Election infection
Power, politics, and puppets converge in Bush's Brain and Silver City.

By Cheryl Eddy

IN BUSH'S BRAIN , Joseph Mealey and Michael Paradies Shoob's documentary about key George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove, an interviewee sums up Rove's importance: "If you pull back the curtain, you'll find out that's who's calling the shots." And if you've always suspected the current president to be little more than a Wizard of Oz-style disembodied airhead, with shadowy figures working the controls just out of sight, Bush's Brain will do much to confirm those fears. Sure, sinister corporations own a chunk of the White House, but at least they have a well-defined impetus for evil: greed. With Rove, it's not so simple; even the authors (journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater) of the film's source material, the book Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush President, allow that he's an "intelligent and gracious" fellow.

There's no denying Rove is a man of skill, plying dirty tricks and savvy strategy with mad-genius precision. The talking heads in Bush's Brain – mostly reporters and campaign workers, both Republicans and Democrats – speculate on Rove's creative maneuvers. During the closely contested 1986 Texas gubernatorial race, Rove, who was working on Republican Bill Clements's campaign, discovered a bug in his office; though many suggested Rove had planted the device himself, the resulting hubbub contributed to the eventual defeat of Democratic incumbent Mark White. A nasty "whisper campaign" circulated during the 2000 South Carolina primary, questioning Bush opponent John McCain's military record and spurring racist mutterings about McCain's adopted daughter. Even more ominously, Rove is fingered as the "leak" who outed the wife of former acting Iraqi ambassador (and Bush critic) Joseph Wilson as an undercover CIA agent.

Of course, nobody can prove Rove had anything to do with any of the above. As Bush's Brain points out, the president doesn't like Rove to be "too visible." And though Rove did fax a point-by-point retort to authors Moore and Slater after reading their book, his simple response to filmmakers Mealy and Shoob's interview request was a handwritten "No, thank you." (Since Bush's Brain gets a bit heavy-handed at the end, implying that Rove is the main force behind the current Iraq war, and by association the deaths of American troops in action, it's no wonder). Essentially, Rove the man remains an enigma – though his tactics speak volumes.

Bush's Brain offers further proof that you can never say "Bush sucks" too many times (oh, what Fahrenheit 9/11 hath wrought). Political-doc burnout is a legitimate complaint right about now, which is why writer-director John Sayles's latest jigsaw puzzle of a movie, Silver City, is so well-timed.

Even in the land of make-believe, however, Bush still sucks – though he's a little less lizardlike when rendered as Colorado gubernatorial candidate Dickie Pilager (Chris Cooper). Fortunately for the congenial yet clueless Dickie (yeah, he pronounces it "nuculer" too), he's got his powerful senator father (Michael Murphy), his Rove-like pit bull campaign manager (Richard Dreyfuss), and the richest man in the West (Kris Kristofferson) in his corner. As in his 2002 Sunshine State, Sayles mingles power, corruption, romanticized views of history, and clashing cultures; as in his similarly themed 1996 Lone Star, a dead body – accidentally hooked by Dickie while shooting a campaign spot – sets Silver City's plot in motion.

Enter slope-shouldered private investigator Danny O'Brien (Danny "Son of John" Huston), a former newsman who once dared to believe "journalists should change things, not just report." Hired by Camp Pilager to suss out the floater's identity – and, ostensibly, to find out if the corpse was planted by an enemy – O'Brien touches base with a motley array of characters: a Pepto-swilling talk radio host (Miguel Ferrer); a slimy lobbyist (Billy Zane); the black sheep Pilager (Daryl Hannah); and the "Saddam-fucking-Hussein of labor contractors" (Luis Saguar), to name a few.

In true Sayles fashion, the stories tangle and dovetail as Danny's detective work unearths far more than the fate of "Juan Doe." Besides his jabs at Bush, the director conveys his feelings about the downward spiral of the mainstream media – Danny's ex, Nora, a former fellow alt-news reporter, now works for a corporate-owned paper; Danny's former editor, Mitch (Tim Roth), is only able to report the "real news" via his radical Web site. Sayles also works in migrant workers, shady real estate deals, and the sweet bit of trivia that cyanide happens to smell like apricots.

Silver City is dense, and Huston's not quite compelling enough to serve as the focal point for its many swirling elements (unlike, say, Cooper in Lone Star). Sayles is also on dialogue-with-double-meanings overdrive here (witness Kristofferson's speech about "people want to back a winner" – is it about the sports team he owns, or the candidate he's bankrolling? Gee, I wonder.) Still, Sayles fans will find enough to like with this more-of-the-same entry – and what's more, anyone from the "Bush sucks" school of thought will have a hard time not chuckling at this description of his fictive counterpart: "He seems a lot more gubernatorial with the sound off."

'Bush's Brain' opens Fri/17, Lumiere Theatre, 1572 California, S.F. (415) 267-4893; Act I and II, 2128 Center, Berk. (510) 464-5980. 'Silver City' opens Fri/17 at Bay Area theaters. See Movie Clock, in Film listings, for locations and times.