Oliver Stone Sets His Sights on George W.

Oliver Stone started his career with a Best Screenplay Oscar for Midnight Express, and went on to make some of the most influential movies of the '80s and '90s. Drawing on his own combat tours in Vietnam, he won Best Director Oscars for both Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, and turned out hits like Wall Street and Natural Born Killers.

He hasn't slowed down any -- in the last 10 years, he directed Any Given Sunday, Alexander, and World Trade Center, and a third Vietnam movie, Pinkville, was pulled in December just weeks before filming was to begin -- but the critical acclaim has dried right up.

His last Academy nominations were for his presidential duo, JFK in 1991 and Nixon (for Best Screenplay) in 1995. Stone recently announced his new film, and it looks like he's going back to the scene of those old successes. So, who is he focusing on this time? FDR, maybe a WWII period piece? Or Warren G. Harding, probably the most corrupt president we've had, which would play right into Stone's government paranoia? Well, the movie's just called W, if that helps. If you listen close you can hear the grinding teeth of a hundred-thousand foaming bloggers booting up their outrage and rubbing liniment into their typing knuckles.

His lefty politics are well-known, but Stone claims he wants to direct a full portrait of the person, not a political hack job, and it's true that his 9/11 movie, World Trade Center, which had conservatives at the barricades when it was announced, actually managed to win some of them over. (Those foaming bloggers aren't so sure about W. At the always classy Little Green Footballs, which published the story under the headline Oliver Stone Rushing to Finish Bush-Hating Movie." one poster wrote, "Meanwhile, back at the Headquarters of the Film Actors' Guild...." One of the scholars and gentlemen at Free Republic wrote, "I am tired of these sissy movie makers poking at [sic] stick at my President. Anyone want to load up the truck and head for Hollywood to show these cowards a Texas sized butt whooping?")

Josh Brolin has been cast as George W., with James Cromwell as his dad ("That'll do, president"), Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush, Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice, Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, former Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry as press secretary Ari Fleischer -- which, actually, is great casting -- and Ioan Gruffud (Mr. Fantastic from The Fantastic Four) as British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The script, written by Stanley Weiser (who wrote Wall Street with Stone) was recently leaked, and excerpts have been showing up online. So far, its biggest crime seems to be badness, not bias. The script follows the all-too-familiar story -- underachieving frat boy gets clean, finds Jesus, wins presidency, invades Iraq. Along the way are polished gems of dialogue like "Don't get cute, Turdblossom. This is serious," and, about French President Jacques Chirac, "I'd like to stuff a plate of freedom fries down that slick piece of s---t's throat!" Does anybody want to see this?

This sounds like something you'd find in the direct-to-DVD bargain bin -- or like the 2003 miniseries about Reagan, which, incidentally, starred Josh Brolin's dad as the Gipper. Anyone remember what happened to that one? The radio hosts and bloggers got it pulled from CBS and put out to pasture on Showtime. Let the outraged email chains begin!

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