WHERE’S MY ROY COHN?: vile begets vile

Roy Cohn (center) in WHERE’S MY ROY COHN? Credit: Photo by Henry Burroughs/AP/REX/Shutterstock. Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics.

Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and is there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn? Has there been a more shameless hypocrite? A bully more cruel? A crook more craven?

It would be accurate but unhelpful to say that Roy Cohn didn’t invent scorched earth tactics, like saying that Hitler didn’t invent genocide. Cohn and his proteges certainly popularized what Bill Clinton called “the politics of personal destruction”.

I can’t remember ever before quoting movie publicity materials, but I can’t improve on this trenchant description of Cohn’s legacy from Sony Pictures Classics:

Cohn formulated his playbook in the 50s, but it is all too familiar today: always attack; never admit blame or apologize; use favors and fear to ensure support for your objectives; expertly manipulate the media to gain advantage and destroy your opponents; lie shamelessly, invalidating the idea of truth; weaponize lawsuits; evade taxes and bills; and, most importantly, inflame the prejudices of the crowd by scapegoating defenseless people.”

Cohn’s central role in McCarthyism is well known, as is his role as a storied, self-promoting fixer (or legal terrorist) in the 1970s and 1980s. More recently, Cohn’s formative mentorship of the young Donald Trump has come to light.

Roy Cohn and Donald Trump in WHERE’S MY ROY COHN? Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics.

In Where’s My Roy Cohn?, Tyrnauer provides us with less well-known revelations. Cohn’s cousins and his longtime boyfriend are key witnesses. We learn about Cohn’s father, who exposed him to the seamy world of a political machine, and Cohn’s mother, from whom Cohn seems to inherited his ruthlessness. There’s an absolutely jaw-dropping anecdote about how far Mrs. Cohn would go to avoid interrupting her Seder. And there’s the important story of his Uncle Bernie’s financial ruin and public disgrace, which seems to have taught Cohn all the wrong lessons. Tyrnauer also brings us Cohn’s wresting control of the Lionel Train company from family members. And there’s an “insurance fire” on Cohn’s Florida yacht, which resulted in a homicide.

Cohn was the chief henchman leading Joseph McCarthy’s Lavender Scare to persecute LGBTQ Americans in public and military service. The famous Army-McCrthy hearings were sparked by Cohn’s seeking favorable treatment for David Schine, Cohn’s assistant and the object of his infatuation, as they cavorted across US bases in Europe, making life hellish for American gay soldiers. Despite a legendary reputation for same-sex encounters and relationships, Cohn always denied being gay himself or having AIDS, of which he died.

And, for good measure, one of his cousins also pegs Cohn as a self-loathing Jew.

There are also clips of Cohn on The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder. (Man, I haven’t thought of Tom Snyder in decades.) In one clip, Cohn defines “tough” as “vicious”, and says that his clients “buy scare value”.

Why spend almost two hours with Roy Cohn? Because Roy Cohn’s story is important to our understanding of 20th Century American history and of our current public culture.

Where’s My Roy Cohn? played at the Mill Valley Film Festival and opens in Bay Area theaters this weekend.

DVD/Stream of the Week – LOVE & MERCY: a tale of three monsters and salvation

Paul Dano as Brian Wilson in LOVE & MERCY
Paul Dano as Brian Wilson in LOVE & MERCY

Love & Mercy, the emotionally powerful biopic of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, is the true life story of an extraordinarily gifted person facing three monsters. Wilson is a musical genius, one of the great songwriting, arranging and producing talents of his century. But his art and his very survival were tested by his tormentors until unselfish love found him an escape route to treatment, and, ultimately, his salvation.

In his first feature as a director, veteran producer Bill Pohlad chose to depict two phases of Wilson’s life, with Wilson played by Paul Dano and John Cusack.

The first monster is Wilson’s father Murry (Bill Camp), an abusive father whose adult sons still fear after they have fired him as their manager. What kind of father needs to belittle and sabotage his sons so he doesn’t have to acknowledge that their success surpasses his own? Brian Wilson is deaf in one ear from his father’s punches, but the psychological scars are even more deeply felt.

