Does Peter Fonda consider himself a “have” … and what about his inherited-wealth grandchildren?

Secret Service to the white courtesy phone…

Who can forget the way Natalie Maines singlehandedly damned her little country trio – the Dixie Chicks – to infamy by bashing President George W. Bush in March 2003?  She was on tour in Europe criticizing our president while he was in D.C. sending troops to liberate Iraq. Country music fans rightly viewed Maines’ criticism as a move more befitting someone like Bill Clinton, who also protested American wars while on foreign soil (the Vietnam War), and the Dixie Chicks quickly disappeared from radio airwaves.

Here’s Maines’ quote:

 Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.

For the record: I’ve been critical of Maines’ attack on Bush ever since and plan to continue being critical of it. Because the bottom line is this: The American people — the salt-of-the-earth, work-hard-everyday-to-make-ends-meet, sign-up-to-fight-in-the-military people — don’t like to see someone standing with Europeans and hurling criticism at our President on the eve of war. They rightly equate that with criticizing the mission before it begins.

But this is not to say that the American people don’t support the freedom to criticize a president at the right time and in the right way, even overseas. And as a matter of fact, I’m betting that 99.9% of those same salt-of-the-earth folks who were outraged by Maines’ criticism of Bush are giving a standing ovation to Peter Fonda for calling President Obama a “[bleeping] traitor.” (The other .1%  will have a problem with the “[bleeping]” part.) Furthermore, I can imagine people throughout flyover country giving each other high fives as they read Fonda’s words.

Why did Fonda say this? Because he’s still outraged over the way Obama chose to use BP personnel for cleanup after the Gulf Oil Spill instead of allowing our own Coast Guard to get in there and get it done. Fonda described the BP personnel as “a bunch of Brits,” then added:

“I thought we kicked them out a long time ago. They tried to get back in 1812, but they didn’t make it.”

Give Fonda credit for knowing his history. We did kick the Brits out via the American Revolution and they did try to get back in during the War of 1812, only to be bested by us once more.

Perhaps someone, somewhere will still hold it against Fonda for saying what he said on foreign soil –- he’s at the film festival in Cannes – but I’m not that someone. Instead, I’m just going make sure you heard me right the first time when I told you that Fonda called Obama a “[bleeping] traitor.”

All I can say to the Easy Rider after that assessment is, “thank you.”

I’m a major Peter Fonda fan, think he’s one of the best character actors working today and can’t imagine life without “Easy Rider,” but this is way, way over the line. The sentiment is hard to disagree with and I’m no Obama fan, but he is the President of the United States and trashing him in this manner overseas at Cannes is hardly different than what all but ended the Dixie Chicks career.

CANNES, France (AFP) – Peter Fonda launched a four-letter attack on US President Barack Obama at the Cannes film festival on Wednesday, calling him a traitor over the handling of the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill. …

Fonda — a keen environmentalist and co-producer of the film which centres on the explosion of the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon, the ensuing spill and its consequences — accused Washington of trying to gag reporting on the issue.

“I sent an email to President Obama saying, ‘You are a f(expletive) traitor,’ using those words… ‘You’re a traitor, you allowed foreign boots on our soil telling our military — in this case the coastguard — what they can and could not do, and telling us, the citizens of the United States, what we could or could not do’.”

Again, Fonda’s argument is exactly right. President Obama’s handling of the BP oil spill was uniformly atrocious and let us never forget that Obama was the biggest benefactor of BP’s political contributions. But no matter how failed the president, ”fucking traitor” — especially overseas and during a time of war — is the exact wrong way to make the case.

In other news:  Out of concern for America sovereignty when it comes to the Military, a Hollywood actor with the last name Fonda called a sitting liberal president a “fucking traitor” and as of now no pigs have been spotted flying.

I am an unabashed lover of the acting craft. I see virtually every movie, large and small, that passes through the US marketplace, and, taking nothing away from Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger, not all of 2008’s best performances have been recognized. I’m not going to be obvious here. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Gran Torino, but he received lots of acclaim for the role including being named Best Actor by the National Board of Review. My goal is to highlight 10 performances from last year that have received virtually no acclaim in the US. Many of these roles can be found in hardly-seen, under-appreciated movies that came and went without much notice. Each and every one of these movies deserve a spot in your Netflix (or Blockbuster) cue.

