I just had a chance to watch "All The Way" and it is a very fine, fine and moving adaptation of the play. Superior production, acting...HBO can start counting the Emmys. Especially amazing are Melissa Leo, Todd Weeks and of course Bradley and Bryan. The adaptation also is incredibly complex and complete, almost shocking at times. People...learn our history.
Really a great adaptation of the play. It was eerie how much Cranston looked like Johnson. I do not know if anyone else picked up the irony of the passage of the Civil Rights Act and who fought it tooth and nail.
It was okay -- it felt rather by the numbers, frankly. I did find the moments of LBJ's increasing paranoia and that final scary speech to be by far the most interesting things in the film, the rest of which felt very sanitized and tidied up for mass consumption in that Spielberg/HBO way. I'd have liked it to be faster and tighter and meaner, somehow. There's got to be a way to depict the struggle for civil rights that doesn't always devolve into emo-wanking strings on the soundtrack signalling the audience to start tearing up.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
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I thought it was excellent. Cranston was outstanding and will definitely be recognized in September. It shocks me how disinterested I was in history during Middle School and High School and now I find it fascinating and can't seem to get enough of it - both U.S. History and World History. Thank you, HBO, for adapting this wonderful play into a film so more people can consume and learn. Congrats to all involved.
In our millions, in our billions, we are most powerful when we stand together. TW4C unwaveringly joins the worldwide masses, for we know our liberation is inseparably bound.
Signed,
Theater Workers for a Ceasefire
https://theaterworkersforaceasefire.com/statement
It is amazing he got those civil rights laws passed considering today they cannot pass anything to save their lives. I enjoyed it as well and Cranston inhabited the role. I felt the protagonist's journey could have used a bit more urgency and the script was a bit talky but that is a minor quibble. It did feel very relevant to today and that is to the credit of the writers and the director. As portrayed in the film Johnson was quite colorful and had a lot more personality than I remembered as a child growing up during his administration. I had no awareness about the Jenkins situation and it was cool how Lady Bird came to his defense. I guess the YMCA was quite the tearoom.
I thought it was fantastic, beautifully cast and written. It was a compelling history lesson, especially for those of us who were too young at the time to appreciate LBJ's presidency. He was one of the greats and had it not been for his ill-considered handling of Vietnam, he might have come in right behind FDR in the history books.