Politics

List your best political movies depicting the political process, including candidates, representatives, politics in the courtroom, media manipulation (e.g., Wag the Dog), historical icons, etc. it can't just be that it has a political message--the "machinery" of politics must be involved. What are your favorite political films?

I'm going to start by mentioning 1992's Bob Roberts which was so snarkily satirical, that Tim Robbins did not release for fear of people enjoying it non-ironically.

The greatest of these types of films is a prophetic movie that in a Nostradamus fashion predicted the rise & fall of a narcissistic mega manic buffoon who would stop at nothing to win his political desires.

12 Angry Men is a squeeze, but it not only shows the politics of the jury box, but also the politics of the era playing out in the jury box between conservative, get-tough and just-the-facts jurors and sympathetic liberal jurors.

The Phantom Menace

The Star Wars prequels shift their focus from the coercive "pew-pew" of teenagers destroying Bismarck-level military assets on a rowdy weekend to considering what comes before the war, politics. In this scene, Yoda is befuddled by a seemingly concerned Palpatine who is clearly playing politics, but Yoda can't quite put his finger on what Palps is up to.



Here we learn a bit about the Old Republic. The Jedi are not an army and they're not politically adept when the force is a clouded. As Windu explains, they're merely keepers of the peace who don't always recognize the larger patterns around them. The audience has the benefit of dramatic irony (they know what the Jedi don't know), but even so the Jedi seem strangely naive in this circumstance. Arguably, they had become so reliant on the power of their Force-sensitivity (e.g., mind-reading, mind-control, able to lazily intervene and control interactions) that they lost their insight into reading normal human interactions. There is a decadence in the Jedi which Yoda comments on in later on which mirrors the decadence of the Old Republic. When something has lasted for a very long time, it seems that it is destined to be there forever, that it is too big too fail.

This is George Lucas going as full-on Noam Chomsky as he ever will in attempting to unmask simply manipulations that can be used to goad Democracies onto disastrous paths. It's not really penetrating (everything he does in SW is melodrama and so too is his political analysis which makes the Jedi look a little silly given Palpatine twirling his metaphorical mustache). Given the frighten ease with which America entered into the 2nd war with Iraq and the great roll-back of civil liberties in the Patriot Act, however, the prequels were arguably right for their times, if not prophetic.

Redford was super-hot in this movie. Love it.




One of Joan Allen’s best movies.

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I really liked The Best Man (1954). It was a rather ground breaking look at dirty politics behind the scenes with a heavyweight cast including Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Edie Adams, and Ann Sothern. I particularly was impressed with the acting of Shelley Berman-- an extremely popular comedian at the time. He was striking in his dramatic abilities.

Canadian Bacon (1995) - A great political spoof, and the last John Candy film to be released.

Strangely, it has almost the same plot as Wag the Dog (1997). But Bacon came first and is much funnier.

Still my favorite political musical!

I was just thinking about posting that one. I seen it once and it was indeed funny, one of my favorite John Candy films.

I got one, it won an Oscar for Best Picture.

All the King's Men (1949)
Directed by Robert Rossen. With Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Joanne Dru, John Derek.

The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.

I saw that one!
(Pretty good.)

Seven Days in May (1964)



I remember watching this "taut political thriller" a few years ago.

At the time, it was being compared to something major in the news... but I can't remember what.
Anyway, talk about the movie on the radio as being an analogous representation to some current events prompted me to watch it.

It's an interesting story, but since it's mostly dialogue & drama, I remember being a bit bored by it. (just not enough explosions)

Trivia: Screenplay by Rod Serling!

Z (1969)

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That's a good one. I've always enjoyed All the King's Men, where a candidate and political figure starts out all honesty and integrity - and then learns what politics is really all about.

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I think in every movie politics is involved

Idiocracy

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"Gabriel Over The White House"

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