DAVID BIANCULLI

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LEE DANIELS' THE BUTLER
July 18, 2014  | By David Bianculli

Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET

 

Any movie that casts both Oprah Winfrey and Mariah Carey is scoring in the red on the Diva Meter – but the central focus of this 2013 drama, based on fact (sometimes very loosely based), is Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, who as a White House butler served eight different Presidents. (Winfrey plays his wife.) And though they’re minor roles, the Presidents who are portrayed by actors rather then represented in news footage are played by such familiar faces as Robin Williams (portraying Dwight D. Eisenhower), James Marsden (John F. Kennedy), Liev Schreiber (Lyndon Baines Johnson), John Cusack (Richard M. Nixon) and Alan Rickman (Ronald Reagan). Lee Daniels directs.

 
 
 
 
 
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