A young and beautiful former Miss North Dakota and reporter for the BBC and NPR, among others, falsely arrested by misogynist Iran and tagged with a series of escalating charges, from buying wine to reporting with expired credentials to espionage, charges even Roxana’s lawyer has not officially seen to date, but upon which Ms. Saberi was just sentenced to eight years in the Iranian Hell of Evin prison in a one-day kangaroo court trial. Coercion was also involved, including a threat to kill her.

Any questions as to who and what we’re really dealing with here now? According to ABC News, Roxana is now officially a pawn in the Great Game between Un-Islamic Iran and the Great Satan. How much more of a blockbuster storyline could you ask for?

And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the world-turning subplots of international intrigue, conflict and sinister intent that drove such taut films as “North By Northwest,” “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Team America: World Police.” With me so far?

Oh, and I say un-Islamic, because the Hitlerite child-murdering and kiddie martyrdom-training fascist Nazi regime in Iran has nothing to with Islam or God. Just the opposite, in fact. They may call us the Great Satan, but you tell me who acts more like Lucifer here. What has Argentina ever done to Iran to deserve terror attacks and the mass murder of civilians? Am I Reich?

But I digress. We writers do that in moments of passion. Onto the subject at hand.

The backstory. Roxana was arrested on January 31, eleven days after Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States. A test? If so, more drama. On March 5th, SOS Clinton demanded Roxana’s release from Iranian custody. The very next day, March 6th, Iranian authorities said they would release Roxana ’soon.’

On March 13th, Human Rights Watch issued a statement calling Roxana Saberi’s detention unlawful under international laws and conventions, in effect declaring her a hostage. Being as the media is so on the ball lately, I didn’t hear about that bombshell HRW press release until five days later, and even then I had to search for it. Somebody has to report this stuff.

Yet, in a twist of fate, I had declared Roxana Saberi a hostage that very same day. Not so much based on international law as knowing how much un-Islamic Iran loves to punk the Great Satan.

Roxana’s parents, father Reza and mother Akiko, flew into Tehran recently with assurances that Roxana’s release would be speeded up, only to land and see their daughter sentenced to eight years in Evin prison for espionage. Which she will not survive. In protest to this abomination of justice that’s S.O.B. in Iran, Roxana is now on a hunger strike. Her situation is precarious at best.

Some in the press have mused that Roxana may even be a pawn in Iran’s own nationwide elections in June. A rouse to the hardline un-Islamic base, who love nothing better than to see the Great Satan get a black eye. Makes them more prone to overlook troubling domestic issues that are hounding Ahmadinejad et al right now. The hardliners are even using Team Oscar as their Willie Horton against moderates. “Who invited the Great Satan in!” That kind of stuff.

It’s called externalizing. Any good dictatorship worth its salt excels at it. Make us look so bad that they look good, no matter how much bad shite they pull. Others in the press believe Iran may be setting up a swap of Roxana for Iranian diplomats arrested by US forces in Iraq, curiously with no questions from the media as to it being an unseemly act. Anyway, lots of storylines. No doubt many in Hollywood will be lining up for the rights to the story of Roxana Saberi.

I only wish they were lining up right now to speak up for HER rights! Where ARE they? They’re the Human Rights Champs! Right? You want to see something REALLY sick? Twenty-six videos on YouTube for Roxana Saberi, and most are news reports! There are 35 alone for Jim Carrey’s video on Burma’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, 168 for George Clooney in Darfur. Not counting playlists.

UPDATE: Eighty-four videos now. Still no celebs. So where is Hollywood on Roxana Saberi?

Totally MIA, from what I can see. Or can’t, I should say.

Hell, Clown Man is protesting Iran more than all of Hollywood combined! Speaking of clowns. Or Stooges, I should say. Former Team Oscar leader and Academy president Sid Ganis is still too busy on the Mad Mullah Promo Tour to have a clue. Annette Bening is no doubt still raving about how fabulous Iran and women’s rights for filmmakers are there.

Tell it to Tehmineh Milani, Annette! She was sentenced to death for her celluloid slanders! Tell it to Iranian-American filmmaker Esha Momeni, who awaits trial in Iran before a political tribunal on similar charges for filming a women’s rights documentary in Tehran for her masters degree!

Hopeless. Like the rest of Team Oscar, none of whom has mentioned Roxana Saberi to date that I can find, they are too busy living the fantasy of Iran to see the cold, hard realities staring them in the face, even when those realities involve imprisoned fellow filmmakers and the extermination of gays as state policy. Or an American woman being held hostage, even as they partied it up in Tehran.

Where is UNIFEM Ambassador of Good Will Nicole Kidman? She should be front and center on this! Not one statement on Roxana Saberi I can find. In fact, a search of UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund For Women, comes up a big fat zero on a Roxana Saberi site search. What you will find is “Women’s Voices Raised on Climate Change” and “Training of Gender Audit Facilitators.”

In fact, the last UNIFEM entry on the stoning of women in Iran, of three total on the entire site, was from 2002, though it’s gotten much worse since. Iran even imprisons women indefinitely for protesting stoning now! They gonna stone them, too? Wouldn’t put it past them! They feed off that shite! What do you expect from Nazis? Won’t find that at UNIFEM, either. In fact, Iran wasn’t even mentioned at their 53rd Session last year, and they’re the worst offenders on the planet!

