Nixon, abbreviated.

Secret Honor. Before the opening credits, Robert Altman beats us over the head with a fictional stick. Using white on black scrolling text, he emphasizes the fic-fic-fictional nature of this character study of Richard Nixon. But not the real Nixon. I mean, he's real, but not as he's portrayed in the film. It is non-non-fiction, based on actual events, but is not actually actual, etc.

Bobby A. was rather presumptuous to think that anyone would care enough about the film to question its accuracy. Its sequence of events from minute one to minute fifteen lopes through a half-decent Nixon stand-in's choppy movement from tape recorder to scotch decanter to scotch bottle to security cameras and back again. Mr. Nixon stutters and awkwardly gestures his way through frantic speech that one might think would hold the viewer's interest. I fell into a multi-minute coma before the image of a gun brought some color back to my face.

Then nothing happened. Again.

I didn't finish it, didn't need to, and wish the gun would have gotten some action before I pressed stop.

Impeached from my DVD player.

Secret Honor. Suspension of disbelief is instantaneously destroyed with the pre-credits disclaimer that this quasi-realistic film has, for the purposes of storytelling, made things up. Occasionally, I expect things to be made up. But I'd prefer to believe that they're real. Especially when they're about real people. Fortunately, if you missed this warning the job will be swiftly accomplished by the actor's poor likeness to Richard Nixon. And his British accent. Actually, he doesn't have a British accent. But he looks British, anyway.

Before the film was prematurely ejected, there were a few things worth noting. It is possible to infer that Richard Nixon, following his disgraced presidency, locked himself away in a house with security cameras, a loaded revolver, and a decanter of brandy.

He also had a tape recorder and microphone. Had we continued watching more than about three minutes past the credit squence, I'm sure that these would have been used as a device with which to normalize Nixon's talking to himself. After all, he's the only character and you might stand to wonder how on God's good earth he'd be able to fill all that time alone.

I do feel slightly ashamed to have given up on this so soon. After all, it's a Robert Altman film. It's about history. And I like history. But the truth of the matter is that if I can't have the product of Aaron Sorkin's drug-addled mind, I'd rather not have representative democracy at all. At least not fictionalized representative democracy.

In high school, teachers used to say on the first day, "As of now, everyone has an 'A.'" While 'Secret Honor' may be subject to that same standard, it rapidly begins to fail. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and suggest that it may be a allegory for it's subject's presidency.

Commited. To Nonsense.

Shock Corridor. From the opening credits, this would-be cult film appears to channel 1940's melodrama, but then descends into something altogether more crass. Our hero, Johnny, seeks the Pulitzer by faking his way toward admittance into a mental hospital by feigning incestuous interest in his sister, played by Kathy, his stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold girlfriend. Particularly exciting inmates... patients?... include the aria singing lard cake, the KKK channeling black man, and the lady "nymphos (doctor-prescribed)," who, while serenading him with a chilly a cappella rendition of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," proceed to maul Johnny on sight. He leaves the scene bloody and bandaged. Please note that said nymphos are the only institutionalized women we see in the film. Extraordinary that there are so many of the lusty bunch.

"My mama fed me bigotry for breakfast and ignorance for supper" is a favorite line. Thank you, Major Lieutenant Colonel Loon. We loved the civil war, too.

Rotten Tomatoes: a 90% approval rating? You're usually so dependable.

B- for Bored on Friday Night. We don't have friends anyway.

There are better ways to win a Pulitzer, Johnny.

Shock Corridor. A romp along the superhighway to insanity, this piece sits on the high altar of films depicting journalistic aspiration. Contemplate a black-and-white Bob Woodward with a stripper girlfriend. The reporter for a generic newspaper decides to admit himself to an insane asylum so that he can investigate the death of patient. All this to win the Pulitzer. While seemingly an air-tight plan, we soon learn that insanity, in fact, is contagious.

However, this plan goes awry when the director decides to abandon plot altogether and instead present a seemingly unending parade of vignettes depicting the insane. There's a man who thinks he's a Confederate officer, and another who is obscenely fat, stuffs gum in his mouth, and sings opera. There's a black Ku Klux Klan member as well as the usual catalogue of catatonic hall-standers, screamers, and even a merciless band of nymphomaniacs who nearly rape our protagonist.

After what seems like hours of treading water with useless character development, we finally return to the task at hand -- attempting to locate the murderer. After suffering through all that needless footage, we are pained to discover that the secret to closing the case is merely asking the three patients who witnessed the murder, "Who did it?" Case closed.

However, it's too late. The journalist has lost his mind. The results likely would have been different had the author allowed him to ask this simple question sooner, instead of dragging both him -- and us -- through unnecessary caricature.

In addition, I was highly distracted by a lack of continuity in the brutal skirmish between the Pulitzer hopeful and a male attendant. The leg of a table appeared askew in one shot, then perpendicular in the next. This lack of attention to detail brings to question the film's Criterion Collection status. Also, there are several scenes of Japan shot in color on what appears to be a home video camera. Given the fact the film takes place almost solely within the walls of an 'institution,' I have no idea why these even exist.

However, there are several memorable quotes and no dearth of questionable language. Nymphos, whores, and impotence included.