Monday, March 23, 2009

Blasting Bush

Bush offered to advise Obama on a recent visit to Calgary for his first paid speaking engagement. Some might say that Bush chose this location due to its reputation as Canada’s Texas, but Calgarians responded appropriately by stock-piling shoes at the conference centre’s entrance. Fortunately none of them will receive a three year sentence for doing so.


Last week I watched, You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush, Will Ferrell’s Broadway debut, on HBO. Overall the production was excellent: Ferrell adroitly impersonated Bush with the skills he honed on SNL (never dropping out of character for the show’s entirety), and clever filming captured much of the stage atmosphere. Ferrell came up with some gems like “wing take dream (a Bushism),” “the Tiger Woods guy (Obama),” and “Swiss (blond haired, not swarthy) Jesus.” Nevertheless, the funniest sketch was Operation Primate Spear Gun. In this fictional sketch, Morocco supposedly committed to send 2,000 monkeys to Iraq to clear mines and entertain children. Although Morocco reneges, Ferrell’s Bush recounts how he set up a base for training primates in N.C. In the end, most of the monkeys escape and spear gun fatalities rise over 1,000 percent.


The performance, however, does become tedious at times, a regular feature of Ferrell’s work (here, to Grohl's discomfort):


No comments:

Reverb

Reverb plug-in