During the recent Academy Awards, Frank Langella was revered by Best Actor presenter Michael Douglas: “The pitfalls of playing a historical figure so familiar and so widely interpreted are too numerous to mention -  which is why when I viewed in amazement the new life brought to Richard Nixon by Frank Langella … the comparisons to the real man and all other versions slip away.”

One of our customers noted that during Michael Douglas’ rave review of Langella, Anthony Hopkins was ironically also on stage as a presenter for best actor (for Brad Pitt). Did Mr. Douglas remember Anthony Hopkins also earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Richard Nixon in 1995’s Nixon? One wonders if Sir Hopkins was at all insulted? But I digress…

Directed by Ron “Opie” Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code) and written by Peter Morgan (The Queen, The Last King of Scotland), the film chronicles the development and negotiation of a series of interviews of disgraced former president Richard Nixon by British talk-show host David Frost. Since Frost was not considered a credible investigative journalist at the time, there was a great deal of skepticism that he could produce from Nixon what the American audience desired – an apology, or at the very least, an acknowledgment of his involvement and wrongdoing in Watergate and its subsequent cover-up.

The excellent cast includes Michael Sheen (who portrayed Tony Blair in The Queen), Rebecca Hall (Vicky from Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, and Toby Jones (Truman Capote in Infamous). But the most effective aspect of the Frost/Nixon for me was that although I was rooting for Frost to outwit “Tricky Dick” for the near entirety of the movie, at the end I actually felt sorry for Nixon!

If you are curious about the historical accuracy of the movie, Video Station has Frost/Nixon: The Original Watergate Interviews available on DVD as well.

And if you enjoy fictional politics, I recommend checking out season 5 of the television series 24. Gregory Itzin plays a wonderfully corrupt Nixon-esque President Charles Logan. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/History

Rated R

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