I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest Bad Therapy Edition.

This is also the daily podcast from slate.com for Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008.

On today's program, we're going to talk about Oliver Stone's W, working through our collective

trauma in preparation for President Obama. And then we're going to talk about Oliver Stone's W, working through our collective trauma in

preparation for President Obama. And then we're going to have a lightning round in which we revisit

past podcast topics as if they were childhood memories. Joining me today are Slate's deputy

editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. And our film critic, Dana Stevens. Hi, Dana.

Hey. And just a fair warning to Stevens. Hi, Dana. Hey.

And just a fair warning to those of you who don't like to have any portion of a movie spoiled, even one in which you essentially know every plot detail ahead of time. We will talk about some features of the movie that happen towards the end. And if you want to skip ahead, 12 minutes so as not to have it spoiled for you, feel free. Dana, I suspect like a lot of moviegoers, I went into a screening of W last night, sort of expecting catharsis, retribution, or the very least, the kind of lurid, wonderful, poppy, Oliver Stone biopic.

And instead, what I got was kind of a clunky psychodrama. And yet, I walked away weirdly satisfied. I need you to explain this experience to me.

Well, you know, I guess as the alleged expert here, the film critic, I'm supposed to be able to walk you through what happened in that movie. But if you read my review, I basically have a very similar response. I sort of felt like I was happy that it wasn't as lurid as I had

expected the movie. It isn't the sort of sweaty liberal echo chamber that you expect in Oliver

Stone movie to be. It's more even-handed than you expect it to be while remaining satirical

and unsympathetic portrait of the Bush administration, obviously. But it does have that cathartic

quality. Don't you walk out of it strangely satisfied? It sort of felt like therapy to me. Maybe like reading a really touchy-feely self-help book, but then feeling strangely moved and changed by it. Yeah, I felt like it was working through in some weird way. It was a reliving of the Bush years, obviously. But I felt sort of as if it was bad therapy more than good therapy.

Well, let's listen to a clip from the sort of, you might call it the moral climax of the movie,

which takes place at a press conference in which Josh Brolin, as George W. Bush, is asked a question

about what were the mistakes he made. Can you name one mistake that you've made as a president?

I haven't made no mistakes. I'm confident I have.

It's just I haven't, you know, really put me on the spot here, John.

Maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as it should be and coming up with one.

First of all, we should note that that was a real question that was actually asked to him at a press conference by Slate's political correspondent John Dickerson when he was working for a time.

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