Here’s Rupert Wyatt, director of the blockbuster movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes in a recent interview:

“(The script) had become very different and much more exciting to me. It became less a story of domesticization of a pet and more about an uprising and a Che Guevara story.” 

Here’s the Associated Press review of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”: “Raised much like a human child by a researcher, with help from a veterinarian, Caesar becomes a Che Guevara-style revolutionary, leading a rebellion of apes against their human oppressors.” 

Ground control to Director Wyatt: In fact the only genuinely popular rebellion in Cuba in the 20th Century was against Che Guevara’s regime, among the most oppressive in modern history which mandates ( under penalty of prison or firing squad) what its subjects, read, say, earn, eat (both substance and amount) , where they live, travel or work. Wyatt’s inspiration for a freedom-fighter co-founded a regime that jailed more of its subjects than did Stalin’s during the Great Terror and murdered more its subjects in its first three years in power than did Hitler’s in its first six. 

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“What?!  Just look at this article’s title! Here’s typical Cuban- exile, Mc Carthyite, crackpot right-wing, Republican lunacy!  Bourdain’s show is on The Travel Channel, for crying out loud!  On the July 12^th episode of his No Reservations , they ran a show where Bourdain traveled to Cuba highlighting the food, people, sights and sounds, etc. —like he does while traveling all over the world.  What’s wrong with that?  You Cuban-exiles are beyond hopeless! Get a grip—and finally join the 21^st Century.  Geesh! “

Allow me to calmly explain:  neck to neck with Hugo Chavez’ subsidies Castro’s Stalinist regime lives off tourism. And Cuba’s Intelligence and Military sector owns 80 per cent of the Tourist Industry, as documented to Congress by retired Defense Intelligence Agency Cuba analyst, Lieut. Col. Chris Simmons.  Henceforth, yet another Travel Channel infomercial (Zimmern visited in 2009) for Cuba was a godsend to the Stalinist nomenklatura—especially right now with their Venezuelan Sugar- Daddy in perilous health.

Those charming, smiling hosts who escorted Bourdain around Castro’s fiefdom were all regime apparatchiks.  Immediately upon applying for his Cuban visa, well before Bourdain even set foot in Cuba, Castro’s intelligence had Bourdain completely sussed and his future escorts completely briefed. The procedure started the day he applied for Cuban visa, as also explained by Lieut. Col. Christopher Simmons. That your official “guides” while officially visiting a Communist nation were regime apparatchiks was common knowledge even to proto-imbeciles all during the Cold War.  Bourdain was born in 1956. 

“Big deal! So who’s this Simmons guy?! Some Birther- Bircher-Crackpot you rich Republican Cuban exiles pay off!”

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“Cuban Cinema to be Celebrated at the Academy,” gushes a fresh press release from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “The Academy will present “A Celebration of Cuban Film” tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Hosted by Los Angeles Film Festival artistic director David Ansen, the program will feature film clips, an onstage discussion with visiting Cuban directors.”

“As part of an ongoing cultural exchange with Cuban film institutions the exhibit will install the new exhibition Cuban Film Posters: From Havana to the World. All of these posters have been donated by ICAIC (Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos) to the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library. This exhibition is an outgrowth of the educational and cultural exchange with film professionals in Cuba.”

Professionals indeed! The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s top Cuba spycatcher Christopher Simmons (now retired) ranked Castro’s KGB-trained DGI (Directorio General de Inteligencia) as among the top five spy agencies in the world.  And in a 1983 FBI debriefing, DGI defector Jesus Perez Mendez identified Cuba’s ICAIC (Film Institute) as an invaluable arm of that DGI– founded, funded and mentored by the Soviet KGB.

At least Hollywood’s more candid nowadays. Or maybe today’s Academy is oblivious of the first and fifth amendments, so useful to so many of their colleagues during the HUAC hearings of the 40’s and 50’s? Or maybe blatant partnering with Stalinists is back in Hollywood vogue (as if it ever wasn’t.) 

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For his documentaries on Fidel Castro and Che Guevara Cuban-American filmmaker Agustin Blazquez’ takes a truly revolutionary approach. Rather than expecting officials of Castro’s police state to reveal facts, Blazquez interviews eye-witnesses to Castroism who are (get this!) free to reveal facts without threat of Castro’s firing squads and torture chambers!

And it’s not an inconsiderable threat. To wit: Castro’s Stalinist regime jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s own, murdered more political prisoners its first three years in power than Hitler’s murdered in its first six, and voraciously “devoured its own children,” complete with show trials. The cheeky Che Guevara often signed his correspondence “Stalin II.” (Tee-hee!)