How lame is that? Some “spotlight on violence against women” THEY are! Oh, but they do have a spotlight on violence against women in Canada. My women’s rights heroes. UNIFEM. Just as silent on Roxana Saberi, Esha Momeni and the horrific abuse of women in Iran as Hollywood. Yet one more useless UN bureaucracy we’re paying for. Good press, though. PR is all. Right, Nicole?

Gwyneth Paltrow, also silent, is probably too busy boycotting we greedy, unintelligent and uncivilized Americans and prepping for Iron Man 2. She may denigrate and boycott us from Britain as the world’s real capitalist enemy, but she sure seems to know where her Socialist bread is buttered. You Go, Girl! Bravo and Tally Ho! And I do mean Ho. What else do you call someone who sells their virtue for money?

I think I’ll wait to see Iron Man 2 for free. Borrow the DVD. I can boycott on principle, too.

You know what the most pathetic thing is here, people? Even the real Stooges spoke out against the fascist dictator of their age more than all of Hollywood today. Seen any Hollywood rips on Ahmadinejad or Iran at all? Sorry. Shhhh. Don’t want to offend anyone. Walk softly, but carry a big carrot. And no gay jokes about that big carrot, either! Got it?

They don’t like those. Not one bit. Gays, I mean.

I have to wonder. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, Is this Hollywood Diplomacy Inaction? Like they’re afraid if anyone in Hollywood said anything bad about Iran, it might set back the Obamamessiah’s ‘reaching out’ to today’s Third Reich? Or if AMPAS said anything bad about Iran in a press release, they might not be allowed back to apologize, or train Iran’s propaganda film stooges again?

Or is all of Hollywood just so totally duped by the Mad Mullahs of Iran, or so blinded by the Obamamessiah, Roxana doesn’t even register? I do know one thing. If this Roxana Saberi Hostage Crisis occurred on Bush’s watch, how many in Hollywood would have blamed him for Roxana’s horrific situation? Not the hostage-takers, mind you. Don’t answer, it’s a rhetorical question.

No, my guess is, Hollywood Diplomacy is in full effect for the Obamamessiah. Don’t bring up Roxana Saberi, their shady nuke program, their stoning of women, their executing of children, their killing of bloggers, their threats of genocide, not even their gay extermination program: “Don’t give them anything else to apologize for. We have enough already!”

Walk around those blogger-murdering, Jew-bombing, women-stoning, gay-hanging, kid-executing, Armageddon-threatening un-Islamic Nazis like we were in a minefield? NOT ON YOUR LIFE!

What are we gonna do speaking up? Make things worse? HOW? But no. Give Peace a Chance. Here’s what Peace Hath Wrought, Hollywood. The Team Oscar olive branch slapped out of Obama’s hand with the demand for apologies and submission. The Obama Peace Video met with scorn, derision and ‘Death To America’ rallies. And the Roxana Saberi Hostage Crisis. Not to mention all the horrors they’re inflicting on their own people as we speak.

And now this: ‘On Tuesday, Reuters reported that a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, Ali-Reza Jamshidi, had termed calls for Ms. Saberi’s release from American officials “utterly ridiculous.”

Based on Iran’s total contempt for international law regarding Roxana Saberi, and the mountains of bloody and horrific evidence on un-Islamic Iran staring us in the face, I’d tell everyone in Hollywood that we are dealing with an irrational fascist regime in Iran, and to start speaking up for Roxana Saberi, Iranian-American filmmaker Esha Momeni, the abuse of every other woman in Iran, the executing of children, and the ruthless and brutal anti-gay pogrom Iran is now exporting to Iraq.

If there were anyone rational left in Hollywood to say that to. Used to be. To be sure, if there are any Hollywood celebrities who have been pulling for Roxana Saberi and I just didn’t find you, appy-pollie-logies. But I had to kick some asses here. I hope you understand.

Speaking of which, here’s AMPAS. Tell them Academy members need to start speaking up for Roxana Saberi, and starting acting like the human rights champs they play on TV and claim to be. And see if they can roust Sid and Annette from their next Iran promo video long enough to say a few words on behalf of Roxana Saberi and Iranian-American filmmaker Esha Momeni.

Not holding my breath. But how nice would it be for the next act of Roxana: A True Story to open with crowds of well-known Hollywood faces twisted in outrage over Roxana’s abysmal human rights situation, not to mention the rest of Iran’s. Roxana’s a lucky one. Oh, and to make one point perfectly clear, the question here is not whether Iran recognizes Roxana’s American citizenship. The real question is, do we? She was born here. Good enough for illegals, ain’t it?

And I am certainly hoping Roxana’s story has an ending in Evin prison more like Haleh Esfandiari’s than murdered Iranian-Canadian journalist Ziba Kazemi, who was beaten, raped, her fingernails pulled and her skull fractured, all for the crime of taking photos outside Evin prison. In other words, I’m hoping for an ending more Hollywood, and less un-Islamic extremist Iran.

