Horns and Halos

Starring:James Hatfield, Zack Exley, George W. Bush, Jim Fitzgerald (III), Peter Slover, Lesley Stahl, George Bush, John McCain, The Rev. Billy, Sander Hicks, Mark Crispin Miller, Orrin G. Hatch, Pamela Colloff, Richard Curtis (VIII), Bob Minzensheimer
Director: Suki Hawley, Michael Galinsky
Studio: Go-Kart Films
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Horns and Halos is a fascinating, unexpectedly tragic story about one man's downfall in the brutal world of perception-driven media and politics. In the late 1990s, author James Hatfield wrote Fortunate Son, a biography of then-candidate George W. Bush that alleged, among other things, that the future president used cocaine during the '70s. St. Martin's Press fast-tracked the project, but recalled the book when Hatfield's earlier prison time for murder conspiracy became known. Horns and Halos follows what happened next: Fortunate Son was picked up by tiny Soft Skull Press, run by a passionate, Mohawk-topped young man named Sander Hicks, but the long, uphill battle to restore credibility to the work proves ruinous. The film is notable for access to the anxiety and roller-coaster emotions of Hatfield and Hicks, and there's plenty more despair in deleted scenes offered on this two-DVD set. Special features are especially important and useful here for added context, including raw footage of protests at Bush's inauguration, performances by Hicks and his band White Collar Crime, a profile of the film created by public television's KCET, and much else. --Tom Keogh
Description
This DVD captures the unlikely connection of three men. An ex-con biographer, a janitor turned publisher and U.S. President George W. Bush whose paths to power and popularity become tangled in the controversial book Fortunate Son. Winner "Best Documentary" 2002 New York Underground Film Festival, Winner "Best Documentary" 2002 Chicago Underground Film Festival.

Horns and Halos
Average customer rating:

Makes you think

Not clear

The human story underneath

"We don't burn books in this country."

Gripping Accounts of Two Men Publishing a Controversial Book

Horns and Halos
Starring: Jim Fitzgerald (III) , Peter Slover , Lesley Stahl , George Bush , and The Rev. Billy
Director: Suki Hawley , and Michael Galinsky
Manufacturer: Go-Kart Films
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0002TT07I
Release Date: 2004-10-05

Amazon.com

Horns and Halos is a fascinating, unexpectedly tragic story about one man's downfall in the brutal world of perception-driven media and politics. In the late 1990s, author James Hatfield wrote Fortunate Son, a biography of then-candidate George W. Bush that alleged, among other things, that the future president used cocaine during the '70s. St. Martin's Press fast-tracked the project, but recalled the book when Hatfield's earlier prison time for murder conspiracy became known. Horns and Halos follows what happened next: Fortunate Son was picked up by tiny Soft Skull Press, run by a passionate, Mohawk-topped young man named Sander Hicks, but the long, uphill battle to restore credibility to the work proves ruinous. The film is notable for access to the anxiety and roller-coaster emotions of Hatfield and Hicks, and there's plenty more despair in deleted scenes offered on this two-DVD set. Special features are especially important and useful here for added context, including raw footage of protests at Bush's inauguration, performances by Hicks and his band White Collar Crime, a profile of the film created by public television's KCET, and much else. --Tom Keogh

Description

This DVD captures the unlikely connection of three men. An ex-con biographer, a janitor turned publisher and U.S. President George W. Bush whose paths to power and popularity become tangled in the controversial book Fortunate Son. Winner "Best Documentary" 2002 New York Underground Film Festival, Winner "Best Documentary" 2002 Chicago Underground Film Festival.

Customer Reviews:

Makes you think.......2006-07-28

It really makes you wonder. I tried to read "Fortunate Son" by James Hatfield but didn't have the patience at the time to read the book. I heard plenty about it and felt I got the gist of the book. I decided I could spend 79 minutes of my time watching the DVD. The owner of Soft Skull, the publishing company who re-released the book after St. Martin dropped and recalled the book. St. Martin even burned the books they had (disgusting!)after being threated by Bush campaign legal staff. Anyway, what bothers me is that our media, even book publishers, are afraid to say anything negative about Bush. I thought that was changing after Katrina but not much. Mainstream media goes easy on the Bush Administration but not surprising since Corporate America owns everything. And the writer, James Hatfield committed suicide. He was no angel himself but that struck me as sad. He had a little girl who he genuinely seem to adore.

Not clear.......2006-05-21

First, as anyone who knows me will testify, I'm NOT a Dubya fan. On the contrary, I've been working on his impeachment, have written to Congress many times on the subject.

