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Movie Monday

I was pretty depressed about writing any movie review since this weekend I got to see that waste-of-space movie, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. What a disappointment! You know how with teens sometimes they seem to replace "and" with "fuck" in their speech and you get to hear that explicative (Edit: Sorry about that. The word is expletive. I don't even know what explicative means but for some reason the spell checker here gives you wild suggestions and obviously I clicked the change without looking.) so often that it loses all impact? Well, this movie was so horrible, so devoid of the raunchy charm of the 2004 Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle , that you need to use the word "gross" so often, that it, like "fuck", loses its moral authority.

So I approached Movie Monday with a What the hell attitude. We're all doomed. Screw the arts.

Then I stopped to see Frost/Nixon during lunch today. I didn't have much hope for this movie either since I consider Ron Howard the Opie of directors: competent but always playing on the safe side.

Full disclosure, I still have 45 minutes to go with this movie and perhaps it's going to bomb. But even if it does bomb in the last 45 minutes, till than you will be treated to a fast-paced, thorough look at a very problematic president. Forget that he was a crook and a war criminal; this is a fascinating look at a very bright man pitted against a very superficial performer, David Frost. Watch how these famous post-presidency interviews were negotiated between a failed president and an Australian entertainer. Then watch how Nixon, as played so well and so astutely by Frank Langella works verbal jujitsu on a researched-prepared but not mentally-prepared Frost. Nixon washes the deck with him in the first interview. It looks like things are changing at the second interview but that's where I'm going to have to pick this movie up at another time.

It's masterfully written, directed and acted. Watch it for a lesson in the craft of movie making. Watch it for a slice of history this country should never forget.