Favorite Political Movie

Does anyone hear have a favorite political movie? What is it?

Japanese surrealist ghost story based around labour unions and an assassination. Good times.

She is a bitch on wheels!

Another great political movie with Angela Lansbury is "State of the Union" where --- big surprise here -- she plays another bitchy control freak.

One of the great all-time films...it's been remade under about 15 different titles since its' release. It's like the nightmare scenario of the American democracy. It convinced me that a military requires a strong check...one which does not currently exist.

edit: punctuation/grammar

Never seen the movie version, though

That movie cracks me up every time I watch.

Conservative, yet funny. Who'da thunk?

And once again, crs, we're on the same page :pals:

depends on what mood I'm in too though.

I know it's a bit sketchy on the facts sometimes, but it's still very well-crafted.

but this primary season has changed its meaning for me and not in a good way... :cry: but it's still a damned good movie, with a wonderful script and great production.

so now it's "The Candidate" (formerly my #2 political movie and a movie I was introduced to because I was forced to watch it in my freshman American History class at Brigham Young University(no not kidding)...along with "High Noon", and "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner". Good choices, no?

It's true that the Manchurian Candidate is (though only my 3rd favorite) by far the best political movie out there and I'm constantly impressed with Frank Sinatra's talents, how good an actor he was, playing what's got to be one of the hardest roles out there to have played. It's not my #1 because once the mystery is solved, it's not something I watch again, while the other movies are, although this deserves more watchin'!

Anyway, kudos to the movies that made you more intelligent having watched them.

The story of two ex-presidents, one Republican and one Democratic, who hate each other's guts, but have to band together because the Republican-ruled government is trying to assassinate them.

The villians in the movie are President Haney (from Texas), vice-prez Matthews (acts a lot like Bush II), and the evil Colonel Tanner of the NSA (looks and acts like Oliver North). They act so much like the real-life neocons running this country into the ground that it looks as if the producers have the character, or lack thereof, of Texas Republicans down to a science.

I rented it thinking it was going to be a standard Robin Williams 'comedy,' and found it to be a damn good film.

n/t

Great satire on the US political system.

Khash.

Redford and Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein.

:patriot:

I need to rewatch it soon, it's exciting :o

This one totally warned us what was just around the corner.

so that it's not just ONE LONG BLOCK OF RESPONSES and is in a threaded format? it's a total eyesore, you can't tell who's responding to what...

It takes some getting used to, but you'll get he hang of it.

Welcome to DU!

This movie, along with 'All the President's Men', proved Alan J Pakula the master of the political thriller. :thumbsup:

Here's a book about political movies by a former colleague of mine:



Synopsis
Keyishian synopsizes some 50 movies about American politics and politicians, showing how patterns and themes in the genre have played out over the decades. Many entries include b&w film stills. The book will be of interest to film historians, scholars, and critics, and well as movie buffs. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR



There are at least one or two that are prescient re our current situation.




Cher

"For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was, to a certain extent, about character, and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character.

"For the record: Yes, I am a card- carrying member of the A.C.L.U. But the more important question is why aren't you, Bob? This is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the questions. Why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for president, choose to reject upholding the Constitution? If you can answer that question, then, folks, you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a couple of minutes ago. Everybody knows American isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free, then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest." Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free. I've known Bob Rumson for years. I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong.

"Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it. Nobody has ever won an election by talking about what I was just talking about.

"This is a country made up of people with hard jobs that they're terrified of losing. The roots of freedom are of little or no interest to them at the moment. We are a nation afraid to go out at night. We're a society that has assigned low priority to education and has looked the other way while our public schools have been decimated. We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle- income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and personal character. Then you have an old photo of the President's girlfriend. You scream about patriotism and you tell them she's to blame for their lot in life, you go on television and you call her a whore. Sydney Ellen Wade has done nothing to you, Bob. She has done nothing but put herself through law school, prosecute criminals for five years, represent the interests of public school teachers for two years, and lobby for the safety of our natural resources.

"You want a character debate? Fine, but you better stick with me, 'cause Sydney Ellen Wade is way out of your league. I've loved two women in my life. I lost one to cancer, and I lost the other 'cause I was so busy keeping my job I forgot to do my job. Well that ends right now.

"Tomorrow morning the White House is sending a bill to Congress for its consideration. It's White House Resolution 455, an energy bill requiring a 20 percent reduction of the emission of fossil fuels over the next ten years. It is by far the most aggressive stride ever taken in the fight to reverse the effects of global warming. The other piece of legislation is the crime bill. As of today it no longer exists. I'm throwing it out. I'm throwing it out and writing a law that makes sense. You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I'm gonna convince Americans that I'm right, and I'm gonna get the guns. We've got serous problems, and we need serious men, and if you want to talk about character, Bob, you'd better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when, and I'll show up. This is a time for serious men, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up. My name's Andrew Shepherd, and I am the President." "

That is political writing that comes once in a generation. Thank you, Aaron Sorkin. :patriot:

The futility just laid me to waste for days.

Travolta did a great Clinton impression, and Emma Thompson did a great Hillary impression. It captured the excitement of the campaigning process quite well, and actually is pretty even handed in neither glorifying or demonizing Clinton.

I also like Thirteen Days, with Kevin Costner, about the Cuban Missile Crisis.

One of John Candy's last movies. Very goofy but also very subtly intelligent movie about a failing president (Alan Alda) in the post Cold War era who tries to convince the American people to go to war with Canada, and the military industrial complex's support behind it. Similar concept to "Wag the Dog" but I enjoyed it a lot more personally.

Michael Moore's one attempt to go into fiction. Not critically lauded, but personally I thought it was way underrated and actually pretty prophetic for its time.

All about the compromises a candidate makes in order to become President.