Frost/Nixon

The CBs saw Frost/Nixon on Broadway a couple of years ago. There was a lot of buzz about the play, and even though the performances by Frank Langella as Nixon (he won the Tony) and Michael Sheen as Frost were fantastic, the CBs looked at each other at the end of the show and had the exact same reaction : what's the big deal? We wondered if the interviewing of Nixon by Frost was really worthy of a Broadway show and all this hoopla?

Last weekend the CBs saw the movie. The same two actors give performances every bit as wonderful as they did on Broadway. The movie is artfully directed by Ron Howard and well written by Peter Morgan who also wrote the play. But I came away from the film asking the same question: is this moment in history really worth a movie? The performances may make seeing the movie worthwhile but the event which the film centers around doesn't seem to warrant either a Broadway show or a film.

Leslie's two cents: I disagree a bit and enjoyed this movie a little more than Ann did. I found it a pretty engrossing character study and an interesting look at the interplay between media and politics. I thought it unwound like a Greek tragedy where the hero is just too full of himself (and in this case craves media attention and cold, hard cash) and is doomed to fall. The documentary-style approach Howard uses definitely made this more entertaining to watch for me than the play.