Needless to add, his thoroughly novel approach to revealing what actually happened in Cuba has caused Agustin Blazquez major problems in the film industry. When back in 2001, he  asked the American Film institute to screen his documentary “Covering Cuba,”  the AFI’s President balked that such a documentary was “too controversial” for them to air.

The following week, the AFI cranked out the press releases and snapped on the spotlights to screen Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9-11. Controversy? What Controversy?

“The AFI later denied giving “controversial” as the reason for declining my film,” Blazquez says. “But it’s’ the absolute truth. I remember it like it was yesterday. And I’ll submit to a lie detector test while repeating it.”

In fact when the AFI proudly screened Stephen Soderbegh’s “Che” at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in 2008, the film’s “controversy” was cheekily flaunted by both the AFI and the stars as the film’s main cheeky charm. “Che Guevara is a hugely controversial figure,” snickered a dapper Lou Diamond Phillips in front of the theater. (Tee-hee!)

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Che Guevara – an icon for morons

Following in the footsteps of (among many other flower-children) Stephen Stills, Bonnie Raitt, Chrissie Hynde, Jimmy Buffet, and Carole King (who in 2002 serenaded Fidel Castro with a personal “You’ve Got a Friend”) guitar legend Jimmy Page made the pilgrimage to Fidel Castro’s fiefdom this week.

To Led Zeppelin’s former guitarist the visit probably seemed, not only fitting, but long overdue. Cuba was, after all, the first nation ruled by bearded long-hairs. Jean Paul Sartre, after all, hailed Cuba’s Stalinist rulers as “les Enfants au Pouvoir” (the children in power). Fidel Castro, after all, spoke at Harvard in 1959 on the same bill as pioneer beatnik Allen Ginsberg.

Remove the wispy beard and beret from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) revolutionary icon on those posters and t-shirts and you’ve got Jim Morrison of The Doors. Remove the cowboy hat from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) Revolutionary icon Camilo Cienfuegos and you’ve got Grateful Dead’s Gerry Garcia. Circa 1959, Raul Castro with his blond shoulder-length locks was a ringer for Joe Walsh circa Hotel California. These Cuban Stalinists were on the cutting edge of fashion. They pre-empted the Haight Ashbury look by a decade.

Castro’s captive (literally!) media, reports that Jimmy Page’s visit: “included tours of historic sites, and purchases of souvenirs such as the famous photograph of Che Guevara.” (more…)

Fidel Castro has a favorite new book and he’s quoting favorite passages in his captive media: 

“At Woodstock nearly half a million youth gathered to be drugged and brainwashed on a farm. The victims were isolated, immersed in filth, pumped with psychedelic drugs…all with the full and secret complicity of the FBI and CIA.” 

Alas, when in 1979 Fidel Castro (whose regime murdered more political prisoners than pre-war Hitler’s and jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s) invited Stephen Stills to perform in Cuba, the famous Woodstocker could hardly contain his elation. The fervent champion of human-rights, civil rights and free-speech (indeed CSNY’s last tour was titled “The Free-Speech Tour”) not only took up the offer to perform at this “Havana-Jam,” but also composed a song in Castro’s honor, titled “Cuba al Fin!” 

Jazz-master Paquito‘d Rivera, in Cuba at the time, recalls watching Stills on stage at Havana’s Karl Marx theatre lovingly crooning the song to the families of Castro’s Stalinist nomenklatura as if Havana-Jam were a personal performance for the mass-murderer himself. Within blocks of this cheeky “Havana-Jam,” (which also included Human-Rights activist Kris Kristofferson along with Billy Joel) Cuban youths, black and white, languished in dungeons suffering longer prison sentences than Nelson Mandela’s. The Cubans’ crimes were attempting free speech.  (more…)

The whales, the wolves, the rainforests, the Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat—seems Hollywood-ites are always trying to “save” something.

Save the Castroite Terrorist-Murderer! has become Danny Glover’s latest cause, though he words it a bit differently.  The Cuban convict Gerardo Hernandez, who Glover visited in jail last week, “has been unjustly imprisoned,” asserts Glover. “His sentence is unusually harsh,” bemoans Glover while reciting his Castro-propaganda ministry handout

“His crime was simply acting in self-defense of his sovereign nation, and his family,” anguishes Glover before the cameras, shortly before the “Cut!” and the whoops and high-fives from the Castroite director and film-crew.

Leave Gerardo ALONE! wails Danny Glover, in a manner to shame Chris Crocker himself.  Glover also echoes his Cuban case-officers in accusing U.S. jailers of visiting horrific torture upon Hernandez.

