Our British friends are delighted with America’s choice as new president, which hasn’t always been the case. (Who can forget the Daily Mirror headline from four years ago, “How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb?”) In fact, they’re already prepared with some advice for President-elect Obama, even if that advice is as seemingly unimportant as the five films he should watch before taking office.
As Xan Brooks notes in The Guardian, Obama’s favorite film is The Candidate. “Robert Redford's idealism harks back to a better day. That said, my team won't let me watch the end for some reason.” In case you’ve forgotten, Brooks reminds us the film “ends with Redford's hero unable to cope with his victory; so drained and compromised by the campaign that he loses sight of why he ran in the first place. ‘What do we do now?’ he murmurs, as the mob runs in to claim him.”
Brooks understands that Obama may not have a lot of couch time between now and January 20, but he does offer five movies for the incoming president’s consideration. They include The Grapes of Wrath (“an angry, humane account of the last Great Depression”) and Nashville (‘a warts-and-all celebration of the American melting-pot”) as well as the cautionary tale A Face in the Crowd. Maybe Sarah Palin can take some time over the next four years to check that one out.