The second monster is Brian’s own schizoid affective disorder, a condition causing auditory hallucinations. Brilliantly, Pohlad has chosen to let the audience hear what Brian hears. This can be thrilling in moments of musical inspiration. And, of course, it is terrifying most of the time.

The third monster is charlatan psychologist Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), a Svengali-like manipulator, who over-medicates Brian, then confines him, while controlling and watching his every move. Landy leeches off Brian’s fortune and is ruthlessly protective of his racket.

Murry and Landy are so scary that Beach Boy Mike Love, known to be (and portrayed here as) a colossal jerk, almost seems sympathetic by comparison.

In the younger Dano segments, we see Brian at his creative peak, emotionally tortured by Murry and about to be driven into a breakdown by his condition. In the middle-aged Cusack parts, we see Brian, broken down by his illness, utterly helpless against and captive to Landy’s web of control.

Dano shows us Brian’s vulnerable genius. Cusack shows us Brian as gentle and genuine. The story of Love & Mercy is about how he escapes being under the thumb of his monsters, chiefly from the perspective of Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), the woman who would become his second wife. As good as are Dano and Cusack, Banks is absolutely stellar; her character must continually react to the unpredictability of Brian’s illness and the increasing horror of Landy’s tyranny.

From the beginning, Love & Mercy sweeps us up into the highs and lows of Brian Wilson’s life – and it’s a helluva life. Love & Mercy is one of the Best Movies of 2015 – So Far. Watch the end credits all the way to the end.

Love & Mercy is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes and Vudu.

VICE: like Macbeth, only funny

Christian Bale in VICE

Vice is the comic biopic of Dick Cheney by writer-director Adam McKay (The Big Short).  Cheney is played by a physically transformed and unrecognizable Christian Bale.

McKay’s take is that Cheney’s driving motivation and genius is the accumulation and exercise of power – to whatever end and by whatever means.  McKay also sees Cheney as a mediocre slacker molded and fueled by Lynne Cheney (Amy Adams), whose own ambitions were limited in the 1960s by her gender.  So, this is a tale of ruthless grasping along the lines of Macbeth or House of Cards, only mostly non-fiction.

McKay drops in the horrifying real impacts of Cheney’s exercise of power, but this is mostly a very funny movie.  Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney’s mentor in power-grabbing, and George W. Bush, Cheney’s stooge, are played for laughs in very broad performances by Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell.  McKay also tosses in a funny faux ending and has Dick and Lynne, in bed for the night, erupt in Shakespearean dialogue.  Jesse Plemons plays a fictional Everyman narrator.

Bale’s performance is extraordinary, and goes well beyond the impeccable impersonation, down to every Cheney mannerism – stoneface, sneer and grunt.  Adams is excellent as his Lady Macbeth.  So is the rest of the fine cast, especially Alsion Pil as lesbian daughter Mary, Tyler Perry as Colin Powell and Shea Whigham as Lynne Cheney’s probably murderous father.

Vice is pretty good history, biography from a sharp point of view and a damn entertaining movie.

STAN & OLLIE: comic geniuses facing the inevitable

Left to right: Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel, John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy,
Photo by Nick Wall, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

In Stan & Ollie, Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy deliver remarkable portraits of a partnership facing the inevitability of showbiz decline. An iconic movie comedy team, Laurel and Hardy made 107 films, including 23 features. Their run started in 1926 and made the transition into the sound era more successfully than their peers in silent comedy. But by 1945, their popularity was over, and most of Stan & Ollie is set in 1951, when they are trying to rekindle their careers with a British live tour.

Coogan and Reilly’s impersonations (and Reilly’s makeup) are impressive. However, the most interesting aspect to Stan & Ollie is the depiction of the partnership, which like any partnership, is unequal and complementary; each individual has a different personality and a different role. Together, their act was so seamless that we forget that the two, one English and the other from Georgia, were veteran professionals already in their mid-thirties when they hooked up. Hardy was bossy on-screen, but Laurel was the business and creative leader of the team.

In a flashback (during the 1937 filming of Way Out West), we see the two at the height of their career arc. That sets us up to watch the two manage struggle and disappointment later on.

