I recently watched one of my favorite movies,
Dave, with Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver. A fun movie that has a lot of the political pundits of that era (1993) making cameo appearances as themselves. A lighthearted comedy, but it also makes you think about the kind of person you'd like in the White House. Someone who thinks more like an average middle-class person, rather than as a ruthless politician.
Another I recently re-watched was
Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), that struck me seeing again, for how cynical it was of Washington politics, even in that principled and more reverent era. For all its folksy Norman Rockwell-esque Americana.
Another from that era, also directed by Frank Capra,
Meet John Doe (1940) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper, that despite being a fantastic movie is somehow overlooked in listing Capra's masterworks. Somehow eclipsed by
Mr Smith Goes to Washington and his other widely praised classic,
It's a Wonderful Life.
Meet John Doe Is about a reporter (Barbara Stanwyck) who is being fired from a newspaper, but has to write one more column for her final paycheck, and writes a fake letter to the editor from a man who threatens to commit suicide in protest to dirty politics and the state of civilization, signed "John Doe". It starts such a political firestorm that she is immediately re-hired at a higher salary, and the paper sets about hiring a fake John Doe to pose as the one who writes what becomes a regular column. It explodes into a nationwide "John Doe movement" that is a benevolent pseudo-Christian organization, until others seek to exploit it for political ends. One of my favorite movies. And a warning about political wolves in sheeps' clothing.
