Chillin' With Dubya and Yoko

So I couldn't sleep last night, even though I was desperate to. It had been a pretty work-packed evening and I wanted to get some rest, but my room refused to cool down, regardless of what I did with the air conditioner.

When I woke up the next day I was still unrested and for the past week I'd been suffering some annoying aches in my shoulders, probably as a result of not sleeping properly or not in the proper position. By 3.30pm I couldn't hold out and had to take a nap where I dreamed of being in a supermarket in England buying lots of chocolates and sweets unavailable here. When I woke up, the shoulders were aching even more and I couldn't resist anymore. It was time. I had to do it. There was no other choice.

I had to venture into the world and get some Yoko Yoko.

Somehow I returned with not only the miracle cure that is Yoko Yoko, but also a tub of Haagen Daz cookies n' cream (not sure how that happened) and applied the Japanese wonder drug...

...and burned.

Seeing as I was still quite tired I popped open the ice cream and decided to pick a DVD from the unwatched stack - a pile of DVD's that I've bought over the years because I wanted to watch them, but wasn't in the mood to watch them yet. Picking one out from this stack is very difficult because it's not based on recommendation or knowledge, just feel.

And today I felt like watching 'W'.

I remember when I heard about the project and reacted with a simple "whaaat...?" Oliver Stone's directing it. "Whaaat...?" It's gonna star the jock from Goonies. "Whaaat...?" And the chick from Zack and Miri. "Whaaat...?"

Then I saw the trailer and thought, "waitaminute. Is this... is this a comedy?"

I thought it would come out in the cinemas here in Malaysia. From the looks of the trailer, why wouldn't it? The trailer pretty much made Dubya look like how the media had presented him throughout his term - a chimpanzee with the intellectual capacity of a termite's cock. It looked like it was taking the piss, and really, how could you not? How do you not take the piss out of someone who told the press, "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully" (Sep. 29, 2000)?

But imagine this, if you will: Imagine being at school and there, amongst all your other class mates, is the school idiot. I mean, this guy is dumb. He says so much stupid shit a single sound from his mouth guarantees laughs across the class and cafeteria. And you, being with your friends, join in. But one day you get to see him without your gang of friends and see him for what he is: not too bright, plain and simple. Doesn't mean you can't feel sorry for the guy, and you do.

Dubya's the school idiot. He just happened to also be the president.

There's a lot of fun to be had in this movie and, at least for me, I found myself caught completely off-guard feeling sorry for the guy. Now whilst all his press conferences and public appearances are all on record and the going-ons behind the scenes are probably works of fiction based on what facts the writers have, it sure makes for an interesting story about a man trying to get out of daddy's shadow.

It's not an incredible movie, by any means, and though the casting is spot on for most of the cast (Josh Brolin's come a long way since Goonies) some of the other supporting characters do tend to fall into stereotype. Even though Richard Dreyfuss and Scott Glen are brilliant as Cheney and Rumsfield respectively and Jeffrey Wright almost steals the spotlight as Powell, Thandie Newton's Condoleezza Rice feels like a comedic caricature (although kudos to hair and make-up. I had no idea it was Thandie).

And why couldn't they just hire the same guy that played Tony Blair in The Queen as opposed to Mr. Fantastic? I'm sorry, I like Iaon a lot as an actor, but for some reason throughout the one scene he has I kept thinking his arms were gonna stretch out.

Dubya's past doesn't forgive the amount of crap he's done not only to his own country but the whole world as we know it, but what do you expect when you put the class dunce in charge?

Don't "misunderestimate" this movie. "I think we agree, the past is over" and seeing these events through our own eyes over the past eight years doesn't mean there aren't any stories about it left to tell. And Dubya's an interesting character to study. There's a story there and you couldn't call it "a struggle between good and it's a struggle between evil" because we all witnessed that struggle in our lifetimes and heard the arguments. This is a story about a "poppy" and his junior and it's a fun one too.