By the way, Roxana turns 32 this Sunday. Friends of Roxana have set up an email account for well-wishers around the world to say Happy Birthday to Roxana at happybirthdayroxana@gmail.com One nice birthday present would be to see a lot more people in Hollywood and Washington speaking up on her behalf. If it’s not too much trouble, that is.

Raised voices helped free Haleh Esfandiari, Tehmineh Milani and others from the hell of Evin prison. They can do so once again for Roxana. Iran’s Thugocracy, like Hollywood, hates bad PR. Ruins their image. Speaking of which.

On that note, here’s Congress. Here’s State. Here’s the White House. Roxana is an American citizen, not a pawn, and she has been held unjustly in Iranian captivity for 81 days now. Where are the strong words? The Congressional resolution in support of Roxana, like North Dakota’s?

What good are they?

Our government should tell Iran to release Roxana right now, or we cut off their gasoline. For starters. See how fast they move then to avoid gas rioting at home! And if that doesn’t work, warm up the B-52s. And I don’t mean the rock band. But the other type will also be free to roam if they want to, i.e. take out government-financed terrorist training camps, nuke facilities, etc, etc.

Roam around their world. Rock their world, I should say. Do it for Roxana. But only if the gas thing don’t work first. No, I didn’t mean bomb ‘em right away. I’ll give peace, a gas cutoff and some gas rioting in Iran a chance. What do you think I am, a warmonger?

FREE ROXANA SABERI! LIKE RIGHT NOW!!!

In the Iranian Daily Kayhan, Ali Khamenei’s own personal Islamist rag, the Supreme Asswipe in his March 2nd Op-ed titled “What Are the Producers of Anti-Iranian Films Doing Here?” called Team Oscar, “the planners and heads of a new Hollywood project against Iranian national security.”

The article then stated that an examination of Universal Pictures’ output in recent years shows that of over 200 films, 200 insult God, Islam, and Muslims, promote propaganda of the CIA and of the “Israeli terror organization” the Mossad, and contain other shameful content.

In addition, it said, in the past two years Universal promoted an anti-Iranian revolution animated feature titled “Persepolis.” The article expressed opposition to the visit, and added that “it remains only to hope that this type of anti-Iranian attempt will not cross over to our cinema.”

Also, Mr. Ahmadinejad had his own harsh words for Team Oscar and Tinseltown. On top of his Foreign Minister demanding apologies from Team Oscar for celluloid slanders, that is: “We believe that the American cinema system is devoid of all culture and art and is only used as a device to further Western imperialism.”

Ya got all that, Sid? Annette? William? Alfre? All you guys?

In other words, Iranian leaders are using Team Oscar’s visit to Iran as an ideological battering ram in their upcoming political campaigns, in much the same way George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 US presidential campaign.

The whole soft on the Great Satan thing, you know?

Speaking of Team Oscar, it has been very tough to find any news on them at all, lately. Even the Academy hasn’t issued any Team Oscar press releases since March 2nd. Given the gold-plated PR status and historic implications of Team Oscar’s Iran trip, very odd. Then again, maybe not.

I had actually begun to wonder whether Team Oscar had suffered the same fate as Roxana Saberi, though they are not out of the Iranian woods yet. Hope Springs Eternal. However, I have discovered a blog by Team Oscar member William Horberg, the Executive Producer of “Milk,” following his experiences in today’s Islamic Republic of Iran that butchers their Harvey Milks worse than cattle.

Anyway, some snippets from Mr. Horberg’s Team Oscar in Iran blog.

From his March 9th entry, a lovely picture of Team Oscar holding roses at Imam Khomeini Airport in Iran. No determination if this photo was pre or post-punked. Hard to tell. They seem to smile like idiots no matter how badly they’re treated.

In his March 11th entry, “Cool Hand Frank,” Mr. Holberg tells of a screening of “Cool Hand Luke” at the Iran House of Cinema, with a follow-up by screenwriter Frank Pierson, who adapted the novel to the screen. Here’s an enlightening excerpt:

It was an inspired piece of casting, but (one) scene whose very Hollywood and Western depiction of yearning sexual desire, while hardly explicit by today’s standards, nonetheless had our Iranian hosts quite glad that the movie was only being shown to a select, hand-picked private audience of filmmakers from the House of Cinema, and not to the public-at-large.

In Mr. Holberg’s March 12th entry, he compares a photo of he and three burqa-clad Team Oscar members walking in Tehran as The Power Walk. The Power Burqa Walk is more like it.

In his March 13th entry, Mr. Holberg adopts Iranian-style clothing himself. No doubt to show off for his next Power Burqa Walk. Five more Iranian clothing-clad Team Oscars members to go, and the transformation of Team Oscar to full-fledged Stooges will be complete. Who needs Jim Carrey and Sean Penn?

On March 14th, William Holberg celebrated his fiftieth birthday in Tehran. Is he a Jolly Good Fellow or what? No word on if fellow American Roxana Saberi was invited. In fact, no word on her at all to date in his blog. I mean, it’s not like Roxana Saberi hasn’t been in the news. Actually, I take that back.

