Charlie Wilson's War

Went and saw it yesterday while the rest of the country was at Wal-Mart and found it fascinating. Lotta stuff I didn't remember about the Russo-Afghani war. I dunno if it's Oscar-caliber, but it was well worth the six bucks I paid to see it. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was, as always, particularly good.

 

Thanks for the head's up. I have been jonesing to see it.

 

I'd love to hear about the research for this film, since Wilson apparently carried on with Diane Sawyer (AKA Mrs. Mike Nichols) at one point.

 

Went tonight, and the movie kept me enthralled for 90-plus minutes.

 

As I mentioned on the movies thread, I thought this was an excellent movie.

Ragu, here's another book covering much the same territory:

http://worldcat.org/oclc/52814066&referer=one_hit

Won the Pulitzer for general non-fiction in 2005 (the second Pulitzer for author Steve Coll), but doesn't have the flawed Congressman who beat the Russkies as the central hook.

 

Is Charlie Wilson the guy that Molly Ivins once wrote about going overseas with some beauty queen (Miss World, IIRC)?

 

Ragu...

You're right on the mark. It doesn't read all that well, but the research he did was phenom, something that will be missing when we look to read books 20 years from now about Iraq, Sept. 11th etc. The movie was impressive considering the amount of information they had. The only thing left out, that in the end really had little to do with what happened but I thought it was incredibly lucky or unlucky was the fact that the night before the Junket to Paris/Afghanistan with Doc Long was that Wilson got pissed drunk and slammed into another car on a bridge and DC...forget which one. He convinced Virginia State Police that they had no jurisdiction and DC police allowed him to go on the trip...wonder what would have happened had he missed it.

After that one...try The Shock Doctrine...another well researched book.

Good reading.

 

I'm going to try and see the movie tomorrow. I don't go often, so I hope this is a good one.

 

Was on A and E or History channel last week. Told the same story, only it didn't star Tom Hanks and you didn't have to shell out ten bucks to see it. But otherwise, a facinating story.

 

The movie covered this, though it's tough to discern how much, if any, creative license was taken. Charlie basically says he's the only member of congress who doesn't have a legislative mandate.

Not really much to refute this; that's the premise of the movie. The impression I got, though, was of a man who found ways to cut through red tape and do what he felt was the right thing. In the current political environment, I wonder if that possibility even exists.