Bob Roberts
This political mockumentary from the Gulf War I era is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. But Tim Robbins’ story of the folk-singing right winger running for Senate is sharply written, has tons of fun cameos, and reminds us how similar the issues and climate were then to today’s insanity. (When a newscaster started talking about “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” I nearly did a spit take.)
This movie is eerily appropriate in the age of Dubya and Ah-nuld. Gore Vidal is especially good as dejected liberal Sen. Brickley Paiste, trying to fight the good fight against Roberts’ crowd-pleasing folk-singing fascism.
Highly recommended. And don’t miss the deleted scenes on the DVD edition – there’s a lot of meat there that didn’t make it into the final cut.
Would you believe a nice libertarian boy like me owns this on VHS? Great movie.
I wonder if I was the only one who immediately thought of Bob Roberts when I saw this photo of Dean playing guitar:
http://tinyurl.com/k7jp
When we first were introduced to the movie, my brother-in-law and his wife were raving about how much it was a great comedy, and we’d love it. As it ended, and the room was silent, they said, “Uh, well, it was good, right?” (Actually, I think I or my father has it on laserdisc…)