It just doesn't make any sense. Of course, it didn't make much sense when we had to live through it. And then there's the fact that it kind of sandbagged any credibility that the President, indeed politicians in general, may have had. Frank Langella does a beautiful job of bringing out what he and Ron Howard, the director, want us to believe is the soul of the man. It almost becomes an apologia. We see Nixon as just a man, a driven, ambitious, probably damaged, and perhaps unscrupulous man, but a man whom it is now time to forgive. Well, not me. I'm not issuing any apologies for the bombing of Cambodia, ever.

That's a little strident I know, and I don't want to take away from Frank Langella's performance. I didn't see it on stage in New York, but am told that it was extremely powerful. On screen, it is a little stagy, that is it is a little actory, obviously theatrical, and somewhat arch. Consider the source.

I always find Ron Howard's direction to be limited. It is good but not profound, interesting but never surprising, attractive but not startling. He takes good, challenging ideas and makes them accessible, but he doesn't push the ideas themselves, he doesn't challenge us to rethink anything, or even to think at all. There is a paternalistic aspect to his direction, he asks us to trust him to take care of everything, we just have to sit back and take the ride. It's not that I'd rather do it all myself, but I do like to work a little bit for my pleasure.

My favorite performance amongst those nominated in the category of Best Actor is that of Richard Jenkins in the little seen film "The Visitor." I admit to liking it because Jenkins is about my age, he's been in the trenches, working as a journeyman actor in films and television since 1974, playing Cop #1, or the star's girl friend's father, most memorably as the ghost of the father in "Six Feet Under" on HBO.

Now, after 30-some years in the business, he has gotten a part that carries a film and he has done the work and he is being recognized for it. I also think the film is wonderful. It is small and unselfconscious, by that I mean that it doesn't take itself to seriously; it speaks of an issue (the treatment of illegal immigrants) that is easily ignored, and it tells it's story simply, believing that the story, and not the style of the telling, is most important. Jenkins' performance is all those things, too. It is simple and straightforward, well thought out and honestly executed, with passion. I read somewhere that Meryl Streep said about acting that, "We're paid to care." Not about the paycheck or the adoration, but about the stories we tell, and Richard Jenkins is all that.