On March 16th, Mr. Holberg meets up with Iranian actor and old friend Homayoun Ershadi, who invited him up to his upscale apartment in Northern Tehran. Upscale, as opposed to say, Evin Prison. Mr. Ershadi is well known for his role as a suicidal character in the film “A Taste of Cherry.”

Much like, say, the blogger who committed suicide in Evin Prison after insulting the aforementioned Supreme Asswipe Khamenei. Lot of that going around in Evin Prison, you know. An unexplained epidemic of suicides. Maybe that’s endemic to today’s Iran as well.

On March 19th, Mr. Holbert visited Persepolis, and also praised the graphic novels and animated film of the same name. You know, the same animated film the Supreme Asswipe called “anti-Irainian revolution” in his political campaign to use Stooge Team Oscar as his Willie Horton against Iranian lefties. 

In Mr. Holberg’s March 20th blog entry “Lost In Translation,” Mr. Holberg describes how he and Annette Bening encountered two young Iranian men in the ancient city of Isfahan who wanted some Eminem lyrics explained to them. Terms like “my dogs are barking” and “roll like a renegade.” Just read it. Although from what I can see in today’s Islamist extremist Iran, most renegades don’t roll. They hang. Or commit suicide in Evin Prison.

In his March 23rd entry “Noir in Iran,” Mr. Holberg describes how many locations in Iran would be perfect for B&W Noir film shooting. Fittingly, his blog entry has a “Brute Force” movie poster of Burt Lancaster standing behind bars, with only darkness as a backdrop. Again, Evin Prison comes to mind as a perfect noir shooting location. Scouting time!

In his March 25th blog entry “Farsfilm,” Mr. Horberg refers in-depth to an opinion piece by Iranian film stalwart Massoud Mehrabi, in which the esteemed Iranian filmmaker bemoans the state of Iranian film after the CIA coup and instatement of the Shah to power in 1953:

During the decade (1953-63) the history of Iranian cinema presents no event of major significance. Public screens catered to the tastes of the mass audience with mass productions of utter worthlessness, and no sign of any rejuvenation or emergence of new talents brightened the prospects. Under the circumstances any hope for the birth of an avant-garde cinema for an intellectual elite would have been highly unrealistic.

Sounds like our Hollywood of today. But I digress.

The rigorous censorship imposed after the 1953 coup d’etat made it impossible for the intelligentsia to dictate its elitist modes of thinking to people through a mass medium such as cinema.

No mention of the rigorous censorship imposed by the Iranian Thugocracy. What else is new?

In his March 28th entry, “Persian Bloggers,” Mr. Holberg tell us of his meeting with two Iranian bloggers, and how he hopes for their success in the future. Considering the Iranian thugocracy will soon be passing a law giving the death penalty to “offensive bloggers” and have already murdered one blogger in Evin Prison, I don’t see much of a future for blogging in Iran. But that’s just me.

In his March 30th blog entry of yesterday entitled “The Bare Feet Shoe Store,” which is as analogous to the Team Oscar trip to Iran as “The Emperor’s Clothing Shoppe” might have been, Mr. Holberg puts the icing on Team Oscar’s utter idiocy cake with regard to the real Iran of today:

On the one hand, filmmakers in Iran face hurdles of lack of funding and resources (the average mid-level budget film is made for @ $500,000 there I was told) as well as quixotic government censorship (films can be approved by the ministry at the script stage there and yet the finished version might be banned from local release) that we would find insurmountable or intolerable here.

And yet these very pressures and lack of freedom might be said in some way to have fostered the subtlety and artistry of their internationally recognized and award-winning cinema, as the creativity born of great constraints has shaped their response to the world around them.

You got all that, people? Government censorship in Iran is actually a creative plus! Not one word of condemnation of the stifling prior censorship by the Iranian thugocracy! Not one word of support for Roxana Saberi, or for filmmakers and documentarians like Iranian-American Esha Momeni, who was thrown into Evin prison, and now awaits trial for the celluloid slander of interviewing women’s rights activists on the streets of Tehran for her UCLA master’s thesis.

Taking into account, of course, that the term ”women’s rights in Iran” could not be more oxymoronic.  

Throughout Mr. Horberg’s Kodak Moment Tour of the Islamist Republic of Iran, the Executive Producer of “Milk” had even less to say about the gay extermination program in Iran than fellow “Milk” superstars and Gay Heroes Sean Penn and Dustin Lance Black. In fact, Annette Bening’s burqa-clad praise for women’s rights in Iran actually does even more harm for women in Iran than the aforementioned’s silence on the Gay Holocaust in Iran.

Why? Because now Supreme Asswipes like Khamenei and Ahmadinejad can hold up Stooge Bening and say, “Look! Even Hollywood says we have full women’s rights!” Even as they continue to stone, hang and abuse women worse than any regime on the planet.

Judging by Mr. Horberg’s statements in his blog, the Iran trip only lasted ten days.  Yet the Academy and industry PR on this trip has been nonexistent. No Red Carpet landing at LAX. No Academy press releases on a Job Well Done. Think about it, people. The biggest PR machine in the world, a total black void on Team Oscar in Iran. Now that’s gold-plated silence you can’t buy! Or is it?

