Nixon (and a rant about politics)...

Like Stone's earlier political epic JFK, Nixon is a long, considered film that's certainly in no rush to go about it's business - despite the constant swapping of film medium (be it 35mm, 16mm, colour, black & white, television cameras, 8mm etc) that almost suggests a disorder with attention.

Certainly a brilliant and consuming performance by Anthony Hopkins, but I'll be buggered if I can fully understand who everybody was and what everything was about ... but then again, with such films I do tend to struggle with identifying who many people are ... specifically in a film such as this, which is all about American politics - and not being American, it can be a bit of a struggle to fully 'get' everything that's going on.

Likewise, I'm sure many Americans do, and will, struggle with understanding the complexities of the British socio-political quagmire of information, opinions, misinformation, struggle, strife, protest, anger, joy and the general feeling of our nation.

That is a key problem with these political epics, but regardless, they're still powerful. Just as long as they're done right, and portrayed fairly - one man's wrong is another man's right after all.

Well, as long as a political epic on the Thatcher years isn't made by that bleeding heart busy body "Belinda-Belinda-Belinda!" who's on Big Brother at the moment (the UK's ninth series), then I think we'll be fine...why the grump about her? She was banging on about "left is right and right is wrong" work she's been involved with (she's a theater director), which I just find to be an exceptionally, and preposterously, arrogant mindset. The left is no more correct than the right, and the right is no more incorrect than the left.

In the end it comes down to which party suits you best - and indeed your own brain (according to certain research) - but beyond that, no one party is ultimately holier than the others ... indeed, Labour can get off their high horse after the shit they've done to Britain, and likewise all the Bible-thumping fervor about Thatcher and other Tories by some of Labour's more rabid followers can piss off ... my point being - neither side is any more right or wrong than the other.

What is a definite though, is that once a party has ran it's course and proven to the country they are no longer capable (which Labour have been doing for a few years now, with increasing drama and turmoil), it's time to step aside, and let the other team in to play and to see about fixing things up again - the main challenge however, is to keep that positive momentum going ... sadly this never seems to happen ... which means, politics is cyclical.

And due to that cyclical nature, it's time for political change in the UK - as well as in America - where I suspect, even if McCain gets in, change is guaranteed on both sides of the pond.

Where was I? Oh yeah - Nixon, the movie ... well, this ended up being a rant on politics ... but then again, just saying stuff about movies does get boring for a blog, I think I'll continue to find little nooks and crannies in each film I watch (and write about on here), in order to splurge out some socio-political/media-based thought-sharing.