What is it: W. is Oliver Stone’s biographical portrayal of the ever so controversial President George W. Bush (Josh Brolin). Stone begins with W.’s wild college days of 1967, to his time in the military, then his governorship of Texas and oil business, leading to his 2000 candidacy. The film then follows his bumpy first four years in the White House through his 2004 re-election campaign.

Why it’s Significant: The timing could not be more perfect for the DVD release.  January ‘09 is a time to say farewell to one of the most controversial leaders of our time and hello to history in the making. Brolin portrays the President realistically and does not resort to a caricature which I thought was key to this film. I also was surprised a monster was not described by either Stone or Brolin. Richard Dreyfuss totally transformed into Dick Cheney, an eerie humanization.  All in all, I thought Stone did honest work and gave the audience a truthful glimpse into the Brush family. - Meredith Leander

Amazon.com Review: Oliver Stone’s W. is similar to his other movies about American presidents (JFK, Nixon), which is to say these films are much more about Stone’s imagined versions of reported events than they are alleged reenactments. As such, W. is Stone’s case for what he sees as the absurdity of George W. Bush’s ascendance to the White House and especially the arrogant blunder of the Iraq War. Josh Brolin is very good as the miscreant son of George H. W. Bush (James Cromwell), Vice President to Ronald Reagan and 41st president of the United States. Adrift in a sea of booze and squandered opportunities, the younger Bush is largely driven by a need for his disapproving father’s love and respect, which never truly arrives. Becoming a hatchet man for Bush Sr.’s administration, “W” (as his wife, Laura–played by Elizabeth Banks–call him) meets Karl Rove (Toby Jones) and heads toward the Texas governorship, despite his father’s preference that the more golden son, Jeb, get all the family’s support in his Florida gubernatorial bid.

Told in broken chronology, W. focuses on Bush’s post-9/11 path to waging a “preventive war” in Iraq despite no hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction to justify it. The major players in W’s administration–Rove, Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright), Condoleeza Rice (Thandie Newton), and especially Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss)–all participate in closed meetings that look and sound like every investigative account by the New York Times or Bob Woodward about the administration’s inner workings leading up to the war. Much of this is quite fascinating if a little weird (Newton’s performance is indeed strange), but the drama is often powerful, particularly around Powell’s resistance to the rising tide for a supposedly slam-dunk war. A number of the film’s key performances, besides Brolin’s, are very strong, especially Cromwell, Jones, Wright, Dreyfuss and Bruce McGill as George Tenet.

As readers of this blog know by now, Amazon Movies & TV editors recently gathered to vote for our Best of the Year DVDs. Everyone weighed the options, researched the contenders, and looked deep within their hearts to pick the funniest, smartest, and most insightful entertainment of 2008. Then I moved Mad Men to the top anyway. (Jon Hamm can sell me anything.)

Anyhoo, here are my (with lots of input from my friends) top 10 TV DVDs of 2008. But you shouldn’t take our word for it–TV is a populist art form, after all.  Here’s what our customers have to say:

1. Mad Men: Season 1 (available on DVD or Blu-ray):
Average customer rating: 4.5 stars
Customer quote: “It would be hard to imagine a more absorbingly intelligent American TV series–in terms of writing, acting, and visuals–than Mad Men… Ostensibly the series is about a group of advertising agency working for Madison Avenue advertising agency, the fictitious Sterling-Cooper, in 1960, during the Nixon-Kennedy presidential contest; yet on a deeper level the show wrestles with much larger questions about the meaning of obsession with having (and marketing) happiness in mid-20th-century America.”  –Jay Dickson

2. The Wire: Season 5 (available on DVD as a single season or in the five-season set)
Average customer rating: 4.5 stars
Customer quote: “All in all, the final season of The Wire further proves the frequently mentioned point of just how unbelievably good this show was, and how much of a shame it is that it never achieved the kind of uber-popularity that it deserved compared to many of HBO’s other shows. Either way, longtime fan or late newcomer, there is nearly nothing better than The Wire, even to its bittersweet end.” –N. Durham

3. John Adams (currently available on DVD or pre-orderable on Blu-ray):
Average customer rating: 4.5 stars
Customer quote: “I typically do not enjoy programs about American history, especially from the colonial days. This series goes beyond history, however. It is captivating in its psychological depiction of both John and Abigail Adams as human beings.” –-Not Yet a Lemming

4. The Tudors: Season 1 (available on DVD):
Average customer rating: 4 stars
Customer quote: “Yes, there are inaccuracies, as others have pointed out [on Amazon.com]. This is a dramatization and this is elegant popular entertainment. As an armchair historian, in love with the stories of Henry VIII, I find it absolutely gripping. The acting is for the most part marvelous, and the idea of doing these great personages as compellingly attractive people is a brilliant one.” –Anne Rice

5. 30 Rock: Season 2 (available on DVD):
Average customer rating: 4.5 stars
Customer quote: “Watching 30 Rock during its second season was a completely exhilarating experience. It had in its rookie year quickly established itself as the funniest show on TV, but during its sophomore campaign the writing and acting got sharper and sharper with each episode. Next to Arrested Development, I honestly believe that this is the funniest American comedy series ever.” –Robert Moore

6. The Office: Season 4 (available on DVD as a single season or in a four-season set)
Average customer rating: 4 stars
Customer quote: ”If the writers’ strike had not cut [this] season in half then I’m sure it would have ranked up there with Season 2 and 3. Season 4 offered the usual story of the complex relationship between Jim and Pam and also the odd and disturbing at times relationship between Michael and Jan.” –-Jason Orzello

7. Dexter: Season 2 (available on DVD)
Average customer rating: 4.5 stars
Customer quote: “I didn’t think the second season of Dexter could even come close to to the brilliance of the first season, but I was wrong. Instead of the Ice Truck Killer, Season 2 begins with the Miami P.D. hot on the trail of another mass murderer dubbed as the Bay Harbor Butcher. Dexter (Michael C. Hall) already knows the identity of the killer right off the bat, because it happens to be him.”—Melissa Niksic

8. Battlestar Galactica: Season 3 (available on DVD as a single season or in the three-season set)
Average customer rating: 4.5 stars
Customer quote: “…the modern BSG is fast becoming for me one of THE greatest works of film making art I have ever had the privilege to witness… To be quite honest, the story line of BSG makes Star Wars seem like a cartoon by comparison…” –-S. White

9. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 3 (available on DVD)
Average customer rating: 4.5 stars
Customer quote: “Tears streaming down my face, fall off the couch, beer through the nose, crude, rude HI-LARITY! If you ain’t watching this, get out of your mom’s basement, put down the PlayStation controller and glue your orbs to FX.” –-Carla D. Paschal

10. Pushing Daisies: Season 1 (available on DVD or Blu-ray)
Average customer rating: 5 stars
Customer quote: “Alternately funny and whimsical, Pushing Daisies is a visually-distinctive romantic comedy that encompasses a truly winning mix of ingredients.” –The Masked Reviewer