have had the stuff of a good president, even though he did work with UnAmerican Activities Commission, or what ever it was called.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: GUEST,Al
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 05:36 AM

The Kennedy's were rotten to the core. Richard Nixon was a great President. God bless him.

Subject: RE: BS: Frost/Nixon
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 02:18 PM

Well...there's a definite opinion. ;-)