Lionsgate hosted the premiere of W. last night at the Landmark, where Josh Brolin, Oliver Stone and a celebrity cast of dozens dropped by for the first public-ish screening of Stone's five-month miracle baby. Elsewhere, in a subterranean dungeon populated by the world's few remaining mainstream film critics, the professionals parsed W. in terms that could best be described as lukewarm — Brolin's performance notwithstanding:"The damn movie leaves you feeling sorry for this fucker at the finale, and that ain't hay." — Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere "It's a gutsy movie but not necessarily a good one. Its greatest strength is that it wants to talk about what's on our minds right now and not wait for historians. ... The film gets off to an awkward start with a presidential bull session with speechwriters and top advisers that produced his 'Axis of Evil' speech about Iran, Iraq and North Korea. It borders perilously close to a Saturday Night Live sketch." — Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter "At its best, it holds up as a dramatized character study of the father and son presidents which will be watched keenly in years to come. At its worst, it is submerged by an over-populated cast of characters and a tone which shifts awkwardly between dramatic storytelling and smartass political comedy. ... [T]he film is not a biopic by any means." — Mike Goodridge, Screen Daily "For the most part, Stone and his actors meet the basic requirements of pulling off this quick-draw portrait of still-evolving history. ... Dominating are borderline distorted closeups, especially of Brolin, along with shadowy lighting and generally lackluster lensing. Some of the song choices are downright sophomoric in their too-obvious irony." — Todd McCarthy, Variety "Brolin should be nominated for the Oscar. We'll see whether the crowd around Best Actor is too big for him to crack, but it is a letter-perfect performance that looks much, much easier than most critics and audiences, I think, will understand. ... The question of the film is, 'Why?' " — David Poland, The Hot Blog Why, indeed? We're digging for the critics' bunker as we write this, determined to have an answer one way or another by the time W. opens next week. Send help if you don't hear from us.

• Saturday Night Live is supposedly working to book Sarah Palin. Producers figure she's good at memorizing lines. [Scoop]

PBS anchor Gwen Ifill has been a pundit for decades, but she shrewdly avoided controversy until the 2004 presidential campaign, when she moderated the vice presidential debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. Remember that? At first you maybe thought, "How nice, that America has found a black woman it deems sufficiently sedated to moderate a big debate!" But then she slipped. Edwards brought up Cheney's old company Halliburton's multibillion profiteering in the Iraq, and Dick Cheney told her he would need more than the allotted 30 seconds to respond, and Ifill told him, "That's all you've got" to audience laughter, and that exposed her deep boiling black rage. Well, somehow the Attention Deficit Democracy allowed this bitter partisan to come back to moderate another VP debate. And big surprise: it turns out she is completely in the tank for Obama.She's been writing a secret book about him! Well, not just him. It's called The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama and it's about "emerging young African American politicians forging a bold new path to political power." And by "secret" I mean "to no one who read the AP story about it weeks before the McCain campaign approved Ifill as a moderator", and by "bold" they of course mean "actually the total opposite of" because that phrase is code for "emerging young African American politicians who somehow manage not to scare white people." One can only imagine Ifill, as the embodiment of PBS's quiet, sober, studiously inoffensive approach to covering the news, finds this topic personally interesting, because as a black woman she actually has to be significantly more boring than boring Washington establishment white guy pundits like Tom Brokaw or the late Tim Russert to prove that she does not have a chip on her shoulder or a loose cannon or anything remotely suggestive of an overly keen belief that slavery was wrong, and politicians can't be boring all the time. But whatever: now she's been exposed. Writing a book about a politician is practically the same as being on that politician's payroll, just ask Jerome Corsi. Is the McCain campaign trying to turn the obvious "shoot the moderator" tactics it just pulled on Katie Couric into a full-blown strategy? If so, as Media Matters points out, it's got some holes, not least because recent years have seen debates moderated by the likes of Bob Schieffer, a close personal friend of George W. Bush whose brother was a business partner of Bush's before the Supreme Court voted him president. Also, Tom Brokaw loves John McCain. But at the end of the day, would either of those guys make Sarah Palin sound any readier to navigate the collapse of our banking system or any number of our fragile Middle Eastern frenemy states? Yeah: no.