The technical highlight of the Coogan and Reilly performances is a dead-on re-creation of Stan and Ollie’s dance in front of an Old West saloon in Way Out West, a dance which is comic perfection; it’s worth finding Way Out West for the original version of the dance, which is much longer. My own favorite Laurel & Hardy film is the 1933 Pre-Code Sons of the Desert, where the duo mislead their wives to sneak off to the rowdy convention/drinkfest of the titular fraternal organization.

As usual I’ve embedded the trailer for you, but I recommend not watching it if you’re going to see Stan & Ollie – it gives too much away.

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY: the world’s most beautiful woman and her secrets

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY

Friday, May 18, you can see Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story on PBS’ American Masters. This is the riveting biopic of a glamorous movie star who invented and patented the precursor to wireless technology; that’s amazing enough, but Bombshell delves deeply into how Lamarr’s stunning face, her Jewish heritage, and mid-century gender roles shaped her career, marriages and parenting. Top notch.

In the last few years, one totally unexpected aspect of Lamarr’s life has become more well-known. She was a tinkerer/inventor who co-invented a radio guidance system for submarine torpedos, which she donated to the US military. The US Navy used this technology in WW II. Modern blue tooth technology stems directly from her innovation. Today her patent would be worth billions.

Bombshell adds layer upon layer to this tale of beauty and brains, as it traces Lamarr’s remarkable life. Hedy Lamarr had no control over being born a woman, being born to Jewish parents and being born to be a beauty. These three accidents of birth set the parameters of her journey – granting her access to some professional opportunities and stunting others, even threatening her life.

She burst into celebrity – and notoriety – at age 19, as the star of the film Ecstasy. Not only was Hedy the first actress filmed in full frontal nudity, she was the first screen actress to portray female orgasms. She was soon the young trophy wife of an Austrian industrialist, a formidable and fearsome supplier of munitions to Hitler. Hedy’s life seemed headed along the Bimbo Track, but she realized that her husband was powerful enough to keep her trapped in the marriage, but not powerful enough to protect her from the Nazis. At this point, she orchestrated an international escape that is the stuff of thrillers.

At age 24, often nominated as the most beautiful woman in the world, she launched a Hollywood career. Professional ups and downs, marriages and affairs and children followed, along with her work in technology.

Her beauty was often a blessing and sometimes a curse, but always affected her trajectory. Someone that beautiful is just different – the rest of us can’t help our reactions to her. But how many times can you be a trophy wife?

She was a person who survived troubling times, which left scars on her. How Hedy handled her Jewishness, how she raised her kids and how she was treated by the military are unsettling. Documentarian Alexandra Dean, Bombshell’s writer-director brings us witnesses, including Hedy’s children, to deliver an inside peek at a real life that would not be believable as a work of fiction.

I saw Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story last summer at the 2017 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SJFF). It’s playing tomorrow night on PBS’ American Masters series.

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY: the world’s most beautiful woman and her secrets

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is the riveting biopic of a glamorous movie star who invented and patented the precursor to wireless technology; that’s amazing enough, but Bombshell delves deeply into how Lamarr’s stunning face, her Jewish heritage, and mid-century gender roles shaped her career, marriages and parenting. Top notch.

In the last few years, one totally unexpected aspect of Lamarr’s life has become more well-known. She was a tinkerer/inventor who co-invented a radio guidance system for submarine torpedos, which she donated to the US military. The US Navy used this technology in WW II. Modern blue tooth technology stems directly from her innovation. Today her patent would be worth billions.

Bombshell adds layer upon layer to this tale of beauty and brains, as it traces Lamarr’s remarkable life. Hedy Lamarr had no control over being born a woman, being born to Jewish parents and being born to be a beauty. These three accidents of birth set the parameters of her journey – granting her access to some professional opportunities and stunting others, even threatening her life.

She burst into celebrity – and notoriety – at age 19, as the star of the film Ecstasy. Not only was Hedy the first actress filmed in full frontal nudity, she was the first screen actress to portray female orgasms. She was soon the young trophy wife of an Austrian industrialist, a formidable and fearsome supplier of munitions to Hitler. Hedy’s life seemed headed along the Bimbo Track, but she realized that her husband was powerful enough to keep her trapped in the marriage, but not powerful enough to protect her from the Nazis. At this point, she orchestrated an international escape that is the stuff of thrillers.

