Oliver Stone......?!

[Alexandro]

Actually, both The Doors and Heaven & Earth are my least favorites too, and I don't consider them great, but they're definitely up there in terms of quality and ambition, and flaws and all, they have that energy of a filmmaker during his golden years that is always exhilarating. Going back to acting, Tommy Lee Jones is great in Heaven & Earth, and Jim Morrison is one of Val Kilmer's best performances, perhaps his best. I often find myself choosing what to watch and wishing he had more movies. His two best ones, JFK and Nixon, are just too dense and long to watch them casually.

[Reel]

is W. anywhere near as good as Nixon? I'm really, really, really not interested in seeing it.

[socketlevel]

Nowhere close. Partially because i think W. was made too early.

[Alexandro]

Also, Nixon aims to be a tragedy in the classic sense while W. is clearly defined as a kind of cosmic joke comedy on Bush.

[Gold Trumpet]

No, W. is not as good as Nixon, but that isn't saying much. It's a bad comp and Nixon may be Stone's best film. Stone said Nixon was a full orchestra work while W. was a chamber piece.

Still, how was W. made too early? Unlike most typical biographies of political leaders, the film isn't attempting to cash in on Bush's greatest problems or be a rundown of his greatest controversies (which will continue to leak out over time). It has references to a various numbers of things, but big political situation wise, it mainly focuses on just his situation of going into the Iraq War. That already was well defined enough to be relevant for fiction.

The film has a purpose of trying to paint a psychological portrait of Bush over the course of his history. It allows small moments to both underline and contradict his personal history and the unlikelihood of him ever becoming history with the way the film is structured and how it travels over large periods of history in short time to just show specifically different moments of Bush's life, it's obvious the film is trying to be specific about more anecdotal moments to associate with the personal Bush.

If films were made to cover other Bush controversies, it is likely they would have to be more along the lines of single subject films. I never understood the purpose of clustering a ton of big subjects together because it just minimizes the importance of each historical event, but it happens. A positive for W. is that it doesn't.

[MacGuffin]

Oliver Stone Teaming With Son, Sean, For Mysterious Iran-Set Documentary
Source: Playlist

A couple of surprises here. First off, apparently Oliver Stone's son Sean decided way back in the spring of 2010 to follow in his father's footsteps, and has been working on a feature film titled "SecretStone" about a group of filmmakers working inside a haunted psychiatric hospital who quickly discover they are not alone. Generic, we know, but cast your famous father in the film and you'll have us paying attention. It's some kind of meta-horror, found footage, faux-doc thing and STYD have dug up the trailer for the film (now called "Graystone") which will be looking for distribution at the American Film Market in November. It looks pretty terrible, proving that talent isn't necessarily genetic.

Anyway, it looks like the father-son duo are set to reunite behind the camera, with reports from the local Iranian media that Sean is currently in the country prepping a documentary of some sort with Oliver soon be joining him there. "Sean Stone is in Iran to make arrangements for filming a documentary," a producer is quoted as saying (dubious, we know). "He will talk about his plans on Wednesday."

Stone, the senior one, isn't adverse to touchy subjects, having previously released documentaries on controversial leaders Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. Over the years he's also been plotting a film about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, last expressing his desire to follow through with his plans in 2009. Could that project be back in the cards? We're sure we'll hear more soon enough, and if that's indeed the case, Stone is likely to be garnering the most controversy his career has faced to date.

Next up for Stone is the adaptation of Don Winslow's "Savages," the illustrious cast of which boasts Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Aaron Johnson, Emile Hirsch, Taylor Kitsch, Olivia Wilde, Benicio Del Toro and Demian Bichir. A September 28, 2012 release date has been set for the currently shooting film.

[Stefen]

Doing anything with your son when they're an adult is always a bad idea. You're gonna get made fun of, Oliver!

[MacGuffin]

Oliver Stone to Direct 'Power Broker' Film for HBO (Exclusive)
Nicholas Meyer will pen the script for the telepic based on Robert Caro's Pulitzer-Prize winning book about how Robert Moses reshaped the face of New York.
Source: THR

HBO is getting political with director Oliver Stone.

The premium cable network is developing a film based on Robert Caro's classic nonfiction book The Power Broker. Like the 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning tome, the project will tell the story of how Robert Moses reshaped the face of New York.

