I have always enjoyed the films of Ron Howard. His direction is usually assured,pacy and intelligent (for mainstream cinema that is) and the likes of The Missing and Apollo 13 rate highly in my top 100 films.Hazel had a bad day at work today, so perhaps Frost/Nixon was not the most uplifting of movies to go to, but as Chris was doing his ballroom dance practice with Janet and Hazel's daughters were off to their father's it seemed a good idea for us to support the scala cinema again!
Frost/Nixon is an interesting film. It does not paint a picture of the former disgraced President and the chat show host as real three dimensional characters but concentrates more on the battle of wills and ego present in their fateful tv interview of 1977.
Michael Sheen wisely portrays Frost as a slightly shallow, slightly fey character with a skill for gaining channel ratings and doesn't shy at making the presenter ever -so- slightly unlikable, it is a brave performance which is overshadowed by a masterclass of scene stealing by the wonderful Frank Langella as the old dog Nixon.
I don't know very much about Watergate, indeed I know very little of early 1970 American history (except for a genius level knowledge about The Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno from 1972 and 1974),but I did find the whole film fascinating!!!
8/10
Haven't seen this movie yet, but we have about 8 passes to the AMC theatres that we need to use up, so perhaps this will be one to see. Had to laugh at your comment about your genius level knowledge of the Poseidon Adventure. I've never seen it.
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