Oh the fun we have, these days, with John McCain and Barack Obama. They are the news, every day, even when the economy fails or something, because now we expect them to fix it. So they're rocketing back to DC or something to work on that bailout plan, with some guy named... Bush? Bush. You know, the guy who weirdly made torture an important tool in the American response to terror. Ha ha remember our moral authority? Just about everyone involved in the Bush Administration probably deserves to be put on trial at The Hague, actually, but that won't happen because no one cares anymore. It just suddenly became "too late" to discuss the massive and unprecedented abuse of power by the executive branch at just the moment when everyone, even Bush conservatives, agreed that things had gotten far, far out of hand. What were we talking about again? Oh, right, everyone is complicit in the torturing. You and me and Condoleezza Rice. Of course she told the Senate yesterday that it is not her fault, this torturing. Everyone is covering their asses now that the Senate Armed Services is looking into just who decided to give the CIA authorization to torture the fuck out of people, but Condi released some documents blaming John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld for everything. Except of course that she was in the same goddamn room and her proud stand against the program was to ask Ashcroft to personally review the legal documents that Bush lawyers used to justify violating the Geneva Conventions. REMEMBER HOW OUR PRESIDENT VIOLATES THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS?? LIKE, REGULARLY, BECAUSE THAT IS HIS POLICY?? WTF! Anyway. This is fun. Our CIA actually began kinda torturing people weeks before our executive branch drafted a legal memo authorizing them to kinda torture people! The FBI objected to the torturing and "ultimately withdrew from Mr. Zubaydah’s interrogation." It's funny when the FBI is the voice of reason! Funny in a "why did we all agree that the last 8 years didn't happen" way. Basically we'd like a 9/11 commission thing, here, to figure out what happened when a bunch of career conservative fuckers and their cherry-picked law school moron lackeys ran the country for eight years and basically blew it up, from the inside. Can John McCain race back to Washington and work on that?

• President Bush will retire to Preston Hollow, just outside Dallas, after leaving the White House but prior to being brought to justice. The town has rich people, golf and horsies. Cindy Adams is apparently the first non-conspirator to know. [Post]

When we wondered a few weeks ago whether Josh Brolin might be bringing too much sexual energy to his role as George W. Bush in the upcoming Oliver Stone-directed biopic W., little did we know how much extra erotic mojo the actor has to throw around. In fact, in an interview with (the very appropriately named) W magazine, a freshly unjailed Brolin revealed the recipient of his most unlikely sexual crush — his own father, James Brolin:

Saturday Night Live has a long, storied history of political satire, a reputation that was only burnished after this past Saturday's well-received Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin skit. The venerable comedy institution has been known to move the cultural dial with some of its depictions, whether it was the spring sketch that famously declared the media to be "in the tank" for Barack Obama or its 2000 impersonation of Al Gore as a "lockbox"-brandishing scold. Still, we're a bit puzzled by some of the quotes from an event held Monday at the Museum of the Moving Image, where Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, and Lorne Michaels met to discuss their satirical process:

Hey, can you even blame all the stupid people saying stupid things about today's Freddie Mac Fannie Mae bailout? This whole thing has been stupid ever since someone decided to call it the Federal National Mortgage Association. Who names something "Federal National?" Anyway, the good news is, no one understood any of this shit back in 1968 when they "privatized" it, and no one — us especially! — seems to really understand it now. We keep LOL-ing at stupid things people say about the biggest-ever government bailout only to reflect a while longer and start to the secret genius of all of it! Let us count the ways:1. "[Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have] gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." Thanks for sharing, Elle Woods Palin! But ha ha ha, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are supposed to be private companies that have nothing to do with the taxpayers who are only now going to find out how "big" and "expensive" their woeful mismanagement is! Of course, in seizing upon this "gaffe" as Democrats did today they kinda missed the whole supposed reason the bailout was "necessary" to begin with, which is to say, that the government exists to protect the plutocracy but also that taxpayers have essentially "implicitly" guaranteed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds throughout their entire 80-year existences. When the Federal government first announced plans to "privatize" Fannie Mae to help balance the budget in January 1968, an economics reporter at the New York Times named Edwin Dale wrote that the whole thing was a budget "gimmick." By September 1968, Lyndon Johnson aides had appropriated the "gimmick" term themselves, in an Edwin Dale story that employed more smug quotation marks than a Tao Lin prospectus:

"Biden's comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin." [Guardian]

Our skepticism regarding the five-month turnaround on W. was founded as much in Lionsgate's potential to move the marketing as it was in Oliver Stone's curious capacity to work that fast. And while we're not necessarily wrong yet, this new, pre-GOP Convention clip making the rounds hints that the whole thing may come together yet — as a date movie! Who knew? Follow the jump for a glimpse at the introduction of librarian Laura Welch to future husband and president George Bush Jr. ("Call me anything but 'Junior'") — two drawling souls joined forever in what's since been recognized the Backyard BBQ Come-On Heard 'Round the World. Awww! [YouTube via Spout]

George W. Bush agrees with Newsweek: he was not so bad! Actually, what he said at a July 29 fundraiser was even dumber: "Our insider reports that the prez gave a breezy 40-minute tour of his time in office, calling it a 'cool experience for Laura and I.'" Well. We're glad someone enjoyed it! Bush has become Reagan except instead of Alzheimer's it will be revealed that he is aging backwards like Benjamin Button. [Washington Whispers]

Considering how the trailer for Oliver Stone's W. focused rather heavily on James Cromwell and Louis Armstrong, we're happy to bring you this new behind-the-scenes clip (courtesy of Access Hollywood), which offers the first extended glimpse of Josh Brolin doing his best impression of The Decider. It's the impersonation that's split the Defamer offices in half, with some calling it uncannily accurate (and uncomfortably erotic), and others finding Brolin miscast and not ready for prime time. We'll let you (and Elisabeth Hasselbeck!) be the judge, though keep in mind this is all B-roll; once Oliver Stone finally makes use of that green screen to take Bush on a kaleidoscopic journey through the jungles of Vietnam to the tune of "Riders on the Storm," perhaps we'll have the context we need to truly appreciate Brolin's performance. Catch the performance in all its glory after the jump.Click to view