In a recent interview in Iran with the Hollywood Reporter (THR), AMPAS President Sid Ganis and actress Annette Bening made the following comments on the state of Iranian film culture and women’s rights today.

First up, Mr. Ganis:

It is as buoyant as it is. They are making movies all the time, though they are not distributing them necessarily in Iran, but around Europe, Asia, and winning prizes all the time for it.

If by buoyant Mr. Ganis meant uplifting, I agree. Nothing’s more uplifting than a truck bomb. In fact, Martyrdom Productions, the Iranian Thugocracy’s film arm, recently landed a $500,000,000.00 defamation lawsuit from Anwar Sadat’s family for its killer thriller “Assassination Of A Pharaoh,” depicting the Hero Martyr Khalid Islambouli, who assassinated former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1979 for the heinous crime of signing the Camp David Peace Accords with Israel in 1978.

The film also sent the rest of Egypt outside of Sadat’s immediate family into an apoplectic fury. Now THAT’S what I call Boffo Box Office! The Iranian government, which regulates who lives and who dies in Iran on top of everything else, denied complicity in the film.

However, Egyptian skepticism seems justified by the fact that the Iranian Thugocracy has named a street in Tehran after Mr. Islambouli. Second, the blockbuster Blood Carpet premiere of “Assassination of a Pharaoh” took place during Iran’s Thugocracy-sponsored “Committee for Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement in Iran” film festival.

Hmm. Curious. Personally, I think the Egyptians have reasons to be skeptical.

As for distribution successes, we can’t leave out Iran’s ‘booming’ child martyrdom cartoon export industry, which has become a most profitable Processed Stooge Film Product by Iran’s Martyrdom Productions. The BBC summed all that up with the Joker-like title of their report: “Iran’s Booming Animation Industry.”

Shia clerics in their robes and turbans are depicted in a series for children about the lives of the martyrs of the Islamic revolution. The cartoon Martyr Bahonar, for example, tells the story of a future prime minister growing up as a little boy, studying the Koran and becoming a cleric before he is killed in a bomb blast after the Revolution.

There is also a film called Ashurian, which tells the story of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, who is revered by Shia Muslims. Another cartoon, Children of al-Rashid, projects Iran’s view of the Palestinian struggle. It shows a fat Israeli military commander with an obsequious Arab informer talking about calling children in for questioning.

It gets better. Or worse, depending on your POV. A Google search of Iran TV children martyrdom cartoons returned 12,400 hits, if you’ll pardon the pun. They’re as common on Iran TV stations as SpongeBob is here. When they’re not playing US president-stabbing puppet shows, that is. Don’t worry, folks. The Bush puppet got his. Obama’s turn soon. See, to Iran’s Thugocracy, the Great Satan is just under new management. Kind of like Obama replacing Bush as Overlord of Hell.

Surprised? I’m not. They’ve been like this to us for thirty years! See, that’s what dictatorships like extremist Iran’s Thugocracy do. They externalize their own evils onto their enemies. Hitler did the same thing. Make us look so bad that they look good, no matter what they do. It’s like a dictatorial personality trait.

So, Mr. Ganis did sum it all up quite accurately. Iran’s blockbuster film industry is booming. Especially the kids’ stuff. However, you won’t find Tom and Jerry, Harry Potter, Chicken Run or “POTC: Dead Man’s Chest” on Iran TV. They’re all Ziono-Hollywoodist conspiracies, you see. But child martyrdom cartoons? Oscar Gold!

Now, moving on to Ms. Bening’s presser with THR, and her praise of women’s freedoms in Iran:

“They have a lot of female directors and a lot of documentary female directors.“

Ms. Bening is also correct. Here’s one female Iranian filmmaker and documentarian, Mehrnoushe Solouki, who was thrown into Evin prison for the unforgivable crime of stumbling upon a mass grave. Ms. Solouki’s experience in the medieval torture chamber called Evin prison, where American citizen Roxana Saberi is currently being held hostage by the Iranians, left her with nightmares.

Then we have Iranian woman and filmmaker Tahmineh Milani, who was sentenced to death for her celluloid slander against the Iranian Thugocracy. Sound familiar? Only extreme domestic and international pressure saved those women’s lives. Dictators, like Hollywood A-listers, hate bad PR. Spoils their image.

Yet female Iranian-American filmmaker Esha Momeni’s fate has yet to be decided. Her celluloid slander was to to interview women’s’ rights activists on the streets of Tehran for her master’s thesis. Which brings us back to the astute Ms. Bening:

Women are functioning on all levels.

If she means Evin prison has more than one level, for sure! Other women have functioned for only short periods of time at ground level. Many others, however, have risen up to the rank of Thugocracy-sponsored sex slaves. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, “We seek progress, not perfection.”

Ms. Bening sees progress. I see a very long way to perfection. Oh well. At least they’re not stoning the sex slaves for screwing around. I mean, if they did that every time they knocked boots with ‘em, who would they have left for sex slaves? Even the Islamist Nazis of Iran can’t be THAT stupid!

Lastly, Ms. Bening wants to take ALL of the Iranian film stooges in the City of Screams to join ALL of Hollywood’s film stooges in the City of Dreams:

We want to facilitate all of the people in Iranian cinema coming to the US.

