Hacker Cinema
Frost/Nixon
2008 · Film · 122 min
Directed by Ron Howard
For three years after being forced from office, Nixon remained silent. But in summer 1977, the steely, cunning former commander-in-chief agreed to sit for one all-inclusive interview to confront the questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. Nixon surprised everyone in selecting Frost as his televised confessor, intending to easily outfox the breezy British showman and secure a place in the hearts and minds of Americans. Likewise, Frost's team harboured doubts about their boss's ability to hold his own. But as the cameras rolled, a charged battle of wits resulted.
1 positive1 negative3 neutralfrom 5 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
I think it's fine as a metric if you read it correctly.
100% means a film is extremely agreeable with whatever audience it has managed to get to. For major releases this can ultimately mean it's actually lacking anything particularly bold or interesting. This results in things like Frost/Nixon or Knives Out having higher ratings than broadly acclaimed films like Mulholland Drive or even There Will Be Blood; I know which ones I'd be more likely to put on with my extended family even if I don't especially like them.
But yeah, it's amazing how many people still don't grasp it after decades of getting angry about it.
Remember:
1. The prohibition War on Drugs had nothing to do with public health, it was a cynical plot by the Nixon admin to attack its perceived enemies, African-Americans and leftist hippies, using the establishment and media. Ehrlichman admitted it in 1994 on tape.
https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
2. The ideological cause of the Nixon admin was recreated by Roger Ailes in the vehicle of Fox News. It largely accomplished its goals of radicalizing millions of Americans towards their warped views and permitted the denigration and exploitation of women employees along the way. I would wager most nursing homes play Fox News constantly and their inhabitants, both worker and housed tend to lean that way. It's inexplicable how many poor whites believe/d Nixon and Trump were their saviors.
3. Nixon's alma mater's newspaper at Whittier College found an old listening device https://rense.com/general20/whi.htm
4. The assassination of Fred Hampton in 1969 by the Cook County's State Attorney, state police, Chicago police, and the FBI (J. Edgar era). Surely, POTUS Nixon signed-off on it. https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/1/24/22244731/new-fbi-records-black-panthers-police-reform-fred-hampton-mark-clark-editorial
5. The first episode of the Nixon interviews drew a 45 share, the highest in history for a political documentary which still stands. The interviews has its own play and a movie, both named Frost/Nixon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_interviews
Let's assume we're playing the Kevin Bacon game. We've got actors, movies, and roles. Here's some sample data:
INSERT INTO actors (id, name) VALUES (1, 'Kevin Bacon') INSERT INTO actors (id, name) VALUES (2, 'Frank Langella') INSERT INTO actors (id, name) VALUES (3, 'Cameron Diaz') INSERT INTO movies (id, name) VALUES (1, 'The Box') INSERT INTO movies (id, name) VALUES (2, 'Frost/Nixon') INSERT INTO roles (movie_id, actor_id) VALUES (1, 2) INSERT INTO roles (movie_id, actor_id) VALUES (1, 3) INSERT INTO roles (movie_id, actor_id) VALUES (2, 1) INSERT INTO roles (movie_id, actor_id) VALUES (2, 2)
Given the above data model, it's not possible to select all the actors that are within 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon with a SQL statement.
(Data from the incredible Oracle of Bacon, which uses custom graph traversal to serve up results: https://oracleofbacon.org/how.php)
I recommend watching Frost/Nixon, or the contemporary interviews. Nixon was a human and not devil incarnate. Its important we understand that potential for Nixon's evils lies within all of us. In the grand scheme of tyrants he wasn't even that bad - barely deserving of the label.
This is a common story that many personal observers have told about Mr. Bush and other presidents, or CEOs. See, for example, http://theamericanscholar.org/dubya-and-me/ as a story from another observer about Mr. Bush. I remember a similar story about Bill Clinton, and really, anyone who has watched the Frost/Nixon tapes (not the movie) realizes how fiercely intelligent Nixon was, even if he didn't come across the best.
Then there's Steve Yegge's ( https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/AaygmbzVeRq ) comments about Jeff Bezos and Joel Spolsky's ( http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html ) about meetings at Microsoft when Bill Gates was heavily involved.
I also have a friend who worked briefly as a speechwriter for the president of a Central Asian country, and he has said that before he went to work for the Palace, he thought that all of the people there were just lazy, unintelligent, corrupt, and didn't do anything. When he got there, he realized that they were some of the hardest working, smartest, and least corrupt people there.
I think that my point (and the point the author is trying to make) is that people in positions of high power are usually smarter and usually understand more than we who are outside that position and outside those corridors think that they do. I think anecdotes like the ones linked above go to prove that.