Below please find a few items that somehow didn’t make the final cut of Danny Glover’s Castroite videos and press releases: (more…)

“My dinner with Fidel Castro was the eight most important hours of my life,” Steven Spielberg is reported to have announced after returning from a visit to Cuba in 2002.

The quote was carried by many papers including the Wall Street Journal  and was included in this writer’s articles and books. Upon their publication, the Hollywood agent who arranged Spielberg’s trip to the Caribbean police-state notified me that Spielberg had uttered nothing of the sort. Therefore I should retract that statement from my writings.

Castro’s own media, explained Mr. Stephen Rivers (formerly with Creative Artists Agency), had concocted the Spielberg quote from thin air. So there was absolutely no truth to it.

Well, that actually makes my point better than the quote genuinely issuing from Spielberg, I replied to the high-rolling Stephen Rivers, who also represented Michael Ovitz.  My writings document that Fidel Castro is a master propagandist and that his KGB/STASI- trained secret services specialize in obtaining many such statements from many such luminaries via a variety of methods.

So the proper — and especially, the logical — course of action (if Mr. Spielberg had indeed been  thusly swindled) was for Mr. Spielberg or his agent, to make Fidel Castro’s treachery known publicly.  After all, Mr. Spielberg (supposedly) was the aggrieved party here and the damage (from what Mr. Rivers was telling me) had been inflicted maliciously by the secret services of a Stalinist regime. (more…)

On the strength of his historic summits  with such as The Junkyard Dog,  Gorilla Monsoon, and Jimmy “Superfly”  Snuka,  Jesse  “The Body” Ventura recently appeared on CNN  to offer in depth analysis/commentary on U.S. diplomatic and economic relations vis a vis Latin America.   We can only assume that Ventura’s insights  into his co-professionals’  deft use of  the “Piledriver,”  “Flying Headbutt” and “Mudhole Stomp” played into CNN’s decision to showcase  the international diplomatic expertise of this modern-day Metternich.

—– 

Ventura’s analysis was featured this week on the Larry King Show  in the form of a  ”Shout-out”  to Oliver Stone for the upcoming U.S. release of his  U.S.-bashfest  and Chavez/Castro  infomercial  titled “South of the Border.” 

On King’s show the “Tag-Team”  of Jesse Ventura and  Oliver Stone staged a vicious “Smack-Down” against Florida Republican Congressman Connie Mack, who serves as Ranking Member  of  the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. (But what does he know about this stuff?) (more…)

At 58 Chrissie Hynde doesn’t feel up to the rigors of pregnancy and parturition. But hey, it’s the thought that counts. “This is for the baby we’ll never have,” recently proclaimed Hynde’s new bandmate/inamorato, JP Jones. 

His “this” refers to the couple’s new song “Fidelity.” The song and title, they’re proud to announce, bubbled into the puppy-lovers’ consciousness during a recent pilgrimage to Stalinist Cuba, where the cheeky free-spirits and human-rights champions “saw pictures of Fidel Castro everywhere!”

Imagine that!

“I found my perfect lover, but he’s only half my age, “sings Hynde about JP Jones in another recent recording.  (Weren’t Liz Taylor and even Madonna less exhibitionist in these matters?) (more…)

“Multi-Millionaire Hispanic pop star holds fundraiser for Democratic Party!”

“OK?  And dog bites man?  So where’s the story here?”

The fundraiser at the $10 million Biscayne Bay island estate of internationally-acclaimed and multiple Grammy-winning pop-star Gloria Estefan featured a $30,400 a couple “cocktail party” that helped raise $2.5 million for the Democratic Party!

….. “OK,…. and?”

Obama’s hostess at the posh event, Gloria Estefan, is Cuban-American!

…… “OK…and?”

The Fundraiser has raised a ruckus in South Florida of such proportions that even the Associated Press and Reuters are reporting the details!

……….. “Hunnnh?…. But why?  Isn’t such behavior perfectly typical—indeed, almost obligatory—for folks in her line of work?”

OK, a little background might help. Exit polls show that Cuban-Americans voted against Obama by the highest margins—and by far—of any U.S. ethnic group, including “anglos.” We’re going on almost 50 years of their exile but not all the King’s Horses nor all the King’s Men have been able to bring Cuban-Americans around to follow the lead of the majority in their adopted country and register Democratic. Even with the third generation registering to vote, a measly 13 per cent of these incurably obtuse and unenlightened people register with America’s majority political party. This is the most diminutive Democratic registration of any ethnic group in the U.S. And 72% of these obviously incurable reactionaries are registered with America’s minority party (Republican).  This is the highest for any ethnic group in the U.S. (more…)

In his movie The Lost City, about an upper middle-class Cuban family crumbling during free Havana’s last days, director and star Andy Garcia, along with fellow Cuban-exile screenwriter Guillermo Cabrera Infante, insist on depicting some historical truth about Cuba.

