The film D.O.A.P. (Death of a President) is set to be the most controversial film at the Toronto Film Festival when it gets its world premiere next week.

One senses American politicians ready to 'blame Canada' for the (British) mockumentary about the outcome of George Bush being assassinated.

NY Daily News story: Pols shun movie on Bush-slay

CTV story: Bush 'whacked' in edgy British mockumentary

AP article via Washington Post: Brit TV Film on Fictional Bush Slaying

NY Times article:

TIFF has already issued a news release to defend the screening of the film.

ABC News: Fake Documentary Looks at Bush Assassination

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Aside: speaking of "Sicko" (Rush Limbaugh's word), the Toronto Film Festival will screen a "teaser" from Michael Moore's upcoming film "Sicko," a look at the United States health-care system. An Evening with Michael Moore

I'm sure many here will defend this deplorable film under the bullshit guise of "art" or "free speech." yeah, right.

This is despicable. No president should ever be the subject of such hatred (don't think for a minute that this anything other than a hateful attack on Bush). I am so damn sick of this pure evil directed at an American president, and I'd say the same thing no matter WHO was in that office.

Now regardless of who the president is, this ought to be an interesting movie. I would go see it if it were about Bill Clinton. However, it's about W. The BF and I are planning on seeing it when it comes to California.

It's a work of art, not real life. Lighten up! We have some far more serious issues about which to worry. This isn't one of them.

As for being vilified and hated, can we harken back to the days of G. Gordon Liddy and his ilk openly calling for the assassination of former President Clinton? I think no other president was as demonized as President Clinton and now that the shoe is on the other foot, we hear the Uncle Toms and collaborators rallying the cry behind our Imperious President.

[ September 01, 2006, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: UCLAfan ]

Bullshit! Stop making excuses for such inexcusable shit like this.

That explains everything.

Bullshit. It's not funny or even interesting when a United States President gets assassinated to depict what amounts to the producer's hatred of our nation's leader.

BTW, nice typical, liberal deflection of bringing up the ole "But they did it to Clinton" crap. It wasn't acceptable then; it's not acceptable now.

A good article on this movie.

I don't think this movie is necessary. I won't go see it and I can't stand W. At the very minimum, it should have been made in past tense not future. However, I tend to think this is a storyline that should not be told about a sitting President (no matter who it is).

I wouldn't be opposed to this movie coming out years from now based on the premise of how an assassination could have changed the course of history along the lines of if JFK had lived.

Call it art, but it's certainly in poor taste. More like blatant art for money instead of for the sake of art.

If I take a shit on a piece of canvas, frame it and call it art, will you pay money to see it? May be a bad example as that has probably been done, but you get my drift.

HF, I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly, especially your statement in paragraph two.

And here I thought hell would have to freeze over for that to happen. wink

Agreed, but that makes it no less interesting in my opinion.

But that's what it is, and fiction no less. It's just like any other disaster movie (such as that ridiculous scare tactic \"Bird Flu\" movie on network television a few months back).

Why not? Have you seen it to make that decision yet MIB?


Hah, I disagree with that statement. And what if it was another country's leader? Would you be so up in arms if this was about the leadership in France? Germany? Canada?

Indeed, Illini. Where was the right's outrage about Zoolander's plot to assassinate the prime minister of Malaysia?

I don't know what this movie's like, but I'm looking forward to it. Is it a mockumentary?


Note: I do not wish for W's assassination. Who does, really? Would we be better off with Cheyney as prez?

FeverDog, yes, I think we can all agree that we are not hoping for our Imperious President to be assassinated. God forbid that we get stuck with Vice President Cheney! Now that's jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Honestly though, isn't this America? Home of free speech and all the other jingoisms that people so claim to cherish. Yet, when challenged with it, they claim it isn't an absolute or that good taste demands SOME things shouldn't be made. My point is: What good is it to have free speech and expression thereof when it isn't exercised, particularly with this mockumentary on W's asserted assassination?

