Libby and I went and saw Frost/Nixon on Sunday. Given the political climate at the moment and that the media have been assessing Bush's presidency, it was timely. Frank Langella did a very good job of playing Richard Nixon- he neither closely resembles or sounds quite like Nixon, but still becomes him. It was a very believable performance. Michael Sheen was excellent as Frost too, and I wish he was getting more recognition during the awards season. He's equally the star of the show in this. This is one film I would recommend to anyone, even those who might not be too familiar with Nixon.
After watching Frost/Nixon, I saw The Trial of Tony Blair on the ABC that night; after watching one film about a disgraced politician, this one paled in comparison a bit, and while it was intended as satire, it wasn't as cutting as it could've been. I'm a bit undecided on Robert Lindsay's Tony Blair; at this point I think Michael Sheen played him way better in The Queen, though I wouldn't mind seeing the other tv movie that Lindsay played Blair in, A Very Social Secretary (I'll probably end up seeing W. just to see how Ioan Gruffudd does it too, even if he looks absolutely nothing like Blair).
Work has been busy, but I managed to catch up with Rick on Monday to talk about the PhD thing. In the interest of keeping things thorough, he's suggested that I study the relics of maybe one saint. This would be a good strategy, focussing on one figure, but I'm quite tempted by the idea of two saints, just for the sake of comparision. I'm not sure- although I do know that I can't choose a saint that has been extensively studied already, like St. Francis, and I have no interest in studying relics related to Jesus/the crucifixion. Books on the exact subject are not easy to come by, though I have found a couple of books that might prove useful on Amazon. And I have not tapped into the resources on JSTOR yet, so that might be useful too.