A free peek at George Bush's home away from home

Can't wait for Oliver Stone's W.? Then click on Crawford, David Modigliani's surprisingly even-handed and occasionally poignant account of the impact on the citizenry in the small Texas town chosen by George W. Bush to be the site of his co-called “Western White House.” (Yeah, that's right: The place Harold and Kumar dropped into in their last movie.) Filmed over several years, the documentary plays like a rise-and-fall drama populated with colorful, contrasting characters who have profoundly mixed feelings about being used essentially as props in Bush’s political stagecraft.

Crawford

I'm sure the makers of Crawford appreciated my favorable review from the SXSW Film Festival in Austin. But I'm equally certain they were more concerned about the reaction from folks in the Texas town where they filmed their engrossing documentary.

Adventures at SXSW

After extending my stay to cover a few more films -- here are my reviews of Crawford and Forgetting Sarah Marshall -- I found myself low on funds here in Austin. So I took a one-night temp job as bouncer in a biker bar. Fortunately, I was able to flash my new tattoo to get myself some badass cred. A couple of drunken rowdies tried to start a fight by saying Jean-Luc Godard was the only true genius of the French New Wave. But they shut up pretty damn fast when I got medieval on them with a pool cue. Deconstruct that, suckas!