Oliver Stone on his "W" Movie

Amanda Carpenter | October 20, 2008 10:23 AM

Film director Oliver Stone hosted a conference call this morning to hype his fledgling film "W" that depicts President Bush as a hard-partying buffoon who ran for the White House to show his daddy he could be a real man.

Stone wanted reporters to believe his film was made in a good faith effort to dramatize the Bush administration, but Stone made clear he doesn't have a lot of respect for President Bush, or his entire family for that matter.

Stone said the negative reaction to the film from the Bush administration is due to the fact, "You’re talking about a family that doesn’t have any sense of introspection, neither Freud nor Darwin seem to apply."

NPR writer David Edelstein said Stone's "shallow, tepid" film doesn't depict Bush "as reprehensible" but rather "as an earnest boy-man with daddy issues."

Edelstein is only one of a few people who even bothered seeing "W" last weekend. Three different ovies about video games, chihuahuas and bees handily beat "W."

Entertainment Weekly blames the film's lackluster performance because the timing of an "opening during tough economic times about a man whom many Americans blame for said financial strains."