Last week's interview with Maria Conchita Alonso started a firestorm across the blogosphere - and now protesters have moved against theaters showing the controversial film. Oliver Stone's latest flick South of the Border has thrown Americans from both continents into the rink to battle out their political ideologies over what's brewing in the Latin land down under.
Sunshine being the best disinfectant, it would have been a boon for truth if Stone had told the story of Venezuela's crime, poverty, and political impropriety but instead the Oscar-winning director has made a bumpy lackluster version of name-dropping unreality. Whether you side with Chavez or his opposition, by the omissions in Stone's film it's evident that the leader (and maybe even Stone himself) has a thing or two he doesn't want cameras - and the world's attention - to focus upon. By the end of the film, the elephant in the room ends up crushing anything left of Stone's shaky reputation for journalistic fact-finding.
In the classic horror film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, we enter the world of a childhood star long after the lights have dimmed and the applause has faded. Played by Bette Davis, Baby Jane is angry, callous, calculating, and cruel. Davis' masterful portrayal personifies the scars of lost fame and the fetid stench of regret. She cackles with delight as she famously abuses her sister time and time again. Baby Jane is no longer a star but rather a lampoon of the worst of what even Hollywood's glitz and make-up cannot hide. She's a star who has faded and she's damned angry. With his latest film South of the Border, Oliver Stone wears the cynicism of a man looking for relevance just as overtly as Baby Jane Hudson wears her grotesque makeup on her vengeful face.
From the moment South of the Border opens we're confronted with sound bites from FOX news lambasting Chavez. Stone is setting us up for his canonization of the highly controversial, and anti-semetic leader. It's unfathomable that the same filmmaker who made Platoon could rub elbows with the tyrant Hugo Chavez but miss the responsibility to turn the camera on the poor and oppressed of Venezuela.
Friday, June 25, 2010 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the start of the Korean War.
This week I had the blessed honor of meeting Jack Larson. Jack is best known as Jimmy Olsen to George Reeves' Superman in the classic TV Series.
Jack has lived a remarkable life. He has walked with Garbo, cried with Monroe, and lived with Monty Clift. He's an accomplished author writing librettos for some of America's greatest contemporary operas. Jack is a walking history of the generation just on the other side of WWII.
The Gulf Oil Spill will change our world forever. BP, Government apathy, underfunded code enforcement, and a burgeoning oil-addicted population are to blame. I've gone from uncharacteristic panic to being afraid of my own empathy.
When President Obama warned British Petroleum not to be "nickel and diming" businesses hurt by the oil leak, no figure came to mind that could ever compensate for the genocide. We have lost so much. With all optimism, I am afraid we have not begun to pay.
Hattie McDaniel's missing Oscar has surfaced in the news. Monique's nostalgic recall of McDaniel's dress at this year's Academy Awards sparked a renewed flame for the mystery. Monique's upcoming McDaniel biopic is sure to whet America's appetite for all things McDaniel.
Wherever the statuette lies, it's time the Academy loosen its belt for a another casting of McDaniel's goldenboy.
subscribe via rss