[ September 02, 2006, 01:45 AM: Message edited by: UCLAfan ]

The plot of one of the Naked Gun movies involved Ricardo Montalban programming Reggie Jackson to assasinate Queen Elizabeth. Where was the outrage people? Where was the outrage?

Its certainly nothing that I would want to see, however I was just reading a story about this in my morning paper, and one of its intentions is to make people think maybe more about the potential consequences of American foreign policies.

[ September 02, 2006, 05:24 AM: Message edited by: hockeyTom ]

quote :

"...And what if it was another country's leader? Would you be so up in arms if this was about the leadership in France? Germany? Canada?"

I'd take it a step further considering the disdain that many Americans have for certain leaders of the world. What if it were Fidel Castro or Kim Jong Il? I think people in this country would be signing up to do it themselves or at least sending money to have it done. To quote MIB, "Oh the hypocrisy!"...And not that I'm in any way defending those deplorable leaders.

And what about when Pat Robertson, who has millions of devout, religious followers, called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez?

That was a fact. This movie is a fiction.

And it's not like sitting presidents and world leaders have never been assassinated before. John F. Kennedy. Ronald Reagan (attempted). Anwar Sadat. Yitzhak Rabin. Indira Gandhi. Etc, etc. It's not a new idea.

Interestingly, also screening at the film festival is Bobby, about the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Directed by Emilio Estevez, the cast includes "Sir Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, William H. Macy, Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt, Elijah Wood, Christian Slater, Heather Graham, Laurence Fishburne, Lindsay Lohan, Freddy Rodríguez, Joshua Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Nick Cannon, Ashton Kutcher, Estevez and others."

And The U.S. vs. John Lennon, a documenatry about the assassinated singer's peace activism.

And Dixie Chicks: Shut up and sing. The Chicks were, of course, pillioried after Nataline Maines said "We're embarrassed that the President is from Texas," at a London concert on the eve of the Iraq war.

Throw in some other political films, So goes the nation... ("The United States presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry two years ago was ultimately decided by a narrow margin in Ohio; a truism often repeated during this turbulent time was "as goes Ohio, so goes the nation."), Lake of fire (about abortion rights), Spike Lee's When the levees broke, and many others, it looks like a good season for thought-provoking films--both documentaries and fictional.

[ September 02, 2006, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: canmark ]

Oh, please! Citing fictional movies or television shows is not the same as a real life president of the United States being assassinated under the bullshit label of "art."

Another improper analogy.

You're running out of excuses, Folks.

quote:

"And what about when Pat Robertson, who has millions of devout, religious followers, called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez?..."

Actually canmark, there was lots of outrage in this country over that wackos call for Chavez's assassination. That kind of put the nail on the coffin for the death of his public persona. Even many conservatives in this country were lambasting him.

Yeah because I was making a serious analogy.

When will people realize that the louder and the more you protest, the more publicity movies like this get. You make more people want to see it. There are probably already lots of loons out there with the idea of assassinating the President. They don't need a movie to motivate them. What film motivated John Wilkes Booth or Squeaky Fromme or Leon Czolgosz or Lee Harvey Oswald or Charles Guiteau?

People went crazy when The Passion of the Christ was released. The uproar helped line anti-Semite Mel Gibson's pockets and the sun came up the next day. While the reenactment may be in poor taste, the best way to protest is to simply not see it. I'm much more offended by someone claiming to be an American in favor of censorship. Nobody is making anybody go to see this movie. It's not being pumped into your home. There are dozens of other films to see in lieu of this one.

Well, I've thought that many times in the past several years and it didn't happen. I think it will actually take a wooden stake to the heart or a silver bullet. Take your pick.

I'm not calling for censorship of the movie to be shown anywhere. I just don't plan to see it and find it in poor taste. Bush could die of a heart attack on the road and the attending physician could be under the suspicion of al Queda ties or something.

The premise just wreaks of a $$$ grab from free publicity and protests etc. instead of an artistic piece (but I admit I haven't seen it, so that's not totally fair). I guess the question is are they planning to reap the rewards of controversy, protests, being provacative etc., or will it stand on artistic merit?

