(WTVR) - President Obama will host the cast and crew of the new Lincoln film tonight.
This just one day before the nationwide release of the film predominantly shot in Richmond and Petersburg.
According to THR,President Barack Obama will host a screening of "Lincoln" at the White Houseon Thursday night with director Steven Spielberg and some of the film's cast in tow.
No word on whether Daniel Day Lewis or Sally Field are at the screening.
Critics are already gushing over Steven Spielberg’s new “Lincoln” as a potential Oscar contender. Much of the praise centers on how the film makes the larger-than-life president at once heroic and human.
The film has gotten rave reviews on the website Rotten Tomatoes.
By all accounts, it deftly explores both his personal and political wisdom through scenes like the one in which Daniel Day Lewis, who plays Honest Abe, cites ancient mathematical theory in an assessment of humanity: “It’s a self-evident truth that things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.”
But even as moviegoers line up for tickets, some in Washington may well wonder what one special fan of Lincoln might take away from a screening.
President Barack Obama is a self-professed, lifelong admirer of the 16th president, who is by many accounts the most popular and influential of all chief executives in American history.
Shortly before taking office in 2009, the Obama family made an unannounced late night visit to the Lincoln Memorial and since, the 44th president has stopped by again. Mr. Obama took his oath on the same Bible Lincoln used for his inauguration in 1861; a small volume sheathed in stained red velvet with gilt edges. He has frequently been spotted reading about Lincoln and he’s fond of quoting the rail-splitter in his speeches, most notably during the recent Democratic National Convention.
“I’m far more mindful of my own failings,” he told the convention crowd, “knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said, ‘I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.’”
Some Lincolnophiles have since suggested he actually misquoted Lincoln in that instance, but the point remains: Obama is a big Lincoln fan.
You can read more on an opinion piece on the three lessons that Obama could take away from Lincoln, by clicking here.
