06 Jan "Horns and Halos More Relevant Than Ever"

Ann Lewison over at the New Haven Advocate recently acknowledged Horns and Halos:

Among the books Oliver Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser read when they were researching W. was James Hatfield’s 1999 biography Fortunate Son, which earned notoriety for making unattributed allegations that Bush had been arrested for cocaine possession in 1972 and further notoriety when its publisher, St. Martin’s Press, recalled the book when it was revealed that Hatfield had done five years for attempted murder. The story of what happened next – far more dramatic than anything in W. – is told in Horns and Halos, Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky’s documentary on the book’s republication by Soft Skull Press, then run out of the basement of a lower east side apartment building by its founder, Sander Hicks, who also worked as the building’s super.

While Bush and McCain battle it out for the Republican nomination, the young, politically committed publisher and the author, in his early forties and struggling to break out of a career on the midlist writing trivia books, “X-Files” tie-ins and unauthorized biographies of Patrick Stewart and Ewan McGregor, embark on a media tour that includes stops at “60 Minutes” and “Democracy Now.” For the second edition, Hatfield adds a forward explaining his criminal past, which leads to more problems. For the third edition he names his sources. Sort of.

The tale of quicky campaign biography that went astray with tragic results, Horns and Halosremains compelling even in the final months of the Bush Administration because it’s really about two little guys tilting at giant media windmills, a story that never gets old.

Horns and Halos is available from Netflix, at better video stores, and from the filmmakers themselves.

Its nice to know people pay attention. Wish more had seen the film 8 years ago.