At age 24, often nominated as the most beautiful woman in the world, she launched a Hollywood career. Professional ups and downs, marriages and affairs and children followed, along with her work in technology.

Her beauty was often a blessing and sometimes a curse, but always affected her trajectory. Someone that beautiful is just different – the rest of us can’t help our reactions to her. But how many times can you be a trophy wife?

She was a person who survived troubling times, which left scars on her. How Hedy handled her Jewishness, how she raised her kids and how she was treated by the military are unsettling. Documentarian Alexandra Dean, Bombshell’s writer-director brings us witnesses, including Hedy’s children, to deliver an inside peek at a real life that would not be believable as a work of fiction.

I saw Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story this summer at the 2017 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SJFF). It’s coming to Bay Area theaters this weekend.

I, TONYA: we can laugh, but must not judge

Margot Robbie in I, TONYA

The riotously funny docucomedy I, Tonya relives the tawdry story of figure skating star Tonya Harding, brought to disgrace when her supporters injured her competitor Nancy Kerrigan.  Margot Robbie (significantly glammed down) is exceptional as Tonya Harding.

Harding, of course, came from scruffy working class roots in Portland.  With disadvantages of class and poor education,  Tonya was unequipped to navigate a world dominated by middle and upper classes.  In I, Tonya, she refers to herself as a redneck and acts like trailer trash – really unapologetic trailer trash.

But I, Tonya adds another level to Tonya’s story.   In I, Tonya, Tonya’s mother LaVona (Allison Janney) is more than a driven, severe stage mother – she’s unrelentingly abusive, both emotionally and physically.  To make matters worse, Tonya escapes LaVona’s perpetual nastiness by running away into the arms of Jeff (Sebastian Stan) and his chronic domestic violence.  At one point, Tonya reflects, “All I knew was violence“.

The beauty and effectiveness of Steven Rogers’ screenplay is that we can laugh at misadventures of these folks while deeply sympathizing with Tonya – scarred and shaped by abusive experiences.  The characters all break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience – very effective here.  Rogers and director Craig Gillespie maintain a perfect balance between the laughs and the abuse – sometimes at the same time.  This is the Aussie Gillespie’s best work.

Alison Janney in I, TONYA

LaVona’s spiteful bile is so extreme that it’s darkly funny.  Allison Janney, who is superb as this poisonous woman,  is probably America’s least vain actor. And nobody has ever had a better sense of comic timing.  She made me laugh out loud the first time I saw her, in 1998’s Primary Colors, and she keeps the audience guffawing in I, Tonya.

Jeff’s friend Shawn (a brilliant Paul Walter Hauser), who “masterminds” the attack on Kerrigan,  is so catastrophically stupid that he is unable to comprehend the profundity of his own stupidity.  In the closing credits, we get to glimpse the real LaVona and the real Shawn.

Julianne Nicholson is excellent as Tonya’s hyper-polite coach.  In a very brief role, Ricky Russert brilliantly brings out the glorious combination of panic and idiocy of “hit” man Shane Stant.

Once Tonya has been hounded by the media and suffered complete public humiliation, she faces the camera and says to the audience, “you have been my abusers“.  It’s not preachy or overdone, and this brief moment is crisp and unforgettable.  We have been laughing at her, but who are we to judge this survivor of family violence?

I, Tonya is captivating combination of sympathy and hilarity – and one of the year;s best films.

DARKEST HOUR: certainty in a moment of uncertainty

Gary Oldman in DARKEST HOUR

A less-remembered moment in human history makes for a great story in Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour, which takes place entirely in May 1940, the period after the German blitzkrieg through the Low Countries on the way to Paris and just before the Dunkirk evacuation.

It’s not always easy today to remember that there was a time when it appeared that Hitler would win WW II. In May 1940, the Nazi empire had swallowed essentially all of Central and Western Europe except for France, which was teetering on the verge of imminent surrender. The entire British Army was trapped, surrounded on a French beach across the Channel.

