Pro-Hugo Chavez propagandist, Oliver Stone, came to Pomona College to promote his film, “South of the Border.” Stone, fresh off making the 2010 list of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s top ten anti-Semitic slurs for his belittling of the Holocaust , continued to mispronounce Chavez as “Sha-vez” and to apologize for the Latin American tyrant’s pro-Iranian speech. Have a look here.

Stone was the guest of pro-Hugo Chavez, anti-tea party professor, Miguel Tinker Salas, according to the student newspaper. When answering a question about Chavez’s support for the Iranian dictatorship and Hezbollah, Stone curiously leaned over and whispered with Tinker Salas. I guess he was looking for the party line.

Even the left-wing newspapers think Stone’s film is propaganda. “South of the Border” was savaged in the New York Times. The Washington Post said Stone lobbed softball questions to Chavez. NPR said Stone treated Latin American leaders with “kid gloves.”

Stone, who says that he “liked what we saw” in Latin America, never met with any dissidents while there.

Here’s the transcript of an exchange with Stone and a Pomona college student. You can watch the exchange here…

Student: Chavez considers the dictatorship of Iran great for its people and fully supports the government. He also considers Hezbollah to be heroic and legitimate. Do you agree? And Danny Glover got money from the government of Venezuela; did you? And who financed this film?

[Leans over, and whispers to pro-Chavez professor Miguel Tinker Salas]

Stone: We did not get any money from the government of Venezuela for the film. We made this movie outside that domain, and we were critical, if need be, but we liked what we saw. As you can see from the movie, we were trying to balance what we see as an extremely negative picture, so we were not going to go into a ‘he-said-you-said’ kind of documentary because I think it would have taken far longer and we would not have been able to cover the general movement of change in South America. This is truly a first look, a 101 type course, on South America. On the issue of the Middle East, on Iran, I heard, and on Hezbollah, I’m not going to get into that argument, but I will say Chavez trades with us in oil and Iran is a standing member of OPEC and has been for quite a few years and all, not just Chavez, but Saudi Arabia, all the members of OPEC, Russia, and have quite a lot of [business dealings] to Iran, so does the United States, too, by the way.

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It doesn’t happen often enough, certainly not as much as it once did, but every now and again, up on the magic screen that expresses the best and worst of Hollywood, something special happens – a moment of perfection that allows you to ease back and relax in the knowledge that you’re in the very best of storytelling hands. Pixar’s tenth and best film, “Up,” opens in just this way, with a montage bearing witness to the childhood friendship, courtship, marriage and old age of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen (Ed Asner and Elie Doctor).

There’s nothing terribly special about the life of the Mr. and Mrs. Fredricksen.  They shared no slow motion runs on the beach or proposals of marriage atop the Eiffel Tower. There’s was an ordinary existence built on abiding love and the moments of the everyday. But it’s from the familiar that the power of this unforgettable sequence comes from. We relate to the decades that pass between them, recognizing them as our own. And when Ellie dies, leaving Carl without his soul mate, we also recognize that they pass much too quickly.  

Carl and Ellie had dreamed of an extraordinary life. One filled with travel and adventure. But reality always intruded, eating their savings and worst of all, the years. Today, at 78, Carl seems content to bide his time alone until he can rejoin Ellie, but reality intrudes once again when Carl’s faced with life in a nursing home. His decision to inflate thousands of helium balloons and float his house to South America has little to do with a desire for adventure. He’s hanging on to Ellie in the last way he knows how – by finally living out their dream.

Along for the ride is Russell (Jordan Nagai), an 8-year-old Junior Wilderness Explorer and accidental stowaway. Filled with hyper-enthusiasm and a fearlessness borne of his ability to see the “cool!” in every situation – no matter how dangerous, he drives poor, grumpy Carl — who wants only to peacefully and in solitude live out his days on a cliff next to a waterfall — nuts. (more…)