Word: stonings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Stone extends his rigorous dichotomy to the film's structure. The first half focuses on Chávez, the second on other South American heads of state who tilt to the port side: Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Bolivia's Evo Morales and the grand old man of social revolution, Raúl Castro. (Stone profiled Raúl's brother in a similarly indulgent 2003 poli-doc, Commandante.) The only missing socialist leader is Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua...
Every step of the way, Stone is by, and on, on the President's side. He raises no tough issues, some of which are summarized in Amnesty International's 2009 report on Venezuela: "Attacks on journalists were widespread. Human-rights defenders continued to suffer harassment. Prison conditions provoked hunger strikes in facilities across the country." Referring to the 2006 election in which Chávez won a third term, Stone tells viewers that "90% of the media was opposed to him," and yet he prevailed. "There is a lesson to be learned," Stone says. Yes: support the man in power...
...international celebrity as any of his subjects, Stone is ever willing to interrupt an interview for some schmoozing or fun. He kicks a football around with Chávez, shares coca leaves with Morales, quizzes Kirchner on how many pairs of shoes she owns. (A little annoyed at the implicit comparison to Imelda Marcos, Kirchner replies, "If I were a man, would you ask me how many pairs of pants I own?") Accompanying Chávez to the mud hut where he was born, Stone directs the President in a scene: ride around the yard on the bicycle...
South of the Border is a near sibling to the Michael Moore docu-comedy Capitalism: A Love Story, which premiered at Venice last night and which looks like a masterpiece of attitudinal moviemaking next to Stone's slapdash effort. Moore appears in a news clip from 2007, lecturing Wolf Blitzer on what the filmmaker saw as CNN's gutless coverage of the U.S. Iraq invasion. Moore and Stone share the notions that capitalism can be predatory and that priests, in the U.S. and Paraguay (where the President is a former Catholic bishop), are all liberation theologians. And in both films...
...crowd's vocal warmth. Chávez went to the bleachers to greet a few people, then descended the steps to the orchestra area. Someone asked him a question, and he spoke for five minutes or more in Spanish, in a conversational voice that not many could hear. Stone, slightly behind, seemed to wonder, Hey, whose movie is this? and joined Chávez as he shouted, "Viva Oliver!" He made it sound almost like...