I suppose it would have been nice to have invited Hitler and Goebbels over for a tour of Disney, as well as tours of the “Wizard of Oz” and “Gone With The Wind” sets while still in production. Why not invite today’s film Nazis to DreamWorks and Pixar? Make those animated kids’ martyrdom cartoons really shine! They can even have Trey Parker and Matt Stone help with the prez-stabbing puppets!

How blackly ironic would THAT be?

No word as to whether Mr. Ganis or Ms. Bening expressed praise for Iran’s child executions, blogger murders, the ongoing Gay Holocaust or the colorful genocide parades in Tehran for Omar Bashir. Or if they’ve apologized for Hollywood’s celluloid slanders like “300″ and “The Wrestler.”

I’m sure their PR reps will fill us in on all that when the Invisible Press lobs all their softballs at ‘em. Speaking of which. To date, my bad PR insurgency against AMPAS over this abortion of a junket to today’s Third Reich has racked up over 3000 hits to date at Digital Journal! I’m also posting here at Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, as well.

I wonder if they’re feeling the heat, because the Team Oscar trip has completely disappeared off the map. Examples. The Google search Iran Bening Ganis only racked up 46 hits for the last week. The variants Iran “Team Oscar” racked up only 17 new hits for the past week, while Iran “Team Hollywood” has racked up only 4! This is HOLLYWOOD, people! PR capitol of the world!

And I’ve had to scour all this stuff for my OpEds on Team Oscar off the Middle East press! Team Oscar has disappeared from public existence even more than Roxana Saberi! All things considered, I’m glad I threw my screenwriting career away to go to war with AMPAS. Spending more than thirty seconds with any of those clueless stooges would have driven me completely batshite!

Hell, they’re doing that now from over 10,000 miles away! Sayin’ Goodbye To Hollywood.

And hello to Roxana Saberi. Never forget darling Roxana. She’s worth TEN Stooge Team Oscars!

Here’s the White House. Here’s the State Department. Here’s Congress.

Many kudos to NPR, ABC, the BBC and the CPJ for their 10,000+ signature petition and strong words. As opposed to the Invisible Press: the New York Times, CNN, FOX, NBC, CBS, and AP.

FREE ROXANA SABERI! NOW! LIKE RIGHT NOW!

On With The Show!

EXT. RED CARPET AT UNFRIENDLY SKIES AIRLINER, FLIGHT 666, LAX RUNWAY – DAY

TEAM OSCAR descends the staircase to FLASHING LIGHTS and WILD APPLAUSE. They WAVE.

SUDDENLY an impudent VISIBLE REPORTER SHOVES the INVISIBLE PRESS aside and LEAPS onto the RED CARPET, offending all with his visibility and impudent hard-hitting QUESTIONS:

First of all, Team Oscar, why did you even go in the first place? Even worse, why did you go when you knew there was a ‘Gay Genocide’ going on in Iran? Kinda took the wind out of Sean Penn’s and Dustin Lance Black’s speeches at the Oscars, didn’t it?

You know, schmoozing in the epicenter of today’s Auschwitz for Gays?

Second, how did it feel to get totally punked? Repeatedly? Did you apologize for “300″ and “The Wrestler?” Or for the 30 films still in production Iran didn’t like? Or did you all just commiserate together about the True Evil in the World, The Bushitler?

If no apologies were given, why were you granted access to your heel-ground Iran film buddies not long after? What’s up with that? And who were you giving film seminars to? Your heel-ground filmmaker buddies? Or these Iranian Goebbels-like propaganda film industry stooges?

Mr. Ganis, I have a Question! You said the following during your vacation to Hell!

“Iran has the potential of making “big movies” if it can attract investment to cinematic marketing.”

Mr. Ganis. How can Iran attract film financing with all the sanctions on them, and with more to come?

Did you ask about captive American citizen and now-hostage Roxana Saberi? Did the matter of the Gay Holocaust in Iran come up in conversation? Hear any screams from Evin Prison? Did you a know an innocent blogger who was jailed for insulting one of their Supreme Asswipes died in Evin Prison as you shared tea and finger cookies with the Islamist Nazis who murdered him?

Did you enjoy the colorful genocide parades for Omar Bashir in downtown Tehran? Did you know that your not leaving, not speaking up, or taking no action at all, made you silent participants to those genocide parties? Any good sex slave parties after? Stumble across any mass graves? You wouldn’t be the first filmmakers in Iran to make that cultural discovery!

Did you get to take in some of the local color? Any boffo public floggings? Lively stonings? Any cheery public hanging of gays by crane wires? See any “Burn The Great Satan Obama” rallies? Catch any “DEATH TO AMERICA, DEATH TO ISRAEL” missile parades? Was it hard to see all of this Iranian Thugocracy ‘culture’ with your burqas on? Can you even see at all?

Speaking of which, Ms. Bening and Ms. Woodard, why didn’t you make a defiant statement to Iranian women by wearing Western dress the whole time, instead of letting the Mad Mullahs wrap you up like mummies so you look like all the other oppressed women in Iran? Were your burqas in order?

