Fresh Loaf

The bar at the Fork & Screen

I wasn’t sure I was cut out for spending a Saturday watching all five best picture nominees back-to-back in a Buckhead dinner theater. This was the kind of activity reserved for trekkies or Star Wars and Lord  of the Rings fanatics. But work demands sacrifices, and since I’m in charge of CL’s Oscar live-blog tonight, I figured I owed it to y’all to have seen more than Pineapple Express and Slumdog Millionaire. As it turns out, I’m pretty good at sitting, watching and eating for hours on end. Allison Keene, aka the Televangelist, who came along too, ain’t too bad either. The AMC Buckhead Fork & Screen proved a decent venue, if a bit cold and noisy. But once I got my coffee and we figured out how to adjust our seats, things went fairly smoothly. When I sat down today to do my recap, Allison had already turned one out. So rather than tell you the same things twice, I’ll leave you with Allison’s tales of German indiscretions, fanny fatigue, and four out of five recommendations (with which I concur)…:

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MANO A MANO: David Frost (Michael Sheen, left) and Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) shake on it.

Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon resembles a reunion film of The Queen, or at least, it should. Frost/Nixon shares screenwriter Peter Morgan, who penned the 2006 Oscar-winning film about Princess Diana’s death as a political tipping point in England. Michael Sheen, who played Tony Blair in The Queen (and in Morgan’s predecessor film The Deal) here plays David Frost, a television personality best known today for his interviews with Richard Nixon in the wake of Watergate.

Based on his stage play, Morgan’s script for Frost/Nixon offers a similar perspective on power and the public sphere as The Queen. Morgan argues that incidents that seem like minor footnotes in fact prove to be historical turning points. Howard’s steadiness as a director makes a clever and compelling film of Frost/Nixon that’s everything a “West Wing” fan would want in a contemporary political drama. Unlike The Queen, however, the film feels more like a tempest in a teapot than one of the hinges of history.

Howard approaches the material almost like he’s helming a sequel to the famed newspaper drama All the President’s Men. The film opens with a montage about the Watergate Hotel break-in, the subsequent scandals, cover-ups and resignations, building to Nixon’s withdrawal from office. Frank Langella reprises his stage role as Nixon, and while his harrumphing delivery echoes many Nixon impressions, he gives the disgraced president the gravitas and dignity of a lion in winter.

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Today’s Air Loaf features CL’s Chanté LaGon and Curt Holman chatting about films opening during the holiday season, including Milk, Australia, Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, and Bolt.

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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