Second, I did purchase the book, "Fortunate Son" a couple of years ago. It's among the several anti-Bush books I have.

But this documentary had me wondering: Did the book's author make up scuttlebutt about Dubya?

I think Bush is a spoiled brat who's literally gotten away with murder his whole life. But my belief doesn't make the claim true. I hoped that Hatfield, the book's author, would have solid evidence that Bush had indulged in cocaine--or any other practice to show that Bush is the collossal hypocrite I believe he is. Unfortunately, even the film suggested that those whom Hatfield "quoted" denied having said what Hatfield attributed to them.

So, did Hatfield make up the story? Did he just spread gossip? I'd love to find Bush guilty of everything of which I believe he's guilty. But, as I worked in civil rights law for a number of years, I became wary of speculation, gossip, people FEELING something was, say, racist when such a feeling did not a racist motive make.

Really, I hoped to find a useful documentary here--and I have a good sized collection of documentary DVDs--but I didn't. May Mister Hatfield rest in peace (He committed suicide, and that was emotionally hard on those at Soft Skull Press who's defended him--needless to say). But the best I can say about this documentary is that it served to challenge the credibility of a Bush critic. And that may have done far more harm than good.

The human story underneath.......2005-07-31

This documentary actually turns out to be quite a lot more than a political polemic, and it's all the better for it. Naturally, extreme lovers of Bush will be put off immediately, but no surprise there. And, people looking for straight Bush bashing may be disappointed as well. This is not an expose into the darker side of the Retard King, and it purposely goes easy on the conspiratorial tone. There is a significant, though not entirely fleshed out, subtext about media control and the consequences of that, but mostly this is a story about some fascinating, driven, rather demented people and their travails amongst the big fish. In other words, it's most entertaining and enlightening on a human level, not a political one.

I will say that the `revelation' at the end is so extreme that it changes the perception of the entire narrative, and it's something which the movie itself never entirely comes to grips with. The way it's structured does give the momentum of the drama a naturalistic feel, but I wonder if there wasn't a better, more upfront way to rework it and maintain the impact.

However, the sense of howling into the wind is subtle and well played, and the real human drama of people striving to be more than they actually are (even by duplicitous means) opens up a whole range of connections between GWB, the author and the publisher. The idea that the publisher and the author are to some extent frauds, or at the very least unabashed showmen, would call into question the validity of the whole documentary if the approach didn't feel genuinely vérité, which is why it works much better as a depiction of flawed humanity than as an investigation into the (also interesting) issues with the book, media, etc.

"We don't burn books in this country.".......2005-06-05

"Horns and Halos" is a fascinating story behind a book that became so controversial, its publisher, St Martin's Press issued a recall a few days after the publication date, and promptly burned all of the copies. The name of the book is "Fortunate Son" a biography of George W. Bush. The book's author, J.H.Hatfield had a few other star biographies under his belt (Ewan McGregor and Patrick Stewart) and also authored an unauthorized guide of X-Files when he pitched the book successfully to St. Martin's Press. "Fortunate Son" was supposed to be one of those glitzy tribute bios, but it turned into something much more, and what happened to the book, and J.H.Hatfield is the meat of this riveting documentary.

Hatfield added an afterword to the book, which he claimed was at St. Martin's insistence. The afterword included a juicy acknowledgment by three unspecified sources about Bush's alleged cocaine addiction. Hatfield insisted that he didn't want to add this info, but did so when the publisher pressed the issue. Immediately after publication, Hatfield's sordid past--which included a murder-for-hire scheme came to light, and the dirt on Hatfield--combined with the segment on Bush's alleged cocaine use led to the books' recall and destruction.

Enter Soft Skull Press, a tiny independent press who then republished the book and tried to distribute it. A great deal of the film follows the trials and tribulations of the rogue founder of Soft Skull Press, the intrepid, idealistic Sander Hicks as he and J.H.Hatfield attempt to re-launch the book. Hicks and Hatfield attended book conventions, and even appeared on 60 Minutes to try and promote the book. The two men form an unlikely sometimes-difficult bond. There's Hatfield with his glum, fatalistic realisation that he's "dead meat", and then there's Hicks, who refuses to give up. Unfortunately, the content of the book faded behind its controversy and the author's past. And even when Hatfield revealed his sources, nothing could salvage the situation.