Lastly Team Oscar, did you know that your cultural junket to today’s Third Reich could not have been
more naive or ill-advised than it if had been to the original?

No answers forthcoming on the hard-hitting questions this Visible Reporter has asked. None expected. Team Oscar will depart their Carnival of Ghouls Roadkill Show in Iran and climb right back into their Golden Bubbles in Hollywood. The Invisible Press and their PR reps will make all the bad stuff go away in ways that even Big Brother would marvel at.

And I, your Visibile Press Reporter and Humble Narrator, will remain invisible.

Much as Roxana Saberi herself has been made an unperson by all.

If they can all make HER disappear, what chance do I have?

If only we could do a hostage trade, Team Oscar for Roxana Saberi, all would be well in the world

PRESSER CONCLUDED

Oh, one last thing. Here’s some contact pages to help free the REAL American hero in Iran!

Here’s the White House. Here’s the State Department. Here’s Congress.

Here’s some for the Invisible Press: the New York Times, CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, and AP.

You can even give Sean Penn, Dustin Lance Black and Team Oscar a shout-out over at AMPAS

FREE ROXANA SABERI! NOW! LIKE RIGHT NOW!

Mr. Ganis praised Iranian civilization and said the film “300″ was based on a comic strip; its audience was not interested in the film’s credibility.

“No film can distort Iran culture,” Mr. Ganis added.

While it may be true that no film can distort Iranian culture as the esteemed Mr. Ganis claims, the current Islamist regime in Iran can most certainly distort culture in film, and do. And they have created masterpieces that would have had Hitler and Goebbels in jaw-dropping awe. You really only need to see the names. 

TOM AND JERRY IS A JEWISH CONSPIRACY

ZIONIST THEMES IN WESTERN MOVIES: “CHICKEN RUN”

IRANIAN TV EXPOSES ZIONIST TENDENCIES OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY, AS MANIFEST IN ITS RECENTLY RELEASED “PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN – DEAD MAN’S CHEST”

As to the Zionist “Tom and Jerry,” the erudite Iranian scholar Hasan Bolkhari explained in his film seminar broadcast on Iranian TV that the cartoons were a conspiracy by the ”Jew Walt Disney” to improve the image of mice in Europe.

See, Jews were called ‘dirty mice’ during the Holocaust, so “Jew Disney” didn’t want people looking at mice and thinking ”Jew!” Ergo, Tom and Jerry. The Esteemed Mr. Bolkhari then went to say that yes, in fact, Jews WERE dirty mice! Cunning, too! Just like Jerry!

By the way, Mr. Bolkhari is not a lone nut job. He is in fact an Iranian Scholar who is cultural advisor to the Iran Education Ministry and is considered a “mass media expert” for the Iranian government. Much as I’m sure Josef Goebbels was considered a “mass media expert” for Hitler’s Third Reich.

For sci-fi buffs we have BLACK HOUSE, the epic and eminently bizarre tale of evil Jews in Space.

And let’s not forget the kids. It’s ALWAYS about the kids!

THE CHILD AND THE INVADER (IRAN TV CARTOON SERIES)

IRAN TV CARTOON TEACHING CHILDREN SUICIDE BOMBING

Cartoons teaching children hatred and martyrdom are as ubiquitous on Iranian TV stations as SpongeBob reruns are here. In fact, Iran is now exporting these cultural kiddie masterpieces to the larger Muslim world and is doing boffo business. A 2005 BBC report on Iran’s animation industry called this development, in blackly ironic fashion, “booming.”

Which brings us to this puzzling follow-up by the esteemed Mr. Ganis:

“Iran has the potential of making “big movies” if it can attract investment to cinematic marketing.”

The obvious question here, to me at least, is how can Iran’s film industry attract any significant financing when the country is under sanctions by nearly every nation on earth? And will be under even more if the Big Three in Europe have their way?

As to making big movies, the Iranian film industry seems to have had no problem producing films with blockbuster impact.

One such Iranian film, ASSASSINATION OF A PHARAOH, praises Khalid Islambouli, the ”martyr” who assassinated former Egyptian President and “traitor” Anwar Sadat in 1981 for signing the Camp David Peace Accords.

The responses from the Egyptian government and people were nuclear. The film was protested by President Mubarak, the Egyptian Parliament, and by throngs of enraged protesters in the streets of Cairo. Egyptian pundits condemned the depravity of it all and expressed deep skepticism of official Iranian government denials of complicity. 

Columnist Ibrahin Sa’ada of Egypt’s daily “Al-Akhbar” was particularly vehement:

This film reveals the depravity of the Iranian ayatollahs. Can anyone believe that the Iranian regime, which tells every citizen when to breathe and when to stop breathing, really knew nothing about this film, and that a ‘group of people simply decided to produce a film against the late Egyptian president and to glorify [the assassin Khaled] Islambouli and his gang, calling them “innocent and kind-hearted martyrs”?

The Iranian ayatollahs, heirs of Khomeini, who have cut out the tongue, chopped off the hand, wrung the neck, and slashed the veins of every oppositionist…does anyone believe that they let a ‘group of people’ write a script for a documentary, shoot it, produce it and air it without their consent?