The UK was both damaged and entirely isolated. Stalin had split Poland with Hitler, and it was over a year before Hitler’s invasion of the USSR. It was also 19 months before Pearl Harbor brought the US into the war.  With no hope of external help, Winston Churchill even publicly contemplated the war being carried on by the Commonwealth nations after the German conquest and occupation of the island of Britain.

in Darkest Hours, Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman in a superb, Oscar-worthy performance) has just become Prime Minister. At the time, Churchill was a 66-year-old who had peaked at forty.  He had been a superstar daredevil in his twenties who squandered his celebrity in a career dotted by Bad Gambles, where he had repeatedly gone All In and lost all of his chips. By 1940 he was well-known for engineering a horrific military disaster at Gallipoli in WW I and for a series of political party changes. Not the confidence-inspiring figure we think of today.

So in this situation, what to do? One option was to embark on what one could rationally conclude would be a suicidal course of waging aggressive war and risking obliteration. Another option would be to negotiate the most favorable surrender with Nazi Germany.  No good choices here.

If Churchill begins trash talking the Germans just before their invasion, is that delusional or intellectually dishonest? Or a moment of inspired leadership?

Churchill’s selection as Prime Minister was forced on the former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his top foreign affairs expert Lord Halifax, and the two were understandably concerned that Churchill might be leading the nation to its (literal) ruin. They lay a trap, but great politicians like Lincoln and Churchill do not let themselves be trapped.

The core of Darkest Hour is Churchill probing for a solution while under the most oppressive stress and pressure. In Darkest Hour, his outsized personality and eccentricities sprinkle the story with humor. Churchill, well-known for consuming a bottle of champagne with both lunch and dinner and working, slugging down brandy and whisky,  late into the night, is shown having breakfast eggs with champagne and whisky. When the King, at lunch, asks him, “How do you manage drinking during the day?”, Winston replies, “Practice”.

Oldman is as good as any of the fine actors who have played Churchill.  Kristin Scott-Thomas is especially excellent (no surprise here) as Churchill’s wife of then 32 years, Clementine.  Lily James (Lady Rose in Downton Abbey) is appealing as the fictional secretary through whose eyes the audience sees the private Churchill. Ben Mendelsohn is very good as King George VI, who has watched Churchill’s career to date askance. Stephen Dillane is particularly good as Lord Halifax,

There is one especially touching, but wholly phony scene with a “poll” in the Underground, but, other than that, Darkest Hour is very solid history.

Joe Wright is a fine director, and, here, has selected a moment in history that has sparked an exceptionally good movie. I saw Darkest Hours with a multiplex audience, which erupted into a smattering of applause at the end.

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY: the world’s most beautiful woman and her secrets

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is the riveting biopic of a glamorous movie star who invented and patented the precursor to wireless technology; that’s amazing enough, but Bombshell delves deeply into how Lamarr’s stunning face, her Jewish heritage, and mid-century gender roles shaped her career, marriages and parenting. Top notch.

In the last few years, one totally unexpected aspect of Lamarr’s life has become more well-known.  She was a tinkerer/inventor who co-invented a radio guidance system for submarine torpedos, which she donated to the US military.  The US Navy used this technology in WW II.   Modern blue tooth technology stems directly from her innovation.  Today her patent would be worth billions.

Bombshell adds layer upon layer to this tale of beauty and brains, as it traces Lamarr’s remarkable life.   Hedy Lamarr had no control over being born a woman, being born to Jewish parents and being born to be a beauty.  These three accidents of birth set the parameters of her journey – granting her access to some professional opportunities and stunting others, even threatening her life.

She burst into celebrity – and notoriety – at age 19, as the star of the film Ecstasy.   Not only was Hedy the first actress filmed in full frontal nudity, she was the first screen actress to portray female orgasms.  She was soon the young trophy wife of an Austrian industrialist, a formidable and fearsome supplier of munitions to Hitler.  Hedy’s life seemed headed along the Bimbo Track, but she realized that her husband was powerful enough to keep her trapped in the marriage, but not powerful enough to protect her from the Nazis.  At this point, she orchestrated an international escape that is the stuff of thrillers.

At age 24, often nominated as the most beautiful woman in the world, she launched a Hollywood career.  Professional ups and downs, marriages and affairs and children followed, along with her work in technology.