This unforgivable gaffe blasted the bugles for a pile-on by critics. Their fantasies of pre-Castro Cuba, of Che, of Fidel, and of Cubans in general were badly jolted. Their annoyance and scorn spewed forth in review after review.

If only Garcia’s characters had spoken with accents like John Belushi’s as a Saturday Night Live Killer Bee! If only they’d dressed like The Three Amigos! If only they’d hammed it up like Cheech Marin! If only they’d mimicked the mannerisms and gait of Freddie Prinze in Chico and the Man! If only the women had piled a roadside fruit stand on their head like Carmen Miranda in Road to Rio! If only the cast had looked like the little guy who handles my luggage at the hotel in Cancun! Or the guys who do my lawn! Everybody knows that’s what Hispanics look like!

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Part I of this series can be found here.

Steven Soderbergh made certain his new movie, “Che,” about the life of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, couldn’t be attacked — at least on a factual level. (CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

“I didn’t mind someone saying, ‘Well, your take on him, I don’t really like,’ or ‘You’ve left these things out and included these things.’ That’s fine,” Soderbergh said. “What I didn’t want was for somebody to be able to look at a scene and say, ‘That never happened.’ “(CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

Well, Mr Soderbergh (and CNN), pull up a chair.

Soderbergh’s movie shows Che Guevara steely-eyed and snarling with defiance during his capture. Why, only seconds before, Che’s very M-2 carbine had been blasted from his hands and rendered useless by a fascist machine gun burst!

Then the bravely grimacing Guevara jerks out his pistol and blasts his very last bullets at the approaching hordes of CIA-lackey soldiers!

The (typical) viewer gapes at the spectacle. His eyes mist and lips tremble at Soderbergh and del Toro’s impeccable depiction of such undaunted pluck and valor.

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In the 1953 movie “Thunder Bay,” Jimmy Stewart plays the complicated protagonist, Steve Martin, the hard-bitten, ex-navy oil engineer who built the first offshore oil platform off Louisiana in 1947. “The brawling, mauling story of the biggest bonanza of them all!” reads the Universal ad for the studio’s first wide-screen movie.

Much of the brawling by Stewart and his henchmen was against the local Cajuns who fished for a living. Their livelihood, it seemed obvious at the time, would soon vanish amidst a hellbroth of irreversible pollution. The movie covers a time period of barely one year yet ends on a happy note of conciliation as the fishermen reaped a bonanza almost as big as Jimmy’s itself. The oil structures had kicked in as artificial reefs and made possible a bigger haul of seafood than anything in these fishermen’s lifetimes.

Alas, brawling by the real life Jimmy Stewart characters later cranked up to a level that dwarfed anything in the movie—but against a much more fanatical, underhanded and devious foe: environmentalists. (more…)

In his day “Grizzly Man” and “Bear Expert” Timothy Treadwell was the toast of glitterati on both coasts, a favored guest of Letterman and Rosie, a Discovery Channel regular, a friend and soulmate of Leo Di Caprio. “Common sense will tell you that this man knows infinitely more about Grizzly bears than anyone.” That’s Hollywood screenwriter Robert Towne (Chinatown), who had been also active in Treadwell’s animal rightist group named Grizzly People.

“I want to live with them and go with them and not carry something that will hurt them. I mastered a way of interacting with them with body language that enables me to be in extremely close contact with them” sighed Treadwell to a mesmerized Letterman while a guest on his show. “Grizzly bears are really just big party animals. I discovered that singing soothes these bears.”

These bears are 1200-pound monstrosities. Their teeth and claws weren’t meant for hors d’oeuvres much less caressing. Love songs and valentine entreaties in the form of Mariah Carey and Barry White, or even Luther Vandross  and Peabo Bryson lyrics will might work for a while, however….  (more…)

“I’m very nervous!” twittered super-model Naomi Campbell during a press conference held in Havana’s Hotel Nacional in 1998. “I just spent an hour and a half talking with your president, Fidel Castro!  But he told me there was nothing to be afraid of because he already knew a lot about us (Campbell and her travel-chum, Kate Moss) from reading the press!” 

Castro undoubtedly knew plenty about Mss’ Campbell and Moss–but probably not from reading Vogue, Elle or Cosmo.  

“My job was to bug their hotel rooms,” disclosed high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector Delfin Fernandez, “with both cameras and listening devices.

