Frost/Nixon

The relevance of this film today may be sadly overlooked. As the current President of the United States (George W. Bush) ends his tenure with his country disillusioned, in debt, at war, and in disarray, one cannot help but compare him to the late Richard Nixon. Strangely, the older politician, now dead and buried for over a decade, seems much more the intellectual statesman. Nixon has always seemed the darker man, the loner in the Oval Office, as compared to Bush, the happy-go-lucky Texan. While the former suffered from the same malady of self-importance, at least he would ponder positive foreign affairs decisions before creating his political enemy's list. The latter would rather snap celebrity photos with endearing fans than answer tough questions about foreign policy. Leave that to Cheney. Both Nixon and Bush seemed to suffer from the same kind of self-aggrandizement that put the country and the world at tremendous risk. One lost the presidency for his flaws, the other lost nothing personally, except the well-being and respect of his nation.

Frost/Nixon, filmed in semi-documentary style by Ron Howard, is about the elder statesman Nixon revealing himself and his enigmatic heart of hearts to his country and the world via a relatively lightweight British interviewer, David Frost. Overnight, Frost has to remake himself from a chatty interviewer like Jay Leno into a tough interrogator like Mike Wallace. Both men have a lot at stake. According to the film, Frost's career has stagnated and he desperately needs a large breakthrough in media to be taken seriously. And he has shoved most of his personal capital into the project. Nixon was never tried for Watergate and therefore never had a platform from which his case was heard. The Frost interviews becomes Nixon's witness stand, and the television his courtroom.

The acting in this film is some of the finest of all the Oscar contenders of 2008, probably because Sheen and Langella re-prised their roles from the Broadway and London stage-play of the same name. For well over 30 years, Frank Langella has been quietly forging an acting career that has had sparse recognition for the quality of his work. In short, he is one of the most overlooked and under-appreciated talents in Hollywood films, until now. This film has allowed Langella's acting range and versatility to glow into THE performance of 2008. Langella literally becomes Nixon, shaping his subtle mannerisms and guttural tone. And yet, Langella does even one better. He somehow shapes Nixon's attitudes as if he understood who Nixon was on the inside as well as the outside. Good actors can mimic facial expressions. It takes a superb acting of uncommon ability to portray the inner qualities of his/her subject. Langella brings forth the inner Nixon in the same way that the real David Frost did 30 years ago.

Equally superb is the portrayal of David Frost by Michael Sheen. Similar to Langella, Sheen also brings forth the inner Frost, the sort of sexy rock star interviewer who must turn into something he has never been: a tough journalist probing the inner meat of his interviewee. The film very slowly shows us the transition of Frost into the kind of journalist he had to become in order to face Richard Nixon. No American president is easily knocked down and left bare by the likes of a journalist, and Nixon was no exception. Frost had to have an arsenal of not just tough questions but tough responses if he was going to be able to bring out the inner soul of Nixon. Frost had to discard the chatty sensibility of a Jay Leno or David Letterman and transform himself into the passionate journalist of a Mike Wallace or Christiane Amanpour.

A superb film and relevant to the current state of American politics. Nixon had to come clean and Frost was both his judge and his confessor, partially because the former president had resigned. The current president (as of 1/07/09), despite eight years of abuse of power, leaves the office without the stain of impeachment. He will probably never have to answer to a David Frost or a Mike Wallace. What a pity.

Interview

"Interview" is Steve Buscemi's remake of a film by Theo van Gogh before he was assassinated for profaning someone else's Sacred Cow. (profanities, of every sort, were the younger van Gogh's stock-in-trade.) this film is about a middle-aged journalist whose career is on a downward trajectory, whose personal life is in shambles, and who has been assigned to interview a beautiful young actress whose own personal life seems akin to, say, Lindsay Lohan's.

The journalist is bitter that he has been assigned to do a fluff piece about a spoiled celebrity brat, instead of being sent to Washington to cover an unfolding scandal at the White House. the actress is an hour late to the trendy restaurant where they meet, because she couldn't seem to pull her lips from those of her (female) co-star in a "Sex In the City" inspired TV serial. she is annoyed from the outset by the journalist's not having bothered to read the little backgrounder her PR people always provide to interviewers.

He starts out by asking her how she got the name "Katya". while she is explaining that though it is a Russian name, her mother is actually from the Netherlands (like the van Goghs), he interjects with helpful remarks like, "oh yeah, prostitution is legal in Amsterdam".

She finds him so off-putting that she soon cuts off the interview, and leaves the restaurant, though a couple had already happily given up their table because it was *her* "favorite table". however, because of the kind of coincidence that only happens in movies, minutes later she invites him up to her fabulous downtown Manhattan loft.

There they set about to continue the interview, with each trying to maintain the upper hand -- him, as the war-weary international correspondent who hasn't the slightest interest in her sexually; her, with the "oh, are you gay? ..... then i want you to tongue-kiss me right now!" routine.

They are constantly interrupted by phone calls from her beau, to whom she fabricates new reasons with every call for her not being able to talk at that moment, and her female co-star, with whom she gabs at great length, while lying on her bed with her legs spread apart and pointed at the ceiling, or dancing about her bedroom after the manner of Isadora Duncan.

When not on the phone with her girlfriend, the actress jokingly says things like, "i'm a crack whore". the journalist's gallant response goes something like: no, no, no -- i've been with whores all over the world, and you're no *crack* whore.

After consuming a great deal of booze, and other mood-altering substances, they expose their scars (physical and emotional). for example, while the two of them are dancing romantically, she lets it be known that her famous acting teacher made a pass at her during a private lesson.

Eventually the journalist hears himself loudly denounced as "sleazy", "sick", "disgusting", "weird", a "son-of-a-bitch" (as in, "i want to *kill* you ... you son-of-a-bitch"), and, of course, "unprofessional".

He apologizes for his being "unprofessional".i won't give away the ending, but let's just say that times have changed since "My Fair Lady" first came out.