Wow. Frost/Nixon is bloggably good, and for me that's saying a lot.
It's funny - the reactions I get among boomers have almost always been "why would you want to go see that" or "I won't spend a moment more on Tricky Dick thankyouverymuch." Even at the same time that they and I are pretty much in agreement, that Nixon is the most - confounding and interesting of the last 50 years of leadership.
We're in agreement that the man was genius in dealings with China and Moscow, that he could have been great were it not for these Shakepearean flaws, these cracks in his moral compass.
So I don't get why the "blah, run away" feeling about the film. It's kind of funny.
One friend tried to make it relevant for me. "Were you burnt out on Monica by the third week?"
"Well, yeah-"
"Well that's how overexposed the whole thing was. You couldn't turn on a TV without seeing it."
Well, ok, but dude, it's been 34 years, surely things become interesting again?
Anyway, the reason it's that good is because it's simply that well written a script and that well acted a piece. I was skeptical of Frank Langella in the trailers - he seemed like Dan Akroyd's SNL Nixon, but the whole thing works when you see the film. Perfectly. I seriously hope that he's in the Oscar frontrunning. Michael Sheen is good but we all know that from The Queen.
It's also nice to see Ron Howard have a really *good* script for a change.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the theater was pretty full and this wasn't just my idea of a friday date night.
2000 Daily Show interview with David Frost (yellow socks! )
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