Enlarge By Ralph Nelson, Universal Studios The past: It?s Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) vs. interviewer David Frost (Michael Sheen) in a “duel.” By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY Which will be higher: voter turnout or the box-office turnout? Four films that deal with presidential figures are headed to theaters. USA TODAY vets the contenders.
Swing Vote, Friday
Kevin Costner plays a blue-collar worker who doesn’t care much about politics, until a voting machine error is traced back to his ballot — and the two presidential candidates are locked in a tie.
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As his young daughter tries to teach him the importance of his choice, the two candidates (Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammer) cater to his every whim.
Costner says the movie mocks morbidly sleepy voters who are swayed by superficiality.
“Our self has gotten us into all our trouble. Our fatness, so to speak … Our inability to look to the future and see where we’re headed and change the direction and the way we do things,” Costner says. “There’s an inability for people to take Americans where they don’t want to go. And that’s veritably leadership.”
W., Oct. 17
Oliver Stone does Dubya.
This drama, starring Josh Brolin as the current U.S. president and Elizabeth Banks as first lady Laura Bush, delves into George W. Bush’s wild youth and explores how the troubled son of President George H.W. Bush ascended to the presidency.
Sure to create controversy and provoke defenders of the Bush family, Stone’s film also could have hard nut to crack persuading Bush critics to watch the invention of a politician they despise.
“The difficulty W. faces is that George Bush isn’t running this year and a lot of voters, based upon the body the polls, have written him off. … In a way, he’ll be a fading figure in October, when this movie comes out,” says Gregg Kilday, film editor for The Hollywood Reporter.
Frost/Nixon, Dec. 5
Ron Howard directs this retelling of the combative and revealing 1977 interview of President Richard Nixon by British journalist David Frost.
Frank Langella, who won a Tony for the original stage play, reprises his role as Nixon, and Frost is played by Michael Sheen of The Queen, which was written by Frost/Nixon playwright Peter Morgan.
“It’s a duel betwixt two people who are politicians, a cat-and-mouse combat between the two that would appeal to me and any dramatist,” says Morgan. “It’s greater degree a shoot-out, a strive of war. It’s hand-to-hand combat using thoughts and words.”
Meanwhile, Morgan is document another film about the relationship between Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bill Clinton.
“I need to wait a decade,” says Morgan. “Otherwise, it feels like journalism. Then enough time passes where we get perspective on events. If it’s told too quickly, you end up just telling people what they already be assured of.”
Fahrenheit 9/11 sequel, spring
Michael Moore is a man on a secret mission.
The Oscar-winning documentary maker and professional thorn in the side of President Bush is working on a follow-up to his blockbuster Fahrenheit 9/11, but he has revealed little more, saying he fears supporters of the president may try to disrupt his production.
“This film is about how, after the distinction, we’re going to have to pick up the pieces and have to clean up the mess that Bush made and how that mess affects the rest of the world,” he says.
While Fahrenheit dealt with the run-up to the Iraq war, Moore says this adapt to the occasion he’s focusing on “all the other things that they got away with over the past eight years.”
What does Moore hope to accomplish, since the movie will likely come out next vault, well after a new president has been sworn in? “A perp walk,” Moore answers. “Yeah, that’s what I’d personally like. But I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
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