My list is by no means definitive. If you have a favorite performance from 2008 that sticks with you, this is a great place to tell the world. There were 20 actors nominated on Oscar night, but there is a lot of great work that hasn’t been recognized with a walk down the red carpet.

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1. JEAN DUJARDIN, 0SS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES
This was the funniest movie of the year for me. OSS 117, a reboot of a previously successful franchise, was a hit in France, but generated only about $300,000 in very limited engagements in the US. Dujardin is a James Bond-style secret agent who bumbles his way across the middle east with the panache of Sean Connery and the comic physicality of Peter Sellers. He was nominated for Best Actor at the Cesar Awards (French Oscars), but almost nobody saw Nest of Spies here. The sequel OSS 117: Rio Ne Repond Plus is due later this year. Steve Martin, who badly resurrected the Pink Panther franchise, should watch this movie with a deep sense of shame.

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2. PATRICIA CLARKSON, ELEGY
Sold about $3.5M in tickets at American box offices. In many ways, Penelope Cruz’s performance here is more courageous and luminous than her winning turn in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but I am choosing to focus on Patricia Clarkson who brings a heartfelt honest to her small role. I am always impressed when a woman is unafraid to appear nude in a film, especially if it gives us a window into that character’s soul. Clarkson is close to 50 and her character is maintaining a purely sexual relationship with Ben Kingsley’s David Kepesh. She has no illusions about being young or being in love. She is settling for the occasional comfort of a tumble with this man, and sadly, her constant career demands make a permanent loving relationship a faraway idea.

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3. BILL IRWIN, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
Loading a dishwasher has never been so dramatic. Primarily a theatre actor (he played George alongside Kathleen Turner in the 2005 Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf), he does something very different in Jonathan Demme’s documentary-style Rachel Getting Married. He is the buttoned-down, peacemaker who is hiding a shattered emotional interior that comes forward in a remarkable scene in which he demonstrates how to correctly load a dishwasher. Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway and Golden Globe nominee Rosemarie DeWitt were both excellent, but Irwin’s performance has stayed with me in a meaningful way.

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4. ELSA ZYLBERSTEIN, I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG
This extraordinary French film from the masterful Phillippe Claudel features the luminescent-but-prickly Kristin Scott Thomas, who was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Drama and many other awards. Elsa Zylberstein portrays the fully accepting sister who loves without any strings attached. She unwinds the mystery about why her sister committed a horrible act, and simultaneously remains patient and receptive. She allows for as happy an ending as this film can possible allow. Her soulful beauty softens the rough edges of Kristin Scott Thomas’ Juliette.

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5. CHIWETEL EJIOFOR, REDBELT
David Mamet does a movie about Mixed Martial Arts. Go figure. The master of dialogue practices jujitsu in real-life, and now he has found a way to incorporate it into one of his films. Chiwetel Ejiofer portrays Mike Terry whose mantra is that “There is always an escape.” Some Hollywood types, played with the appropriate dollops of sleaze and smarminess by Tim Allen and Joe Mantegna, put him in an impossible situation, and he must find the escape. A buff Ejiofor delivers physically (easy to buy him as a badass), and he has a rigid sense of honor. His scene with Emily Mortimer in which she exorcises a past demon in worth the price of admission.

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6. KARINA FERNANDEZ, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
I love Happy-Go-Lucky. Writer/Director Mike Leigh takes a full year rehearsing and improving with his actors in order to finalize the script. He hit solid gold with Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins, who won the Golden Globe and, I assume, narrowly missed an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. The same can be said for Eddie Marsan as the anal retentive driving instructor Scott. But my shout-out here goes British stage actress Karina Fernandez who, in two short scenes, demonstrates her rigid and unbending love for the flamenco and that those very steps may be the only thing keeping her from becoming emotionally unhinged.

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7. HAAZ SLEIMAN, THE VISITOR
So much of the lightness in Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins’ turn in The Visitor is his reaction to the joyful drumming of Haaz Sleiman’s Tarek Khalil character. His co-star Danai Jekesai Gurira is also wonderful, but something tells me that the Lebanese-born Sleiman will be heard from again. After drumming with reckless abandon at one point, Tarek realizes that he is going to be late and says his girlfriend will kill him because he’s on Arab time, “It means I’m late by an hour. All Arabs are late by an hour, It’s genetic. We can’t help it.”

