Watching Studio60

Hey, there’s finally a trailer out for Charlie Wilson’s War, the upcoming movie written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a congressman, a socialite and a CIA agent who conspire to arm Afghans in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion. Check it out above or on the YouTube site.

Well, okay, at the moment, it’s not so much a “trailer” as “a segment of Entertainment Tonight that someone recorded and put on YouTube.” Despite the presence of prattly ET commentary, there’s still plenty of opportunity to watch Hanks and Roberts wrap their best Texas accents around Sorkin’s dialog. Looks like plenty of the zingy kind of lines we know and love, putting a sarcastic spin on political process.

The movie has been getting some good advance buzz, with some calling it an Oscar frontrunner. For starters, you can read a good review of the script on InContention.com, a rave on the preview on Ain’t It Cool News, and a nice little item in Entertainment Weekly’s winter preview. After all the Sorkin-bashing that went on around Studio 60, it’s such a relief to read something even reasonably appreciative.

Charlie Wilson’s War is due for release on Christmas Day, dangling its stars and director (and yes, we hope, its screenwriter) as Oscar bait. Watching it will be a little consolation for those of us who won’t be able to catch Sorkin’s Broadway venture this season, The Farnsworth Invention. Of course, even those who do have tickets for the play may not be able to catch it — Broadway is on the verge of a stagehand strike that may black out the Great White Way. Kind of ironic if people unable to attend a play about television have to stay home and watch it instead. (Of course, a possible writers’ strike may mess that up, too.)

Charlie Wilson’s War, Aaron Sorkin, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman