Oliver Stone

Features

The Man Who Wasn’t There: Wrestling with Oliver Stone’s W. and the Enigma of George W. Bush

By Josh Timmermann

Stone doesn't "get" Bush’s true historical legacy (any more than the rest of us do in 2008), but he cannily realizes that, warts and all, Bush is an undeniably pivotal figure. [6 November 2008]

Talk, Talk, Talk: October 2008

By Bill Gibron

What studio suit thought this was a good idea? With four months to schedule your high priced efforts, you instead unload almost 30 overpriced pictures on an unsuspecting movie audience. [10 September 2008]

Part 4: Challenging Convention

By PopMatters Staff

As cinema went completely commercial, abandoning art for artifice, true aesthetic acumen was hard to come by. Luckily, for the movies included herein, it was their difference, as well as their diversity, that helped them stand out from the rest of the high concept hackwork. [21 June 2007]

Reviews

W.

By Cynthia Fuchs

The readymade caricature George Bush is as much a reflection of his moment as he is an occasion for Oliver Stone's latest stab at revisionist history. [17 October 2008]

World Trade Center (2006)

By Cynthia Fuchs

While the survivors lie within this well of shadows and shards, the film shows tv viewers around the world, briefly united in horror and incredulity, watching iconic CNN footage. [9 August 2006]

Alexander: Director’s Cut (2004)

By Cynthia Fuchs

Oliver Stone calls his Alexander 'a new genre, a masculine-feminine action figure,' more like Monty Clift and James Dean than Russell Crowe. [10 August 2005]

Alexander (2004)

By Cynthia Fuchs

Though Olympias is unbeatably charismatic (and plain fun amid all the drearily inclined boys), the film takes a typically Stonian approach to the evil woman. [24 November 2004]

Any Given Sunday (1999)

By Cynthia Fuchs

Oliver Stone's movies usually seem more complicated than they are. Partly this comes from his evolving style, from the curiously romantic realism of Platoon, to the assaultive ding-battiness of Natural Born Killers, to the debased lunacy of U-Turn. But mostly it comes from his obsession with a single theme: brutality. Or more precisely, how brutality becomes morality. [1 January 1995]

Any Given Sunday (1999)

By Tobias Peterson

Whatever you think about Oliver Stone as a director, you can't deny his firm grasp on this country's interests. From Vietnam to JFK to serial killers, Stone's pictures have always depicted major subjects of national fascination. With his latest release, Any Given Sunday, Stone looks to go his previous films one better by focusing on the most popular sport in America.