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8. CANTINCA UNTARU, THE FALL
The weirdest, most fantastical movie of 2008 was directed by Tarsem Singh, whose best-known previous film was the strikingly visual horror pic The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez. This is a fable told by an injured, drug-addicted stuntman in the early 20th century who befriends a little girl. Lee Pace (brilliant in the 2003 film Soldier’s Girl and also seen in ABC’s short-lived Pushing Daisies) weaves a spectacular fantasy that plays out in the imagination of a little girl played by novice actor Cantinca Untaru. I love this movie, and I’m not alone. Roger Ebert wrote, “You might want to see this for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.” Part Wizard of Oz. Part Lord of the Rings. 100% original. And it all works because of the innocence and spontaneity of a chIld actress before the camera for the first time.

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9. KATE DEL CASTILLO, UNDER THE SAME MOON
She is absolutely beautiful and has a number of popular telenovelas to her credit including El Derecho De Nacer, Ramona, La Mentira and Imperio De Crystal before mading the jump to American television with the 2002 PBS series American Family from creator Gregory Nava (Selena, Mi Familia). This heartbreaking story of a little Mexican boy who decides to try to make it over the border to find his mother, working as a nanny and sending money home, is sweet and pulls at the heartstrings, and this Patricia Riggen movie also features a strong performance from Mexican comic actor Eugenio Derbez.

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10. JASON BUTLER HARNER, CHANGELING
I did not like Changeling. I am a huge fan of Eastwood the director, and, for me, Angelina Jolie’s performance was one-note, Jeffrey Donovan from TV’s Burn Notice was doing a 1930’s rat-ta-ta-tat dialect while Oscar nominee Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) seemed to be playing it present day. As for the art direction, it’s been done so much better in classics like Chinatown and more recent noir like L.A. Confidential. But, the reason to see the movie is Jason Butler Harner as serial killer Gordon Stewart Northcott. He conveys a certain cavalier smarminess when confronted with his evil deeds. He enjoys the infamy he has achieved and uses it to manipulate and torture Jolie’s Christine Collins. Unsettling and unforgettable.

HONORARY MENTION
-in no particular order-

MILA KUNIS, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL

MISTY UPHAM, FROZEN RIVER

DON CHEADLE, TRAITOR

DAVID KROSS, THE READER

REBECCA HALL, VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

JEFFREY WRIGHT, CADILLAC RECORDS

EVAN RACHEL WOOD, THE WRESTLER

DANNY MCBRIDE, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

DOMINIQUE PINON, ROMAN DE GARE

TILDA SWINTON, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

PAUL RUDD, ROLE MODELS

RICKY GERVAIS, GHOST TOWN

ALAN RICKMAN, BOTTLE SHOCK

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

Firstly, real people act in it, which is, as I explained in my post on “Kung Fu Panda,” a definite pro for me. Secondly, “Traitor” deals with an incredibly hotly debated subject; the war on terrorism. Thirdly, the main character is a Muslim American who helps fight extremist Muslims; it is a subject seldom explored in books or movies. It is a grand, novel and innovative idea, especially from my perspective.

And it was. The actors perform sublime. They draw you into the movie immediately and convince you that they are the characters rather than pretending to be them. The special effects are great and the movie was exciting; it keeps you off-balance. It is not until the very last moment that you understand the plan and the way in which it was executed.

But there is more to the movie than the superficial aspects described above. What made this movie so interesting – and from my perspective resulting in a mixed review nonetheless – are its major themes.

*Some Spoilers Coming*

Let’s start with the good stuff: The main character, Samir Horn (Don Cheadle), is depicted as a Muslim who worked for the FBI but fired after his colleagues complained about his devotion to his religion. He is “the reluctant fundamentalist” but more violent. Although that theme can hardly be called innovative, everything changes after those first 30 minutes. At that moment it becomes clear that the firing was a cover-up. Instead of being fired he became an undercover agent who had to infiltrate terrorist networks and prevent them from executing their plans.

The above was quite surprising because his project is depicted as just and as the act of a religious Muslim who, we find out later, considers extremists his secular and religious enemy, an opinion many Muslims, including myself, share. It has, however, seldom been made clear in movies or books.

That his fight is portrayed as ‘just’ is also surprising because Hollywood often produces rubbish about the war on terrorism portraying the good guys as the bad guys and vice versa. “Traitor” shows reality as it is and how it should be: a devout Muslim opposing extremism and even fighting it, and Americans as those who are protecting freedom against the enemy who wants to destroy all we hold dear.