Though the Egyptians can’t prove complicity on the part of Iran’s government, and the Iranians themselves deny involvement with the film, there are circumstantial factors that lend credence to Egyptian skepticism.

First, this Iranian film classic was debuted at a government-sanctioned film festival held by the “Committee for Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement in Iran.” Speaks volumes.

Second, the Iranian thugocracy has named a street in Tehran after Islambouli. Columnist Makram Muhammad Ahmad, head of the Egyptian Journalists Association, responded in force to that REAL cultural slander in the Egyptian daily “Al-Ahram”:

How would the heads of the Iranian regime feel if the Egyptians set up a statue of the [late] Iranian Shah in a Cairo square?

For the explosive climax, the Sadat family has launched a half-billon dollar defamation lawsuit against the Iranian regime over the film. Sounds like boffo box office to me.

But film content is not the only glaring oversight Mr. Ganis et al have made with regard to Iranian film. He also seems to be quite oblivious to the harsh plight of Iranian filmmakers themselves. French-Iranian filmmaker Mehrnoushe Solouki was arrested and thrown into Iran’s notorious Evin prison for the egregious crime of stumbling upon a mass grave.

Ms. Solouki described her experience of the discovery of the graves:

It was nothing like a cemetery. And it was obvious that thousands of people were buried under these stones and dust. And when I asked some of the people who were there, they said that nobody is talking about these people.

Iranian security forces picked her up after she spoke with a professor who, according to Solouki, believes what happened to the people in the grave is a crime against humanity. Radio Free Europe reported in early November that the grave contained the bodies of regime opponents executed in 1988.

Here is how Ms. Solouki, since released from prison after considerable international pressure, described her experience at Evin Prison, where detained American Roxana Saberi is currently confined:

My solitary confinement was like stepping into a grave. There was nothing, I was sleeping on the floor and there was a 24/7 light bulb on over my head.

Iranian filmmaker Tamineh Milani, a feminist who made a number of films highlighting the position of women in Iran, was arrested, tried and sentenced to death for the unforgivable offense of making and pitching “The Hidden Half.”

The film, a drama about a man torn between two women, one of whom is a political prisoner, and another who, unbeknownst to him, has her own political past. Among other things, the film depicts internal struggle in Iran soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

For this heinous celluloid offense to Iranian culture and Islamist purity Ms. Milani was charged by the Iranian regime with “supporting factions waging war against God, and of misusing the arts in support of counter-revolutionary and opposition groups.”

The blackly comic irony of the charge of misusing the arts would be uproarious if the situation were not so serious. Like Ms. Sokouli, Ms. Milani was eventually released after concerted outrage from both within and without Iran.

But Ms. Sokouli and Ms. Milani are the lucky ones. 

Esha Momeni, a 28-year-old graduate student working on her master’s degree thesis in Iran about the country’s women’s rights movement, was arrested by Iranian police in October 2008 after filming interviews of women’s rights advocates. She was then imprisoned and held without bail in some subterranean Tehran hellhole.

In November of last year Ms. Moneni was finally granted bail after her father put up the deed to his apartment. But she must now stand before a tribunal for “acting against national security.”

Her fate has yet to be decided. But like Ms. Solouki and Ms. Milani, there are concerted efforts ongoing that may yet persuade the Iranian regime to release Esha. As in Hollywood, cut-throat totalitarian dictatorships hate bad press. Ruins their image.

But in Iran, who can really know?

And just how many other filmmakers and creative artists, not to mention ordinary citizens who do not enjoy such high visibility as the aforementioned filmmakers are languishing in Iranian hellholes, enduring nightmarish conditions and even torture without relent?

Were I an Academy President knowledgeable of all these circumstances I would have not left for Iran in the first place, especially given the Iranian regime’s atrocious human rights record. 

If, say, I were requested by President Obama to go on a mission to extend one last olive branch to Iran, I would have at least made the first condition of any visit contingent upon the release of Esha Momeni before I even left the states.

And I certainly would not have remained in Tehran after that olive branch was slapped out of both my and President Obama’s hands with the apology demand. For film, I apologize to no one! By my standards, and that of most Americans I’m sure, in-your-face is where film needs to be!

But that’s just me. Like Mr. Ganis and the rest of Team Hollywood appear to be, I am not willfully blind or oblivious to the harsh and nightmarish realities of the Iranian thugocracy. And I would have been quite vocal to anyone demanding an apology for cultural slanders in film, especially given all I now know about theirs.

In fact, were I in Mr. Ganis’ place right now, I would probably be languishing in Evin Prison right across the hall from Roxana Saberi.

But as Mr. Ganis and Team Hollywood sip tea, share pleasantries and teach film seminars to the Goebbels-like propagandists responsible for the REAL cultural slanders in film I have elaborated on, and all of which is only scratching the surface, he and the rest of Team Hollywood seem to be as oblivious to the true state of Iranian film culture as they seem to be to the mobs of Iranian Gestapo and Hamas Blackshirts dancing in the streets of Tehran for ‘innocent’ blood-drenched Brother Omar Bashir, and by default genocide, beneath their gilded Iranian cages.

It would seem the Iranian film industry is not the only one in a very sorry state.