Ebert Gives W. 4 Stars

I had a feeling in my gut that Ebert was going to give W. four stars and he did. His opening line,

Oliver Stone's "W.," a biography of President Bush, is fascinating. No other word for it. I became absorbed in its story of a poor little rich kid's alcoholic youth and torturous adulthood. This is the tragedy of a victim of the Peter Principle. Wounded by his father's disapproval and preference for his brother Jeb, the movie argues, George W. Bush rose and rose until he was finally powerful enough to stain his family's legacy.

The issue for a movie like this is two-fold. Is it a good movie? Ebert says yes. That is answered based technically on the power of the storytelling, and all the inputs involved in such a process. But whether it's a true story is something others beside Ebert can answer. Whether it's a true story doesn't necessarily effect whether it's a good story - in fact the two may be completely uncorrelated. True stories are oftentimes not all that great of stories, or rather, to be good stories too requires something other than simply telling the truth if that makes sense.

That's probably my bias against Stone showing though, and my bias towards Bush. But, I'm definitely going to see it, even if it does go against my biases.