W.: Review and Election anxiety

So in the spirit of inundating a brain with election-related media, I went to see W this afternoon to warm up for the final showdown tonight.

On W, as a Texan liberal who loves satire and has no stomach for Hollywood blockbuster crap, I'll say this: it wasn't too bad, really. I thought the portrayals of cabinet members leaned toward caricature WAY more than those of the main characters, but as a whole, the lampoon impressions ala SNL, etc. that I had been expecting didn't take over the movie at all. I was surprised by the portrayal of Bush, Sr., in the sense that he wasn't an unsympathetic character, far from it. The title character, on the other hand, came off as almost completely pathetic, and while I don't know dir. Oliver Stone's political leanings, I'd say it wasn't his mission to tear the guy a new one. My friends who I saw the movie with said that, because of this non-satirical portrait, the character W probably more closely resembled the actual guy W. I'm not so sure, I think that may have been the point; just because a picture's more believable doesn't necessarily mean it's safer to take as truth. The opposite, really. But, I do also have to conceed that the film showed the central characters- Bush the elder and the lesser- in both good and bad lights and when it comes to giving an individual an honest look, it's hard to get closer to the truth than that.

The whole thing is worth it, though, to get to see Colin Powell tell Dick Cheney "fuck you" at a cabinet meeting near the end of the movie (don't worry, that didn't spoil anything... like you don't know what happens!). It kind of reminded me of when Yoda threw down at the end of Attack of the Clones: say what you want about the rest of the movie (it sucked), that moment rocked.

Well, I can't put it out of my mind any longer. The polls across the country are starting to close. Time to tune into the election coverage. I'll leave you with this weak Election Day pun: M'Cain-did opinion is that the Republicans Palin comparison to the Democrats, but I'm Biden my time to relax about it, in case the race takes an Obama-nable turn.