Word: vez
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...rumor spread around the Lido like a Venezuelan oil fire: that the Venice Film Festival had paid for Oliver Stone's trip to show his new documentary South of the Border but wouldn't cover the expenses of the film's chief subject, Hugo Chávez. To some on the European (and American) Left, the President of Venezuela is a hero for his redistribution of wealth and truculent stance toward the U.S. under George W. Bush, whom he famously called the Devil. To others, his socialist agenda is tainted by human-rights violations and suppression of the opposition press...
...Sept. 8 evening public screening in the festival's Sala Grande - for which there was less visible security than for an inner-city high school - began about 25 minutes late. The delay simply amped up the suspense: Would Chávez show? He did, with Stone, both wearing dark jackets, white shirts and red ties. As is customary for the evening screenings, the festival's female announcer slowly read off the names of a half-dozen members of the movie's production team, standing in front of their seats in the front mezzanine. Polite applause for each...
...into "friends, whose leaders do what we tell them to do, and enemies, whose leaders occasionally disagree with us." His film is no more nuanced. He sees the geopolitical glass as all empty (the U.S. and its world-banking arm, the International Monetary Fund) or all full (Chávez and his comrade Presidentes in South America). But there's an undeniable fascination in the project, even some inspirational value, in Stone's conversations with a half-dozen leaders of nations struggling to emerge from under the shadow or boot of the U.S. (Read Mary Corliss' review of Michael Moore...
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...
...national security program which has driven back Marxist guerrillas and led to a steep drop in homicides and kidnappings. But some fear that another four-year term would put too much power in the hands of Uribe, turning him into a right-wing version of Hugo Chávez. Others, like Senator German Vargas Lleras who is the grandson of a former president, want a crack at the top job themselves. That's why the original referendum bill in Congress would have allowed Uribe to run in 2014 but not 2010. It took months of arm-twisting by the goverment...