Maybe when I read more about it, I can form a better opinion as I still don't plan to see it.

I still find it unnecessary and the same thought provoking questions could be presented without an assassination of a sitting President with his computer image used on the actor playing him.

[ September 02, 2006, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: HornFan ]

LOL HornFan!!! I love Dracula movies so reading your post had such a vivid image for me.

Dark Shadows fan here.

Where's Buffy the Vampire Slayer when we need her?

Thank you! Well said. If you don't like the film (hint to you, MIB), then don't see the movie. If you are interested, then by all means, go and watch. It's art, not life. Simple solution to what really isn't much of a complex problem.

quote:

"Dark Shadows fan here."

(Response w/ a Valley girl accent): Oh, me God! I was like totally a Dark Shadows fan. Is that like a total coincidence or what?!

Totally!

Of course, anyone has a right to see this film, or any like it; raising straw issues like a purported chilling of free speech is silly and unfounded. Conversely, I'll exercise my right not to see it and call it what it is: a sick exercise in psychopathic, wishful thinking, that is nothing more than another example of the radical left's "acting out" its fantasies and exhibiting its usual lack of self-control.

Me, I'm waiting for "Queen" to come out later this Fall just to see Queen Mum strut her stuff again. Too late to assassinate her; the gracious grand dame died at the ripe old age of 101.

BTW, I was a "Dark Shadows" fan too, especially of the episodes with Joan Bennett in them. And as a Romanian, Dracula's blood courses thru my veins! BWAAAAAAAAAAAA! eek!

[ September 02, 2006, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: gmginsfo ]

I have no interest in this film and think it is in poor taste. They could have just as easily (if not more easily) made the president an entiraly fictional character who mirrored some of Bush's traits, but to make it about the death of a sitting president is just wrong, IMO.

I don't know the statistics on assissinated statesmen, but would wager a guess that those on the left are more likely to be assassinated than those on the right. We certainly killed a few.

I'm guessing that those on the right tend to believe in violent means and gun rights, and that killing a single individual will kill an idea.

That is a mistake that we have made repeatedly in the so-called War on Terror. Is there more likely to be an assissination of a successor?

Having not seen the film, none of us know exactly what it is about, or what its purpose/point of view happens to be. From the description on the Toronto festival site, it appears to be a "what if" kind of movie - and I can't see any problem with that, by itself, for the premise of a film. This film apparently looks at what might happen to the sitting President of the US, one who has clearly angered millions of Muslims, whether they were originally anti-American before or not, with his actions. Wondering what would happen if one of those angry Muslims decided to assassinate him is not a strange or out-of-this-world question. And posing the question does not automatically imply one wants the event to occur, or is predicting it will.

MIB and some other appear to assume this has to be an anti-Bush film simply because he dies, and that is a leap.

Actually, MIB the analogy is completely proper - that was a film that showed the attempted assassination of a sitting head of state. The difference is that no one could ever accuse the makers of the "Naked Gun" series of being serious, so no one was outraged. But just because this film is a drama, not a comedy, does not automatically mean it should be taken any more seriously - I mean, if the film were showing Bush's actual travel routes around DC with notations on where the best vantage points to get a shot off, then I would have a problem with it, because it would pose a real threat to a man who I detest, but who currently holds the office of President. Until I have more information about the film itself, and what it is trying to accomplish as a piece of art, I'll hold judgement.

So you feel you have some of Vlad the impaler's blood in you.

Kind of explains the whole gay thing for you then doesn't it.

Only one problem. When Liddy and gang were advocating the killing of Clinton, the Rethuglican leadership was very VERY silent on it. Now, since you're a big time lawyer, you know that silence does not imply consent, but then, saying nothing says a lot more than you'd think.

So according to the GOP leadhership, it's not okay when the stories about Bush, but when it was about Clinton, it was no comment.

Yeah, Right!.

Yes, to keep the literary allusion alive - or should I say un-dead - Billy Budd and I would have worked alongside each other on "The Rights of Man." wink

Sorry, it wasn't. Was that film a serious one? No. Was it shown at the Toronto Film Festival? No. Was it...

