This campaign season is ridiculous. If it was a movie you would be annoyed at how many times Gingrich and Santorum keep showing up even after their story-lines are exhausted, and how crappy Romney’s dialogue is. No actor could utter “Corporations are people, my friend” and not sound like an idiot. Well, Bruce Campbell maybe. And look at Ron Paul. Why is he even still here? On the other hand, there are some entertaining moments. If you pretend its 1980, and you are watching a science fiction movie about 2012, it’s kind of cool. Everybody has phones without wires! Candidates argue about moon colonies! Lando Calrissian is president! Let’s look at some ridiculous pictures!
Ron Paul, starring Ian McKellan. If you talk to George Clooney for any length of time, he will apologize for two things: playing Batman, and making “Ron Paul.” Jon Hamm’s scenery-chewing, near-hysterical Mitt Romney is entertaining, but doesn’t get enough screen time. I wish they had just made the movie about Paul Giamatti’s Newt Gingrich.
Romney, starring Bruce Campbell as Romney, with Don Cheadle as Obama. Bruce Campbell’s Oscar-winning performance is brilliant. Bruce Campbell made Anthony Hopkins cry.
The Improbable Mr. Santorum, starring Will Arnett as Santorum, Alec Baldwin as Mitt Romney, and Bill Murray as Ron Paul. If only the studio had let Wes Anderson make it in stop-motion, like he wanted. Oh well.
The President Game (1968). In the zany futuristic world of 2012, America’s swingingest President faces far-out challenges, including an election opponent who may be a robot! The Sammy Davis Jr. song, “Hail to the Chief, Baby” reached number 12 in Japan. Don Cheadle, who would later play Barack Obama in Oliver Stone’s “O” and in Stephen Soderbergh’s “Romney” made his film debut here as Fred-fred, the young son of President Frederick Douglass Whyte (Sammy Davis Jr.). This movie has never been released on home video due in part to complex litigation over the rights–it is a campy and unauthorized loose adaptation of the novel “The Race” by Irving Wallace. It’s a shame, because the movie contains some of Paul Lynde’s finest work. The onscreen chemistry between Barbra Streisand, as a crazy member of Congress who talks to God all the time, and Paul Lynde as her unstable husband, is priceless.
The Race (1974) This faithful-but-gloomy adaptation of the 1960 novel about a black president in the future lacks the quirky charm of the 1968 Sammy Davis Jr. trainwreck, but there are some really good performances, particularly character actor Charles Lane’s Oscar nominated-performance as an elderly congressman who is losing his mind. The book hints that the northeastern governor, played by Robert Shaw, may be a robot, but in the movie he’s just sort of a jerk. Robert Shaw is excellent at playing powerful jerks.