There are certainly some minor points of criticism with regards to the first part of the film: for instance, at the very start of the movie, one sees the father of Samir teaching his son how to perform the ritual prayer. Ironically enough, the ‘devout Muslim’ performs the ritual prayer incorrectly. Instead of saying “as salaamu aleikum wa rahmatulaa” twice at the end he says “Allahu Akbar.” This is a frustrating mistake to make for a Muslim because both sentences have entirely different meanings. “Allah Akbar” means “God is Great” while “as salaamu aleikum wa rahmatulaa” means “may the peace and blessings of God be with you.” If the main character of a film is a devout Muslim, at least teach the actor how to perform our ritual prayer correctly.

The American government too is generally shown in a favorable light. An example: Samir’s superior cares deeply about him and does everything in his power to protect the undercover agent. Additionally, one of the two FBI agents, impressively enough the one who also happens to be a devout Christian , tries to understand terrorists and is open to a different interpretation than the most obvious one with regards to Samir’s actions. Agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) is passionate about fighting terrorism, but he does not use  “all means necessary.”

Clayton’s partner is an entirely different agent, the embodiment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s approach to the war on terror Hollywood-style. This man is not open to reasonable arguments, all he wants to do is to capture or kill terrorists. If torture has to be applied, so be it. If innocent civilians have to die, who cares as long as they are Muslim?

Luckily, the partner plays only a minor role in the film, so the viewer is not really bothered by him.

As said, there is certainly room for criticism of “Traitor” but its main themes are refreshing, inspiring and of fundamental importance: the war on terrorism is a war between good and bad, between freedom and oppression.

Especially the message that you can be a devout Muslim yet a good American nonetheless, is inspiring. It has not been said often enough in the last couple of years that one can be both at the same time. Many pretend that in order to be a good American a Muslim has to ignore a large part of his religion. “Traitor” shows that this is not the case; you can be a devout Muslim, yet a supporter of America, of freedom, and of democracy nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the above changes radically in the last few minutes when Liberal Hollywood could not resist to once again portray the good side in the war on terrorism as the bad side.

Where Samir Horn is portrayed as a religious and devout Muslim fighting the good fight in the first 90 minutes of the movie, he ends up with absolutely nothing in the end. He tortures himself by reciting a famous verse in the Qur’an in which God says about those kill one innocent: “It would be as if he killed the whole of mankind” (5:32). Samir makes clear to agent Clayton that it may finally have been clear to all involved that he was acting in America’s interest, but he has lost his confidence in himself and in his moral authority. In short, the devout Muslim fighting extremists ends up a broken man.

If there’s one thing we (liberal Muslims) do not need right now, it is for others to tell us that our fight is not worth fighting. We need encouragement , not discouragement. We are fighting the good fight and standing up for what we believe in. We are doing everything in our power to prevent the hatred disguising itself as religion from taking over our communities, our mosques, our families, our cities and our countries. We know, and we need to know, that it is the extremists who are the villains and that is us who are the good guys.

Samir is a hero in every sense of the word; he is a secular American hero and a true Muslim hero; we need more of those. The film should have had a happy end for that would have sent a positive and inspiring message, instead of giving everyone the impression that the war on terrorism is not truly worth fighting.

Worse, according to “Traitor” we are no better than Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other extremists if we decide to take them on. If someone would say this to your face, you would laugh at him. But for some reason, Hollywood considers it perfectly OK to put this idiotic message in one of its top productions. It defies reason.

Samir made mistakes in the movie, but this does not make him a bad guy. Even good guys make mistakes in the real world. We should learn from those mistakes but they should not cause us to lose our confidence in ourselves and our goals. The mistakes made by proponents in the war on terrorism – say Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib – were grave, but what differs us from the real bad guys is that these acts are mistakes for us while they are normal for the enemy. The enemy does not beat itself up after seeing evidence of a prisoner being tortured; it happily publishes videos of the (innocent) person being tortured and eventually murdered on the Net. The enemy is proud of it. We are not – and that’s what makes us different.

Perhaps some big shot in Hollywood will read this pos, and do something with it. I know it’s easy for these people to dismiss everything conservatives say, but I’m also a Muslim which should make it harder to ignore me considering liberals’ adoration for minorities. If Hollywood wants to make a positive difference in this world, it should use “Traitor’s” themes for a good cause: to encourage rather than discourage, and to build rather than destroy.