“When word came down that models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss were coming to Cuba the order was a routine one: 24-hour-a-day vigilance. Then we got a PRIORITY alert, recalls Fernandez, “because there was a rumor that they would be sharing a room with Leonardo DiCaprio. The rumor set off a flurry of activity and we set up the most sophisticated devices we had.”  (more…)

Hugo Chavez’ inspirational debt to Ernesto “Che” Guevara is such that he titled his regime’s socio-economic model, “Mision Che Guevara.” Don’t look for much of this in the MSM–but as I write Venezuela’s youth are hitting the streets in the tens of thousands and with raised fists–against socialism (having gotten a taste of it.)

In response, Chavez’ police and brownshirt goon-squads (some mimicking their national leader by wearing Che T-shirts) bludgeon, tear gas, shoot and arrest hundreds of rebellious Venezuelan youth.

In fact, nothing could be more fitting. In a famous speech in 1961, Che Guevara denounced the very “spirit of rebellion” as “reprehensible.” “Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates” commanded Guevara. “Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service.”

And woe to those youths “who stayed up late at night and thus reported to work (government forced-labor) tardily.” Youth, wrote Guevara, “should learn to think and act as a mass.” Those who “chose their own path” (as in growing long hair and listening to Yankee-Imperialist Rock & Roll) were denounced as worthless “lumpen” and “delinquents.” In his famous speech Che Guevara even vowed, “to make individualism disappear from Cuba!  It is criminal to think of individuals!” he raved. (more…)

Well, Soderbergh and Del Toro’s Che was just released on DVD-Blu-ray. As a bonus, the Criterion release contains a behind-the-scenes “Making Che” section, featuring interviews with Soderbergh, Del Toro, the screenwriters, along with audio narration by the film’s chief consultant (except Fidel Castro), author John Lee Anderson. 

An obsession among all involved with this monstrosity (271 minutes), we learn, was “historical accuracy.” As a professional duty, last year I sat through this thing. For the sake of this review  let’s forget the films’ “omissions,” namely the only success in Che’s life: the mass murder of defenseless men and boys. This being a shoot-em up war movie, we’ll instead focus on the battle scenes and the attendant dialogue. 

For starters, the only “guerrilla war” fought in Cuba during the 20th Century was fought, not by Fidel and Che, but against Fidel and Che (more on this shortly.) 

After the glorious victory over Batista some of the Castroite “guerrillas” explained the harrowing battlefield exploits (so “expertly” dramatized by Soderbergh) to Paul Bethel who served as U.S. press attaché in Cuba’s U.S. Embassy in 1959. “We had a helluva time, Paul!” laughed one guerrilla’s named William Morgan. “We used a short-wave radio to broadcast the so-called battle. We yelled fake battle commands into the mic while a few of the muchachos shot BARs and pistols into the air for the sound effects. We really whooped it up!” (more…)

Chris Crocker has nothing on most Che Guevara fans. His anguish in “Leave Britney Alone!” pales to what I’ve seen and heard from “hecklers”during many college lectures. The more painstakingly-documented the facts I discharge into the fog of ignorance that blankets many campuses, the more shrill and anguished comes the reactions, often from faculty! 

Facts matters little to diehard, teen-beat type Castro/Che fans. Many “document” their rebuttals to my blasphemies with scenes from Godfather II, that famous documentary on pre-Castro Cuba. “Fidel, I love you,” gushed a young Francis Ford Coppola. “We both have beards. We both have power and want to use it for good purposes.” Not that such sentiments could have possibly flavored his masterpiece. 

To depict Havana streets on New Year’s Eve 1958, Coppola cast more people than stampeded through a battle scene in Braveheart. For what it’s worth, Havana streets were deathly quiet that night. Not to be outdone, in his Havana, Sydney Pollack cast Cuban President, Fulgencio Batista, with light skin, blond hair and blue eyes. The late Cuban-exile novelist (and screenwriter for Andy Garcia’s The Lost City) Guillermo Cabrera Infante, later bumped into Pollack at a Hollywood party where the learned director flinched and went red-faced when a laughing Cabrera informed him that Batista was, in fact, a Black.  

“But these are merely movies, Humberto,” Some might counter. Yes, fine. But Pollack boasted of his knowledge of Cuba, often visiting Castro’s fiefdom starting in 1977 and even meeting with Fidel Castro himself.  (more…)

“Che” film gets thumbs up in Cuba,” ran the headline from CNN’s Havana Bureau last December 8. Benicio Del Toro, who stars as Che, was being feted as the Castro regime’s guest of honor during the Havana Film Festival while presenting the movie he co-produced. “The lengthy biopic of the Argentinean revolutionary won acclaim from among those who know his story best,” continued the CNN story.