Oliver Stone's "W." Teaser Poster

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Oliver Stone's "W." Teaser Poster

Written by Arya Ponto

Monday, 04 August 2008

Here we have a peculiar teaser poster for Oliver Stone's increasingly intriguing President Bush biopic, W. One can interpret the image presented here in many ways, for critic and proponent alike. Is it supposed to address Bush's facade of fabrication? His unpreparedness for the task at hand, hair uncombed? His lack of independent integrity, his need for others to shape him? Or is it a candid representation of that regular joe doing-the-best-he-can-for-his-country candor that he likes to keep at hand so much?

Perhaps it's just Oliver Stone's way of hinting that the movie is a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the real man behind the power. It's not a movie about the most powerful man in the world, not about the Great Satan he'd been accused of being, nor is it about the misguided chimp that talk show hosts like to prod on a nightly basis. This is a movie about a man learning to cope with his job. The teaser trailer, at least, implied such a portrayal.

I don't know—the more I think about this project, the stranger it gets. It's going to be very, very weird sitting there in a theater watching these famous faces pretend to be other famous faces that we see regularly on the news, especially when they don't even look like the people they're supposed to be at all. When I see Richard Dreyfuss in the trailer, I don't see Dick Cheney. I see Richard Dreyfuss looking silly with a bald spot and glasses. Then again, maybe that kind of distance is what's going to save W. from being an SNL skit that takes itself too seriously. Past the ridiculous suspension of belief that these people are supposed to be who they say they are, maybe it'll be easier to get absorbed in the story and not keep thinking that Josh Brolin is not as good of a Bush as Timothy Bottoms in That's My Bush. Maybe.

Go here to see the poster in hi-res.