At a dinner party the night of his arrival, we introduced Dick to two of our friends, Jeff and Ed, who have been partners for seventeen years. During the course of the evening, we set a date for the five of us to see the movie and then afterwards dissect it over a dinner meal at The Feast, one of our favorite restaurants.

I thought it was a bit ironic that my wife and I would be watching this flick outnumbered, because this time we as heterosexuals would be in the minority. I must admit that I’m very naïve about the history of the gay activist movement, having been totally immersed in my business career for over thirty-three years.

While I was a bit squeamish with some kissing scenes, this movie rates a nine on my scale of one to ten, ten being as good as it gets. The story is real, the actors superb, and Sean Penn makes you believe that he is the real Harvey Milk. What a performance! Penn should have no trouble winning the Best Actor of the year awards.

While I was growing up, my mother, an Anita Bryant clone, and her Club, which she called Jehovah’s Witnesses, boldly stated that God condemned homosexuality and firmly believed and taught that it is “a disease spread by the Devil himself.” She was totally convinced that the only cure would come from reading the Watchtower magazine and regular association with her fellow JW inmates.

During dinner I thought about this absurdity, and yet I kept silent. My preference was to just enjoy a delicious meal and listen to three very upbeat, emotionally healthy, happy, intelligent gentlemen critique a very positive cinema experience.

I am still struck with the fact that all three of the guys knew where they were, what they were doing, and what was going through their minds when Harvey Milk was assassinated, the gay world’s Martin Luther King.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unu-9vM9VZw

Although the movie takes a somewhat satirical approach to “Dubya’s” life from his college days until the end of his first term, this is definitely not a comedy. Stone is dead-on with the facts, using well documented events and conversations on which to build his screenplay. You get the feeling as you watch the movie that you’ve become that proverbial “fly on the wall” within the Bush family residences and the White House.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg7vwicPx98

Two actors in the movie are perfect matches for their real life counterparts. James Brolin, as George Bush, hits his marks perfectly, especially during the second half of the film. Richard Dreyfuss plays Dick Cheney to absolute perfection in his every scene. The other supporting actors are clearly identifiable as their real life counterparts and handle their parts well, but some of the physical differences make it a bit difficult to mentally visualize them as the actual people involved.

Honorable mention should go to Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, James Cromwell as George H. W. Bush, and Toby Jones as Karl Rove. On the other hand, Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush, Bruce McGill as George Tenet, and Michael Gaston as General Tommy Franks were unconvincing in their roles. Burstyn and Gaston overplayed their characters, while McGill seemed to just fade into the background even when he was on center stage.

The story begins with George Bush as a C-minus student at Yale, a fraternity brat spending most of his time in college drunk or high. Each time he gets himself in trouble his father manages to call in a few favors or pulls a string or two to bail him out. At one point in the movie George Senior expresses his disappointment about Junior’s performance in National Guard service and his arrests for public intoxication. Junior shows a total lack of appreciation for his acceptance into Harvard after George Senior used his influence as a powerful public figure to secure that opportunity for him.

The movie reenacts Dubya’s only political loss – his first run for Congress in a small district in north Texas. After that failure, Bush tells his friends that he will change his lifestyle and reputation, making himself appear “even more of a Christian” than his opponents in order to foster support from the southern evangelicals. His life changes dramatically after he marries Laura, becomes the General Partner for the Texas Rangers, and is “born again” with the help of a Baptist preacher (played by Stacy Keach). He runs a dirty campaign against Ann Richards (with Karl Rove’s help) and wins his campaign for Governor of Texas.

Stone has created the character of George Bush as a lazy, underachieving, hard-headed dolt who manages to achieve the most powerful public office in the world thanks to his father’s powerful and influential friends. There is a clearly defined love-hate relationship between the father who loves and tries to protect his son, and the son who feels that he must achieve more than his father and brother Jeb in order to gain the full acceptance of the elder Bush.

The Iraq War is presented as the opportunity and prize that will allow Dubya to finally outdo his father. Feeling that his father was weak by not conquering Iraq and capturing Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War, Dubya focuses on being a successful war president. In spite of warnings by his Cabinet members and their advice that he take a cautious and reasonable approach in dealing with Iraq, Dubya is determined to go to war no matter what – goaded on by the enthusiastic Dick Cheney.