The film "Horns and Halos" is a two-disc set. One disc is the film, and the other disc is devoted to extras including: protests at Bush's inauguration, band White Collar Crime in performance, 11 deleted scenes, director's commentary, interviews with Hatfield, protest coverage, KCET coverage of the documentary, and an interview with Sander Hicks. If you are interested in reading more of the story (the 60 minutes transcript, for example), Sander Hicks has a website (sanderhicks.com). Hicks no longer works for Soft Skull Press and is now--amongst other things--working on a bio of Karl Rove--displacedhuman

Gripping Accounts of Two Men Publishing a Controversial Book.......2004-12-27

This short documentary film 'Horns and Halos' features two very fascinating persons -- James Hatfield and Sander Hicks. Frankly, its subject matter about Hatfield's book 'Fortunate Son' unauthorized biography of George W. Bush looks no longer fresh and arresting as before for too many things happened since then. Still, this documentary is fascinating in its own way because of these two men's unique characters.

The most interesting part of the film is the long and winding road to re-publish this controversial book. Hatfield's book first published by St Martin's Press was withdrawn because some part of the author's biographical facts were unearthed. Then, a small publishing company Soft Skull Press, led by one young guy Sander Hicks (with a haircut like 'Travis' of 'Taxi Driver'), thinks of publishing the book again.

The film follows their efforts to promote the book, their promotions being several appearances on TV or radio shows (including '60 Minutes' though you can see only the introductory part of it). However, I believe the incongruous relations between Hicks and Hatfield is the best part of the film. These two guys are really something, I mean, if you don't know that this is a documentary film, you might think that they are the characters coming out of David Mamet dramas. See the publisher Hicks quote the e-mail from Hatfield, who obviously didn't like the way Hicks was talking to him. Reading the angry words themselve, like spit-fire, Hicks is also gradually carried away by the language, yelling before the PC in the basement floor where the publishing company is. You rarely see that kind of image on screen.

I don't know to what extent the comments they make before the camera is realiable. Still, I know, and you will know too, that Hatfield's life is, as he confesses, falling apart. It's sad to see the last five minutes of the film, which shows us what happened to James Hatfield after the Book Expo. where the film starts, and aptly ends.

Unlike Micheal Moore's '911' film, this is no attack on George W. Bush. As a result, the film's theme sometimes looks unfocused when it tries to include the Bush footages during the campagin (from archives), because the film is after all about the writer who wrote about the president, not the US president himself. So, see for these two central figures, who are so fascinating that they will remain in your mind long after watching it.

Average customer rating:

Horns and Halos, which side are you on?
Horns and Halo's

Horns and Halos

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

What if someone wrote your biography? Would there be horns and halos involved?" - author J.H. Hatfield ---- In the late nineties up until the G. W. Bush election, documentary filmmakers Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley stumbled upon a goldmine of subtance. At the time, James Hatfield's book "The Fortunate" was recalled for many reasons, mostly because of his shady background. With hopes that his biography's truth would outweigh his past, he meets with Sander Hicks, the colorful publisher of his company called Soft Skull. Hicks makes the documentary for the most part. He constantly changes through different punk phases throughout the film, suggesting that he was looking for himself simultaneously to looking for "The Fortunate Son"'s distribution. His band "White Collar Crime" provides not only some fun music for the soundtrack, but also an introspective into the young man's sometimes frantic personality and political rebellion. The trials and tribulations the odd pair go through are documented with a taut, always entertaining pace. The film is never boring or tedious, even when the book is in an ongoing limbo of failures and complications. I liked how Suki and Galinsky didn't try to justify Hatfield. By the end of the film, he is just as much of an enigma as he was when the film began. He is impossible to read and always unpredictable, but when a haunting tragedy strikes, he is not judged or manipulated. "Horns and Halos" is moody tale told with nimble filmmaking. Its solid theme of a tainted pass serves as a metaphor for a truth lost almost lost with ceonsorship

Customer Reviews:

Horns and Halos, which side are you on?.......2006-05-28

If you're a republican consider watching "Horns and Halos" you just might realize your commander and chief is not what you thought. Thanks to director Suki Hawley, for having the guts to make this film.

Horns and Halo's.......2006-01-01

This is the best movie I have ever seen. It is Chilling and so true.

Average customer rating:

Makes you think
Not clear
The human story underneath
"We don't burn books in this country."
Gripping Accounts of Two Men Publishing a Controversial Book

Horns and Halos
Starring: James Hatfield , Zack Exley , George W. Bush , Jim Fitzgerald (III) , and Peter Slover
Director: Suki Hawley , and Michael Galinsky
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $14.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video