The supposedly liberal news media hired talking heads like George Stephanopoulos and James Carville from Bill Clinton's presidential administration, but they were even more eager to Hoover up "talent" from the conservative Bush White House two elections later. In the image at left, our Photoshop wizard Steve Dressler shows which top Bush staffers have landed job as commentators, and with whom. Hint: It's not just Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page hiring these Republican operatives. Click through to see the full-sized image.

No one's saying teetotaling President Bush would actually try and sneak some shots of alcohol while enjoying himself at the Beijing Olympics as his apocalyptically bad presidency recedes into history. That's the sort of thing you'd read in, say, the National Enquirer, which as everyone knows is full of trashy tabloid lies. Besides, the president doesn't have to consume actual alcohol to act like a bumbling fraternity president. Still, it's worth noting that Bush has been doing a funny/terrifying impersonation of a drunk president for all the press photographers at the Olympics. He's even got the red face thing down! After the jump, enjoy a photo gallery of the president looking his most wasted, from that beach volleyball embarrassment to daughter Barbara looking embarrassed next to Bush at a swimming match, plus some of the other ones Wonkette found on Four Winds 10 last night and some other ones thrown in for fun.

"You're a Bush! Act like one!" So begins the heartwarming teaser for W., Oliver Stone's lighting-round satire of George W. Bush's trajectory from hard-partying Texas schlub to dynastic political ringleader. And if we ever doubted the likelihood this would be a satire, one run through the casting roll call — a montage of furrowed brows and hammy smiles clearly drawing from the influential opening credits of Benson — all but confirms the variety-show flavor of the administration's antics. From Truman Capote as Karl Rove to Thandie Newton making her best law-circumventing face as Condoleezza Rice, this is shaping up to as the shrewdest political comedy of the season. NB: If our make-up looked as half-assed as Jeffrey Wright's does here as Colin Powell, we probably would have overturned the wrap party, too. Go easy on him, Shreveport. [via First Showing]

Oliver Stone's upcoming movie about the life of President George W. Bush, W., paints the awful man as a sniveling Daddy's Boy who was so brow-beaten and dismissed by his old man that his entire adult life has been dedicated to disproving the elder Bush's low opinion of him. However, Stone thinks this faithful accuracy will actually appeal to the Bush Clan and the handful of wing-nuts who still support them. "Stone, [the film's star Josh] Brolin and the filmmaking team believe they are crafting a biography so honest that loyal Republicans and the Bushes themselves might see it. Given Stone's filmmaking history, coupled with a sneak peek at an early 'W.' screenplay draft, that prediction looks like wishful thinking."

Look, it's an adorable polar bear, roaming free in an ice field! Awww. But, wait, why is the BBC using it to illustrate their lead story about President Bush's renewed push for offshore oil drilling? Because Bush is also calling for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, which could be allowed by Congress, and then there could very well be (33-51% chance!) an oil and gas "leak," which in turn could hurt polar bears. This wouldn't be media bias, would it? Choosing this distantly, arguably related photo instead of, say, a shot of an oil rig? Or of Bush? Oh, right, it is bias, but it's the kind only POLAR BEAR HATERS get upset about.

If there was ever a doubt that Oliver Stone's land-speed record production of W would be anything but a broad political satire of our outgoing president, let it now be allayed with Lionsgate's first teaser poster for the film. Combining eye-chart aesthetics, lexicographic precision and a surplus of malapropisms and other stupid shit George W. Bush has said over the last eight years (our favorite here: "I can press where there needs to be pressed; I can hold hands when there needs to be ... hold hands"), the one-sheet suggests that Stone's lugubrious, self-serious stabs at presidential folklore from JFK to Nixon are in fact over, and his more lilting, equally self-serious Natural Born Killers vein is set to bleed once again over an election-year popular culture. We eagerly await the official one-sheet; if Lionsgate has any sense, they'll use this as inspiration. [/film]

It's that time of year when institutions of higher learning heartlessly eject their seniors into the real world! Princeton grads were treated to the best speech of the season; Stephen Colbert delivered a zinger-filled address (above) in which he wisely reminded grads that "no one will ever, ever want to hear you sing a capella" outside college. How true. But plenty of other colleges tapped A through Z-list celebs to brace their soon-to-be-discharged students for entry into the workforce.

The California Energy Commission has granted the City of San Francisco $1 million to build a test plant for converting used grease from restaurants into biodiesel. The plant is slated to be completed by the end of 2008, according to hunky, slick-haired god-mayor Gavin Newsom, and will be located at the Oceanside sewage treatment plant — the same plant that a group of residents are hoping to have renamed after President George W. Bush. [Earth2Tech]