Her beauty was often a blessing and sometimes a curse, but always affected her trajectory.  Someone that beautiful is just different – the rest of us can’t help our reactions to her. But how many times can you be a trophy wife?

She was a person who survived troubling times, which left scars on her.  How Hedy handled her Jewishness, how she raised her kids and how she was treated by the military are unsettling.  Documentarian Alexandra Dean, Bombshell’s writer-director brings us witnesses, including Hedy’s children, to deliver an inside peek at a real life that would not be believable as a work of fiction.

I saw Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story this summer at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SJFF).  It’s coming to theaters this week.

LBJ: a Cliff Notes portrait of LBJ, traced through three relationships

Woody Harrelson in LBJ

Woody Harrelson captures the essence of Lyndon B. Johnson in Rob Reiner’s LBJ.  The best thing about this movie is the main character – probably the most complex and self-contradictory in American history.

LBJ was amazingly talented, aspirational, mean, charming, vulgar and surprisingly needy. LBJ was so masterful and tough and powerful, yet extremely thin-skinned for a politician.  His eternal grasping seems rooted in personal desperation.  LBJ had the need to dominate others and get everything he wants all of the time, and still needed to be loved (which is impossible when you are running over everyone else).

With all of his personal flaws, no American Presidents (except maybe Lincoln and FDR) have been able to roll up a record of legislative accomplishments in two short years to match the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, and Head Start.  Yes, this was a guy who was able to end legal racial segregation and systemic repression of voting rights and to bring medical security to the elderly and the poor.  (And then be capable of an equally huge policy mistake – the escalation of the Vietnam War.)

How do you tell the story of a larger-than-life character in only 90 minutes?  LBJ focuses on an eight-year period of LBJ’s career.  We first see him in 1956 as Senate Majority Leader, at his most energetic, masterful and powerful.  We then see him in his period of frustration and weakness as Vice-President.  The JFK assassination makes him President, and the film concludes after the enactment of Civil Rights Act in June 1964.

LBJ shows us the many sides of LBJ by tracing three of his personal relationships:

  • Georgia Senator Richard Russell (Richard Jenkins), the leader of Southern segregationists and one of LBJ’s most important mentors.  LBJ rose to power with Russell’s guidance and loyalty, but LBJ, to find his own place in history, needed to destroy everything Russell stood for.
  • Lady Bird Johnson (a superb Jennifer Jason Leigh), the only person who could handle the vulnerable, needy, whiny, disconsolate LBJ.
  • LBJ’s nemesis Robert F. Kennedy (Michael Stahl-David). Because RFK was a martyr, the public tends to forget about his nasty and “ruthless” side, which did exist.  LBJ and RFK took an instant dislike to each other in the early 1950s, a situation which built into a profound and fundamental mutual hatred.
  • Bill Pullman plays Senator Ralph Yarborough, a very minor character in history, but one who serves here as a composite for liberal politicians and for those bullied by LBJ.

The highlights of LBJ are found in that fateful week in November 1963.  At Dallas’ Love Field, it’s clear that JFK’s star power has eclipsed the weakened and resentful LBJ even in Texas.  Then we see LBJ just after the assassination, taking command and plunging into action, taking command and knowing exactly what to do when everyone else was paralyzed by shock.

The history in LBJ is very sound.  I’ve read and re-read the over three thousand pages of Robert Caro’s four-volume biography of Johnson.  Much of LBJ’s dialogue is word-for-word historically correct; I’ve even heard the real LBJ himself utter these words on phone calls that he taped himself.

Woody Harrelson is excellent, capturing both the human tornado and the vulnerable sides of LBJ.  The fine actors Randy Quaid, Rip Torn, Michael Gambon, James Cromwell, Liev Schreiber and Tom Wilkinson have all had their cracks at playing LBJ on the screen.  Woody is significantly better than all of those guys, but I still prefer Bryan Cranston’s LBJ in All the Way.

Yes, it’s a Cliff Notes version, but LBJ, with its top rate performances by Woody Harrelson and Jennifer Jason Leigh, is a fine historical introduction and pretty entertaining, too.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Woody Harrelson in LBJ