It's been an even longer time

I have really been bad about this whole writing thing and I'm just not sure how to buckle myself down and get to it. I so enjoy it once I do it and am constantly reminding myself to get something out there for whomever it is to read. But time and time again I find that I get side tracked with something else, usually something self serving like reading, eating or watching a movie.

Recently I did see a movie I rather enjoyed. Frost/Nixon, who sadly won nothing at the Oscars (it was nominated in something like five categories) was I thought a stellar achievement of historical re-telling. Not being around for the Watergate scandal myself or any of the subsequent after math it was interesting to watch not only how the people of America felt about the situation, including Nixon's resignation, but how Nixon and those aides close to him felt when it all went down.

Frank Langella who played Nixon did a phenomenal job portraying Nixon’s idiosyncrasies, his tonality, and his intonations. He made Nixon seem jointly paranoid, money hungry and truly disturbed by the way things had turned out. It was as though Nixon believed that what had transpired was done in the best interest of the country and it's citizens.

Michael Sheen who played Frost also did a wonderful job, though I'm not sure how demanding the role really was for him. Don't get me wrong, playing someone who truly existed during events that actually happened is probably harder to do than playing a fictional character because you always have people telling you what really happened or how it was really said instead of letting the actor have their own creative flow. However, Sheen has chosen roles similar to this in the past when he played Tony Blair in the Queen. Granted he was playing a more serious character but both movies were about British role models (in a sense) and both of them had something to prove. Again, I was captivated by his performance as well.

The movie documented not only the interview that took place between the two men over four days in a house somewhere in LA but also what led up to it; Nixon's resignation, Frost's idea to get Nixon to do an interview where he discuses his presidency, his actions in office, and of course Watergate, and the way the team that brought Nixon to this unofficial public trial-- as it were-- came together and formed what was to become a historical event. What was asked and said in the interview, I have heard, is factual and some of the lines, including one of them that was in the trailer for the movie, gave me chills to think that not only did Nixon say them, but he believed them. Lines such as:

Frost: Are you really saying the President can do something illegal?
Nixon: I'm saying when the President does it, it's not illegal.

Now of course there were things that Nixon said after that one line, that I won't give away, which didn't necessarily exonerate him but it did make him seem a little bit more human. That was something that I found so compelling about the film was how human Nixon seemed. Before he was just a man, a former president who for the first time in history had resigned for a lie. He wasn't, I am sure, the first President to have lied, but he got caught and the only way to "save face" was to resign. That was all I knew of this man, his tarnished reputation. Ron Howard showed that Nixon was a man who wanted to do right by his people and his country but his ideologies weren't always the most clean and his execution wasn't always the right path. Nixon was socially awkward and yet somehow became President. Interesting how it all turned out.

I guess I should still think about forming my own Academy, vocalizing how I truly feel about movies and hope people will follow because although Frost/Nixon was nominated it got nada, and I found it to be one of the most enjoyable films out there. I guess I'll have to start writing more and more just so I can show that movies aren't always what they say they are...but then again sometimes they are.