Improper analogy, but nice try in excusing it.

MIB, if you had actually read my entire post, I made it clear that the difference between the Naked Gun film and this one was that the Naked Gun film was a comedy - but that doesn't negate the analogy. For one thing, it is clear that you, and most others, have no problem with assassination of sitting world leaders as a feature of comedy, so there are clearly times when engaging in a fictional "what if" about such a subject is not improper.

The film we are dicussing is also a "what if" film, and as such a work of fiction. Neither its status as a drama, or a Toronto film festival entry (and what, exactly, is the relevance of that piece of information?), automatically imply that film should not have been made. Many dramas have been made about "what ifs," including, at least one television movie (called "Fatherland" IIRC) about what would have happened if Hitler had won WWII and succeeded in wiping out all the Jews from Europe - does that mean the film WANTED all Jews killed? Is the film assumed to be anti-Semitic because of its premise?

All I was trying to say is that this film might turn out to be just as unthreatening a work of fiction as the Naked Gun series - we just don't know yet because none of us, as I understand it, have seen the damn film.

Posted by MIB in another thread

And in this thread:


So, if it backs up his argument, Free Speech is great. But if that same Free Speech is used for something he doens't like, it's wrong. hmmmmmmmm

GMG

Re-read my post, with em-PHA-sis on "Impaler".

I'll wait until it comes out on DVD. It sounds pretty good.

BTW ... Lighten up. It's only a movie.

[ September 06, 2006, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: Allen ]

Beautifully done Chill Trick. To quote someone on this board (the name escapes me at the moment) "Oh the hypocrisy".

[ September 06, 2006, 01:17 PM: Message edited by: George Twins fan ]

Is there an English major in the house? FT, help him out. Maybe Melville's not required reading up there in Canada. wink

A sick exercise in wishful thinking, gmg? Not for this Democrat. I want Bush out of office, not dead. I want him to live a life just long enough so that, with a little hindsight, he can consesus form around something many of us already know: that he was hands down the worst president in this nation's history.

Well, somebody wants to see this movie: all three screenings are sold out.

So, since I can't see "Death of a President," I'm going to see a documentary about those Bush-bashers, the Dixie Chicks. Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing will get its world premiere at a gala screening at the Toronto Film Festival, with the Chicks themselves scheduled to attend. Yee haw!

I think this is more of the consensus that I seem to be getting. Several people express more of this sentiment than wanting our Imperious President to die. It's more like I (and it sounds like several others) want him to live to see history judge him as the worst president in American history, which is already starting to gravitate that way anyhow. We all know he's not the brightest crayon in the box, and he's certainly not the well-spoken president we've had. Despite those handicaps, he is still very much on his way to fulfilling that destiny of being the most memorable president in history-- THE WORST.

As for this movie, it's not even an exercise in wishful thinking. It's merely a work of fiction. As such, it merits about thismuch argument.

Edited to include the following:
Well, I'm reading about another work of fiction assailing the Clinton Administration over its handling of Osama bin Laden. While it is critically inaccurate in key places where Clinton officials are involved, it is a work of FICTION. Will we have those on the right attacking this work of fiction for the BS it throws out there? I wonder.

[ September 06, 2006, 11:11 PM: Message edited by: UCLAfan ]

Toronto Star: DOAP terrifies with realism

USAToday: 'Death of a President' faces tough questions, audience

Bush assassination film set for U.S. release

Well, I guess we get to see a fictionalized Dick Cheney presidency. I don't know how much worse it can be from the current Bush Regime. Seems like he was coming up with some zingers last night that were works of fiction.

MIB expressing an opinion about something he knows diddly about. Shocking.

I find it amusing that this film, which will be seen by far less than a million Americans, could be thought to uniquely put the idea of the events it portrays into people's heads.

LA Times article: Staging a Bush 'Assassination'

Jim Emerson's review (from RogerEbert.com)



[ September 13, 2006, 03:49 AM: Message edited by: canmark ]

Son, I know more about this than you shall ever attempt to know.