Colin Powell is portrayed as a thoughtful and reluctant warrior who goes along with his President because of his loyalty and dedication as a soldier. Powell is clearly uncomfortable presenting the “evidence of WMDs in Iraq” to the United Nations, but does it because it is his job and that’s what his Commander-and-Chief wants him to do.

Condoleezza Rice (played by Thandie Newton) is presented as the ultimate “yes-man” – taking every opportunity to wrap up the consensus of the rest of the Cabinet and the President’s wishes, and then coming up with a comment that makes the final decision look like it was her idea.

My biggest problem with Stone’s screenplay is his use of dream sequences involving a fight between Junior and his father and Bush imagining that he is playing center field for the Texas Rangers.  Those fantasy scenes would have served the story better if they had ended up on the cutting room floor.

After the movie, for a very brief time I actually liked President Bush a little more than I did when I walked in. He actually seemed very human and vulnerable in many ways. Bush could be very focused on some of his priorities in spite of his not being very sharp mentally. The real needs of his country take a backseat to his personal objectives. Bush is a classic “good old boy” who wants to be “the biggest and fastest horse in the barn.” He seems to have achieved that at the nation’s expense.

If you miss it at the theater be sure to catch it uncut on DVD or HBO.

Rated PG-13; 131 minutes; Lionsgate

Hired by the town of Appaloosa, a small dusty village located somewhere in the future state of New Mexico, they’re kind of a Magnificent 7 (minus 5), recruited by the town’s elders to protect them from a rich and very evil villain played by Jeremy Irons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdEtH32EXyU

A small town has been taken over by rampaging outlaws (reminiscent of “the cowboys” in the movie Tombstone) who are, with one exception, the equivalent of modern terrorists. Virgil, played by Harris, and his partner, Hitch (Mortensen) are Civil War veterans who arrive in town looking for work as lawmen. Virgil’s approach is to establish his own set of unbending rules and laws for the town, while aiming to make sure that no one gets away with anything he interprets to be unacceptable behavior. Before he agrees to take on the job of town marshal, Virgil forces the reluctant mayor to sign a contract letting him make and enforce whatever laws he wants. There are brief objections to delegating that much authority to a gunman like Virgil, but realizing that he and Hitch are the town’s only hope of holding out against the formidable and unrepentant Bragg (Jeremy Irons), they give into his demands with barely a whimper.

Adding complications to the plot is the Widow French (played by Rene Zellweger), an oversexed and underprincipled drifter ready to climb into bed with any man around who is willing to surrender to her charms. Virgil is the first to succumb, eventually creating a somewhat strained relationship between him and Hitch.

As the story progresses, there are several set pieces that do not play out entirely as expected. There are gunmen who are in turn both friends and enemies, a surprise encounter with indians, and some overt actions on the part of Widow French that makes you wonder whose side she’s really on.

There is enough humor mixed with the occasional violent gun battle to make you laugh as you wince. You soon realize that the final outcome is going to be based on who among the gunslingers are the faster, braver, and more bulletproof. In spite of all the savagery going on around him, Sheriff Virgil spends his time between battles reading Emerson’s poetry with a dictionary at his side.

Written by Robert B. Parker, Apaloosa, is basically just a pulp western novel distinguished by the presentation and delivery of some very inspired dialogue. Whether the rhetoric and accents are totally authentic is not important, simply because they fit the characters and the circumstances so perfectly.

I found the movie both fun and exciting. Some reviewers have compared Appaloosa to Clint Eastwood’s dark Oscar winner, Unforgiven, but I feel there is more similarity in theme to Open Range, with Harris taking on the Robert Duvall role and Mortensen filling in as the loyal backup portrayed by Kevin Costner.

Kudos to Ed Harris as both star and director. He obviously knows the recipe for a good western, finding the right balance of action with characterization – and humor with bloodshed. Do not misunderstand, this movie is definitely not a comedy. But you are likely to chuckle often as the story plays out. In fact, it is a very straightforward western that attempts to be accurate as to its time and place, with real men on both sides of the law doing what they must do without regard to their mortality.

Well worth two hours in a good theater. I expect at least three Oscar nominations from this great little movie.

Appaloosa, Released by Warner Bros., Rated R , 114 minutes.