Nixon - The Election Year Edition (1995)

two generations of perspective

i'm playing nixon on a regular dvd player and the quality is outstanding.

but the real treat on this new re-release is the special features. in one stone explains how viewing nixon again after so many years makes you realize how one's perspective changes with time. he is SO right. as a child of the 60s i hated nixon so i largely tried to ignore him. stone made me realize that nixon is part of our history and understanding him helps us understand the times he lived and the events that still shape our country and our future. you have to watch stone speaking, he is so charismatic.

if you have put off buying nixon now is the time, if for no other reason than this version has a new documentary by oliver's son sean. i loved the docs he did for alexander but this is something different all together. the production values and content are as good as anything on cnn or even the history channel. people on both sides of the nixon issue are included with clips from the film and news footage.

my only disappointment is that we don't see sean stone. i can't help but be curious. except for a short clip on amazon he is very elusive. but judging by his work so far it won't be long before he is the new star on the horizon. August 21, 2008

Nixon -- masterpiece of brilliant, flawed President

Oliver Stone's Nixon was among the finest films of the nineties, and also among the most under appreciated. Anthony Hopkins cuts through the mystery of this complex man and captures his conflicted and wounded soul in a performance that earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor, and stands among his finest work. Both Stone and his actor are not interested in attacking Nixon, but rtather exploring his life for all its complexities and contradictions, and studying how a man could achieve so much and yet fall so hard? Almost Shakespearean in its tone, it is a stunner, with a mesmerizing performance from Joan Allen as "Plastic Pat" who knew better than anyone the flaws of the disgraced Presidnet. Though he resigned in a sea of scandal is it not interesting that every single US President to follow sought his advice in matters of foreign affairs? As he hoped, history has been kind to Richard Milhous Nixon, and so it should be. July 7, 2008

Good DVD transfer--but not anamorphic

Another well-crafted masterpiece from Oliver Stone with an incredible performance by Anthony Hopkins in the title role. The 'R' rating is due to some profanity, which is hardly noticeable compared to other 'R' rated films.

The transfer of this film to DVD ("Collector's Edition" release)is quite good, based on my viewing this movie on a 46-inch Samsung high definition LCD TV, played on a Toshiba HD DVD player. The picture is sharp and the colors are perfect. The format is widescreen, but unfortunately it was NOT enhanced for large screen TVs, so it is not anamorphic and you wind up with this (annoying) letterbox, reduced-size image. Hopefully this movie will be one day released in a 16x9 aspect ratio. Other than that, this DVD is well worth its price and "Nixon" is a movie that you will watch again and again. May 2, 2008

Great, If You Like Horror Movies

If you didn't know better, you'd expect Frankenstein to pop up in the first scene, not Anthony Hopkins' caricature of Nixon. The accents are pretty bad: Hopkins is a Scotchman playing a southern Californian. If you don't know your history very well, you'll be fooled and flummoxed by all this nonsense. If you do know history, then it's safe to watch this as pure entertainment, which, as such, isn't half bad. Stone's purely speculative connections about Nixon's youth and his role in the Bay of Pigs are just that, so beware. I had to watch it over three days: it's pretty long. But it's worth the time, as most any Stone film is. Just don't take it too seriously. April 17, 2008

way way too ambitious

While this film starts at a good dramatic clip, Stone tried to include too much in it for it to be a good movie-going experience, in my viewing. Unfortunately, in an attempt to cover as much as he hopes, Stone falls back on apocryphal scenes that are purely fictional: not only do they pack too much into it, but they are so excessively full of message and symbolism that they completely ruin the drama. For example, we see Nixon meeting with shady and mysterious extreme right-wing oil types in Texas, which so far as I know have little or no basis in fact; there, Nixon at turns makes corrupt deals or displays the arrogance of power.

Nixon was a fascinating character and was involved in enough for a long mini-series. What Stone should have done was chosen one of his machinations or crises, to tell a good story. Instead, he covers his entire presidency, showing headlines of extremely complex events such as the bombing of Cambodia, rushes Nixon in to meet the protesting students (a real event), and zooms in on many other specific scenes, most of which never occurred. At least to me, it came off as a mishmash.

Hopkins is very good as is Joan Allen as Pat, but it just doesn't work. I did enjoy many of the scenes, such as his praying with an uneasy Kissinger, I admit. I just wish it were more focused.

Not recommended. April 8, 2008

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