{"id":4221,"date":"2009-06-22T07:59:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-21T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=4221"},"modified":"2009-06-22T07:59:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-21T23:59:00","slug":"frostnixon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/06\/22\/frostnixon\/","title":{"rendered":"Frost\/Nixon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-nixon\" Frost\/Nixon<\/a><\/em> (2008) \u2013 on rental. Director Ron Howard\u2019s output seems to fluctuate quite a bit. On the one hand, I really liked Apollo 13<\/em> but on the other hand, his move adaptations of the two Dan Brown novels \u2013 Angels & Demons<\/em>, and The Da Vinci Code <\/em>\u2013 were far less exemplary work.<\/p>\n

Frost\/Nixon<\/em> thankfully belongs to the same league as 1995\u2019s Apollo 13<\/em> though. The film dramatizes a series of interviews the late President Nixon did with talk show host David Frost in the aftermath of the former\u2019s fall from grace, precipitated by the Watergate scandal<\/a>. Nixon\u2019s successor, Gerald Ford, had already given Nixon a presidential pardon, but that did not exonerate him from the public perspective that he should be convicted in the media circus if not in a court of law.<\/p>\n

The film reminds me of the recent Nanking<\/a><\/em> film, which saw actors portraying historical characters in the incident, and getting interviewed as though they were the real persons. Frost\/Nixon uses the same cinematic style to provide context to the film, and transition between scenes.<\/p>\n

The two leads, Michael Sheen and Frank Langella, playing Frost and Nixon are clearly comfortable in their respective roles. Both persons are reprising their roles from the successful Broadway play<\/a> of the same name.<\/p>\n

The film runs along pretty briskly too from an opening montage presenting succinctly the ke event points of the Watergate scandal, followed by Nixon\u2019s resignation, to Frost and his producer John Brit\u2019s decision to interview him, then preparation work, and finally the interview sessions.<\/p>\n

The interview sessions don\u2019t begin well for Frost\u2019s team though as they\u2019re obviously and quickly outclassed by the world-class political operative, Nixon. But they gain ground later after a crucial turning point after an apparently intoxicated Nixon phones Frost in a late night call, an incident that Nixon biographers insist never happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The film is all dialog and low tension for the first two thirds. But the last 30 minutes \u2013 the last interview session \u2013 are absolutely riveting where the two persons face off like two boxers, with Nixon finally making that controversial admission that \u201cWhen the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.\u201d When the last interview is done, Nixon emerges as a man seemingly broken in spirit and humbled.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ibxs_2nDXUc<\/p>\n

The film was nominated for all the key Oscars \u2013 including Best Motion Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director \u2013 but curiously won none of them (the awards went to Slumdog Millionaire<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

One of the most telling signs at home of whether a film will appeal to those of us who like films that are more drama than noise & explosions is Ling\u2019s reaction to it. Ling didn\u2019t get to finish watching the film as Hannah wanted a feed.<\/p>\n

Just as we were turning in, Ling asked \u201cSo what happened at the end? I want to know\u2026!\u201d<\/p>\n

The film gets Ling\u2019s approval: \"star\"\"star\"\"star\"\"star\"\"blank-star\".<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frost\/Nixon (2008) \u2013 on rental. Director Ron Howard\u2019s output seems to fluctuate quite a bit. On the one hand, I really liked Apollo 13 but on the other hand, his move adaptations of the two Dan Brown novels \u2013 Angels<\/p>\n

Read More Frost\/Nixon<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-entertainment","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}