Moses, who at one time was dubbed the city's "master builder,' was among the most powerful men in 20th century urban planning and politics, having influenced New York's infrastructure as much as any other individual.

In addition to assuming directorial duties, Stone will executive produce with former studio chief Peter Guber and Sopranos vet James Gandolfini.

Gandolfini's managers Nancy Sanders and Mark Armstrong are attached as co-executive producers, with Nicholas Meyer (Collateral Damage, The Prince of Egypt) on board to pen the telepic.

[socketlevel]

Doing anything with your son when they're an adult is always a bad idea. You're gonna get made fun of, Oliver!

Roman Coppola added some great stuff to Dracula.

[Robyn]

After Melancholia i am pretty sure that von Trier is my favorite director alive.

Sorry, Paul.

[Reel]

ok, that's great and this Melancholia movie seems to be the tits, but

WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH OLIVER STONE!?!!!!

[Robyn]

Similar enough filmmakers I guess.

[72teeth]

Hey i saw Red State last night and liked it a lot! What do you guys think about Barry Sonnenfeld ?

[MacGuffin]

Oliver Stone Blasts Obama's 'Bush-Style Eavesdropping Techniques'; Says Edward Snowden Is a Hero
Source: Toral Film

Edward Snowden is "a hero" and the rest of the world should stand up to the United States and offer asylum to the NSA whistleblower, director Oliver Stone said in a Fourth of July appearance at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Thursday.

"It's a disgrace that Obama is more concerned with hunting down Snowden than reforming these George Bush-style eavesdropping techniques," said the outspoken, politically-charged filmmaker during an afternoon press conference at the Thermal Hotel in Karlovy Vary.

Stone, who won an Oscar for directing "Born on the Fourth of July" in 1989, spent his Independence Day in the Czech Republic, showing two episodes from his television series "The Untold History of the United States" and blasting the U.S. for the "global security state" he said it has created.

"To me, Snowden is a hero, because he revealed secrets that we should all know, that the United States has repeatedly violated the Fourth Amendment." Stone said. "He should be welcomed, and offered asylum, but he has no place to hide because every country is intimidated by the United States.

"This should not be. This is what's wrong with the world today, and it's very important that the world recognizes and gives asylum to Snowden. Everyone in the world is impacted by the United States' Big Brother attitude toward the world."

Throughout the press conference, Stone resisted the moderator's attempts to rein in his long answers, which were full of details from the last 70 years of U.S. foreign policy. "It's the story of a great country that loses its way when it becomes obsessed with national security," he said.

He also told the room of mostly European journalists that their countries should resist U.S. pressure. "We need countries to say no to the United States," he said.

"The United States is the dominant power in the universe, with its eavesdropping abilities, cyber abilities ... It's what they call in the Pentagon 'full spectrum dominance.'

"And the world is in danger with our tyranny."

In addition to screening episodes of "Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States" dealing with the atomic bomb and the War on Terror, Karlovy Vary presented the "ultimate" cut of Stone's "Alexander," as well as "Scarface," which he wrote.

"Untold History" debuted at the New York Film Festival last October and aired on Showtime in November. Stone said he and coauthor Richard Kuznick are working to get a book based on the series into high school libraries.

But he also pointed to "Savages" as proof that he can make apolitical movies, and he insisted that he is now drawn to subjects to make political points.

"I'm a dramatist," he said at one point. "I don't do movies for ideological reasons, I do them because they interest me."

Later, at a public Q&A following the screening of the two episodes of "Untold History," he repeated, "I don't consider myself a political activist, though I've become one in many ways."

Then he drew connections between the two episodes -- one in which Harry Truman said he knew he was doing the right thing when he dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, and other in which George W. Bush spoke of good vs. evil.

"America is possessed with a religious conviction," he said. " ... We think we're special, but we're not.

"There seem to be madmen running the country. Mad men. They wear suits, they wear ties, they talk nice like Obama or tough like Bush, but what's the difference? They're mad men."

[classical gas]

I'm not sure how easy it is to find this online, but I was surprised when I found it.  Mostly because I had forgotten about it.  Not a big Stone fan, but it could be good.

The Untold History of the United States