Where It All Began

I thought I would save Frost Nixon, the fifth of the five films to be nominated for this year's Academy Awards, for last. Why? Of all of the films nominated this year, Ron Howard's latest gem is the most congruent with the subject matter of this blog.

To begin with, the film is excellent. Frank Langella and Michael Sheen are absolutely stunning in their performances. The supporting cast, consisting of Sam Rockwell, Kevin Bacon, and Oliver Platt, is also quite good. The film is based on the great interviews that David Frost had with Richard Nixon in 1977.

For me, the most intriguing part of the film (actually using the interviews themselves as dialog) was the haunting similarity between Nixon's explanations of Watergate/Vietnam and President Bush's explanations of...well everything he did. Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld both worked for Richard Nixon in his second administration and they learned well from the master. The complete and utter bald face lies told time and again in the face of basic facts is as nauseating today as it was 31 years ago.

The money line:

"I'm saying that when the president does it, it's not illegal"

Sound familiar?