Have you seen "The assassination of Richard Nixon"?

[sweetheart]

Wow, what a penetrating political expose, one that
puts the frustration of the new american underclass
front and center. Penn expresses things in his
character that i've only ever read on DU otherwise,
underclass buried nobody zeros, our failed lives peter
out in a few internet posts before time erases us
from a world that never knew us anyways.

/ end sweetheart rambling morbid empathy with
sean penn's character... ;-o

http://www.assassinationrichardnixon.com/nixon.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364961/

Have you seen the film? What did YOU think?

[NJ Democrats]

1. i haven't seen it yet

But I'm planning on renting it.

[CanuckAmok]

2. It's great. He maybe a complete nutcase, but Penn is one of the...

...finest actors of our time.

[sweetheart]

4. My hat's off to the man

My complaint is that whilst the film gives air to some
very poignant insights.. they are morally cast as those
of a murderer, and as much as a camera can follow a
character and give a viewer a sense of identification
with the protagonist, this particular protagonist is
a really fucked up dude.

I LOVED it when he suggested that the black panthers
would double their membership if they became the
zebra's and accepted white people. I replayed it
several times on the DVD and had a right hearty chukkle. :-)

He captures not the most worst, but some of the lesser
worst moments of wage-slave self-pity i've felt workign
under some bosses who were much more abusive than the one
in that film.

The whole analogy with the world trade center attacks and
the ending left me breathless in a way that was not painful
but perhaps so penetratingly poignant that i'll have to
cry a bit.

[alarimer]

3. Yes I've seen it

another good performance by Penn.

[sweetheart]

5. the leftist fool

I challenge the writers to transcend the image of the leftist fool.

I'm a bit tired of having the guy with the progressive poltiics
cast as the depraved, reduced product of our society. I coulda
rewritten that script to give the views the similar angst, but
without the stupidity... but that is the character's strategic flaw,
its tragic error...

When the character played by the actor from "crash" (name* - bad at names)
and penn sparr off on wage slavery it is a priceless moment in film,
as when i can't recall the last time i saw two heavy actors, one defending
wage slavery, and the other libertarian realism, in a sort of exposing
documentary of the zeitgeist.

The film is a classic. But it'll cast, much like rambo did, too many
preconceptions of the leftist fool without a solution.

I'm not like sean penn that way. My own feelings like his character
in the film, are ultimately realized to be indulgent self pity, and not
worthy of any glorification. I would rather have seen an american
acting chacter grow up for once, but that is asking way way too much.

Baby steps... its an awesome leap.

[TabulaRasa]

6. I liked it a lot

I really didn't think it was a very political movie, though. I more thought it was a fascinating "case study" of psychopathology and delusion. I loved the scene where Samuel steals money from his successful brother, and tries to justify it (to the brother) by saying that he wasn't able to get a small business loan because his business partner is black. The scene in which he's (ineptly)pitching for the loan demonstrates how preposterous that idea is. But he's managed to tie all of his own personal failures to the injustices of society. I found it very compelling. Penn is an absolutely brilliant actor.

[sweetheart]

7. it was very political.

I can't recall the exact words from the film "first blood",
but sylveter stallone's character told a little story at
the end about how when he came back from vietnam, that people
were spitting at him, calling him baby killer and all that
vile crap. who are they unless they been there... blah blah.

That was a lie, a myth that has popularized and shifted american
self-perception about its role in vietnam, that has allowed
conservatives to villainize the liberals who were doing all that
"spitting".

And here again, a character is repeating the observations of
the progressive politic, and the POV is cast as that of
being one of "personal failures". This branding of the meme
is very political stuff, and hollywood is proving rather right wing
truth be told.

What inspires the character to visit the black panther's is
authentic poltiical honesty... and as he has no franchise politically,
he resourts to being a suicide bomber. I agree totally with your
take on the character and how the writers made it his tragic flaw,
to be impatient and ignorant about his own lie. But that makes him
all the more human doesn't it, that we're all so vain, decieving
ourselves with some lie at some level..