Oliver Stone & Hugo Chavez: BFFs 4Eva
Look, it’s a quiet day. The nearest thing to news that’s happened recently is some Venezuelan bloke going to see a film.
So let’s try to pad that out into a story. Of course, it helps that the Venezuelan bloke was Hugo Chavez. And the film he went to see was a movie about himself. And it was directed by Oliver Stone. And he went to see it a red carpet premiere at the Venice Film Festival. And his presence alone gave everyone who’s ever worked for Fox News a debilitating aneurism.
But let’s pad that out into a story.
Some have said that, thanks to his movies like JFK and Nixon and W, that Oliver Stone is a political director. This is nonsense, of course. Oliver Stone just likes good stories, whether they’re boggle-eyed political conspiracy theories or, in the case of Alexander, three-and-a-half-hour-long entries in the imaginary Longest, Dullest, Least Essential Movies That You’ll Eventually Blame For Stealing An Unnecessarily Large Percentage Of Your Life When You’re On Your Deathbed competition.
But at the moment Oliver Stone is back in political mode, as demonstrated by his new documentary South Of The Border. South Of The Border is, it’s reported, a rebuttal of the general American viewpoint that South America is led by a gang of crackpot cartoon dictators. Or something. It doesn’t really matter what South Of The Border is about, for two reasons. First, you’ve already seen the words ‘Oliver Stone’, ‘political documentary’ and ‘Venezuela’ and have come to a deeply entrenched decision about whether you’re going to like it or not.
And second, it doesn’t matter what South Of The Border is about, because Oliver Stone managed to get Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez – who much of the movie is centred around – to attend the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival and generally lark about on the red carpet like a kitten in a meadow with predictably hilarious consequences, which included this write-up by Fox News. It’s much better if you read the next paragraph aloud while making a noise like you’re trying to stop yourself vomit, by the way:
Hundreds of admirers, some chanting “president, president,” gathered outside of the for the leader’s arrival. A few held up Venezuelan flags and a banner in Spanish that read “Welcome, president.” Chavez threw a flower into the crowd and touched his heart, and at one point took a photographer’s camera to snap a picture himself.
Still, whether you plan to see South Of The Border or not, you have to admit that it’s got a fairly genius marketing strategy. Getting Oliver Stone (who conservatives hate) to fanny around gleefully on a red carpet with Hugo Chavez (who conservatives hate) at a film festival on mainland Europe (which conservatives hate) probably won’t be bettered any time soon. Unless of course Michael Moore decides to promote his new movie up the Eiffel Tower alongside Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf and an industrial-sized keg of Sauerkraut.
Which he’s actually doing, we heard.
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and you were so close to real news. the very same Venezuelan bloke, making a deal with some Iranian bloke to give them thousands of gallons of petrol. thats right, two very anti-american governments becoming somewhat chummy.
what a SLOW news day.
Oliver Stone is a useless piece of garbage. Someone making money out of the world biggets capitalism as movies cannot be allowed to say a word pro-socialism or comunism. Chavez has been president for more than 10 years in Venezuela, our economy is suffering one of the worst internal blocks that have ever existed in our country. If you go to the supermarket you can only buy 1 or 2 types of cocking oil, 1 or 2 types of rice just to name something (even having all the money in the world). There is not enough milk for consumers and if you want to buy meet you better be ready to stay inline for a couple or more hours. Our country corruptions is in top 5 along with Zimbague. No citizen can buy dollars freelly due to a monetary exchange rate block inplemented 5 years ago, but people from the goverment spend thousands of dollars without limit in other countrys (documented). So do not think that I hate Chavez (i do) and I´m saying all this because I have no money and want to say something bad about the goverment….no, I´ve been born and raise in a better country that the one we have today (were inflation rate per year is near 30%) were the money you have today doesn´t mean anything in 2 month. Oliver Stone should be living with a Venezuela Salaray using the subway and having to fear for his life before he can go and say Chavez is a fuc…g hero, blasfemi. Chavez is the worst thing that could ever happen in my country, I´m sorry about it. Olive Stone MTF, piece of sh…, put all you millions in a pot and go to Vzla to live from minimum salary and then talk about the greatness of socialism and Chavez……….worthless pieces of shit !!!
Well, what can I said, probably Mr. Stone is receiving money, a big chunk of a very important something, oil money, I don’t know, but the reality is that chavez is the clown of southamerica and Oliver Stone his stupid dog. Mr. Stone you are not longer my hero…you are a piece of a real director shoud be. I think that you are too old to have beautiful ideas of what is to make a wonderful documental or movie…give space for real and fresh talents as director showing the truth…because you are not showing realities anymore to be in bussiness you are a dirty liar.
The trouble is, we’ve already been through all this before. We remember well the touting of Fidel Castro and his revolution by the media, and then his naked declaration that he is a Marxist/Leninist. Those were his exact words, and then he proved it by stamping the life out of Cuba so mercilessly that the entire upper class and half the middle class of Cuba soon landed in Miami in such numbers that South Florida is still actually a large suburb of Havana. Those who could not flee remain under his dominion, poverty stricken and constrained to his mad, capricious will in almost all particulars, and fear is the jailer. Now we have the immense pleasure of seeing Hugo Chávez undertaking basically the same program, freely admitting that Fidel is his mentor, and silencing one by one the free institutions of Venezuela until are shut and fettered, as another mad dictator attempts to force his personal, unalterable, unreasonable, hardarsed will on the cowed populace who are unable to flee. Pace, sceptics and flamers, this is what we have actually witnessed, and the consequences we have experienced, and if you lived in one of these countries you would neither scept nor flame in public, that is certain.