Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal (2015)



Magnolia Pictures
Directed by Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Magnolia)

During the Republican and Democratic conventions of 1968, struggling network ABC hired political commentators William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal to "debate" each other for a few minutes every night. On diametrically opposite ends of the political spectrum, it quickly descended into personal attacks, most memorably when Vidal called Buckley a "pro-crypto--Nazi" and and infuriated Buckley responded with a homophobic slur. Extremely entertaining, even by today's standards, and, unbelievably, more relevant than ever.

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