Leave it to good ol Nick Charles to discover the Washington DC screening of WAG THE DOG. Once again he distracted his nosey, cute and adventurous wife Nora into staying behind, while he was accompanied by the ever vigilant Asta, who was keeping his canine eyes open for the big bad NRG types. Luckily the coast was clear and there was no difficulty in getting into WAG THE DOG. Why would you care? Well, it's got a helluva cast, a helluva director and a cool take on a Canadian Bacon storyline with a far superior cast, though I love John Candy and Michael Moore that film blew in my opinion. Nick's review has some slight spoilers (basically the premise) but otherwise is positive. It was possible he was a bit loaded, but then ain't that always the way with Nick? Beneath is another, more lengthy and spoiler filled review by another agent of quality.
I saw an advanced screening of Barry Levinson's WAG THE DOG... It is coming out in Spring of 1998, I thought I'd give ya a quick review:
It's a small gem of movie with a monster cast... Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Anne Heche, Woody Harrelson, Denis Leary, Willie Nelson, Crag T Nelson, Kirsten Dunst... anyway, the film was shot in 29 days and the actors apparently didn't get paid, but you'd never be able to tell from watching it. The film is a comedy where Hollywood meets Washington. It's smart and hilariously funny, the best spoof on Hollywood since '92's the Player.
The plot is simple, The president is caught in a naughty sex scandel just weeks before an election... what to do? Easy, start a war. And how do they start a war? Even Easier... hire a big shot producer (Hoffman in an awesome role) to fool the public by creating a fictional war with Albania, a country no one really knows anything about!
When you're watching it, you're laughing, but you're also thinking, geez, this is screwed, our government could really do this... I highly reccomend Wag the Dog, add another plus for Levinson!
Here we have Cosmo Topper's review of WAG THE DOG. His detection went unnoticed due in part of the years of training of hiding from the Good Witch of the North, his wife. Unfortunately the NRG will soon detect him, since he always has a blank seat on either side of him for his close spiritual friends Constance Bennet and Cary Grant. He is also a noisy viewer, always making "shhhhhh!" noises at the blank seats beside him. Strange ol character, but he wrote a cool review, of what he thought was a cool movie. Good, we need more of them, though Cosmo's fascination with tarantula enlargement does concern me, also his desire to screw with Gregory Peck brain scares me as well. Damn those Dali fevered hitchcockian nightmares!!!!
I recently took in a sneak screening of the Barry Levinson/ David Mamet political satire "Wag the Dog". The film stars Robert DeNiro as the president's spin doctor/ fixer-upper guy who is called upon less than a week away from the election after a Firefly Girl (Sort of like a girlscout) claims that the pres sexually harrassed her while on a visit to the Oval Office. He devises a plan to distract the public from the story by creating an imaginary conflict with Albania. He, along with a presidential secretary played by Anne Heche, calls upon the aid of a bigshot Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman), whose own home is seemingly bigger than the White House. The eternaly optimistic producer, along with his fad guy (Denis Leary), production designer (Andrea Martin), music man (Willie Nelson), and actress (Kirsten Dunst), create simulated video footage to send to the media, institute war-slogans, conjure insipid ballads, and go to any length to keep the "war" going for the 11 days until the election.
An Interesting representation of how life and art, in this case represented by the politics of Washington and the moviemaking of Hollywood, are one and the same. Levinson's direction is in top form, creating a dark atmosphere perfect for these scummy characters to conspire in, which jives very well with Mamet and Hilary Henkin's punchy script, which is actually based on the book American Hero by Larry Beinhart.
The cast is absolute dynomite, with one of DeNiro's most well developed characters in a while, and though he does get a few laughs (and a producing credit) the film clearly belongs to Hoffman, whose character is gung ho to the point of madness, and he definitly has the biggest laugh-per-minute average of all the zany figures presented. Like Levinson's "Jimmy Hollywood", it shows the lengths someone will go to in order to achieve recognition, and how the gullible public eats it up like rabid dogs. Also appearing in a brief but pivotal role is Woody Harrelson as a completly off-his-rocker military convict. After seeing his bland role in "Welcome to Sarajevo", it's good to see Woody again at his hystericly-slackjawed best.
Overall, the film is one of the better inductions against the media in recent years in that it doesn't cram your eyesockets with exposition (ie. "Bob Roberts", "Natural Born Killers"), yet still retains a great level of cynicism. It's actually pretty balanced in it's ability to take itself as being semi-serious yet farcical.
The most interesting aspect of the movie, which is almost like a modern-day "Dr. Strangelove", is that it never really doesn't take a specific political standpoint, but points out the overall evils of politics. It's pretty hard to say a film has leftist leanings when the CIA is actually represented (superbly by Mamet regular William H. Macy) as acting in the public good. There is still a major tremor of paranoia instilled from the picture, even though it may not be as in-your-face as standard conspiracy riddled/ Ollie Stone style wacko festivals.
As far as it's audience appeal is concerned, it might have a chance of doing well on the select circuit and may even be one of those things that develops a cult following, but I cincerly doubt if theres enough here to interest the average multiplex-infesting suburbinite whose not very politically minded. I recommend it highly to anyone looking for a highly intelligent comedy with some very highly memorable moments.
