"Let's Not Read Too Much Into the Fate of Alexander"

James Lileks has some thoughts on why Oliver Stone’s latest mess-of-a-movie tanked at the box office.

For what it’s worth, I liked Platoon (though not as much as Full Metal Jacket of course; long-time readers know of my excessive college-era Kubrick-obsession). I loved Stone’s Wall Street and even liked JFK, even though I thought the supposed “docudrama” was total fiction. (OK–maybe not total fiction. I’m pretty sure the title character was based on an actual person.)

It was with The Doors that I first began to wonder if Stone was losing it. With Nixon, I was convinced.

However, while it shows burgeoning traces of the self-indulgence that would wreck his later career, this film will always be Stone’s epic.