posted on January 26, 2004 06:37:32 PM new
Can someone please explain that to me?
Castro seeks out Robert Redford
Mon January 26, 2004 02:12 PM ET
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro, who has charmed some of Hollywood's biggest names, has paid a call on actor Robert Redford at his Havana hotel and discussed his latest film, on revolutionary icon Che Guevara.
Redford was in Cuba over the weekend wearing his producer's hat for a private screening of "The Motorcycle Diaries" for the widow and children of the legendary Argentine guerrilla fighter, who was Castro's comrade-in-arms.
"He came to me. ... He seemed in good health, good humour, good spirit," Redford said of the 77-year-old Cuban leader after their brief encounter at the Hotel Nacional on Monday.
Redford last saw Castro in 1988. The actor was said to have gone scuba-diving with the Cuban leader and was questioned by U.S. officials on his return to the United States.
In the 1990 film "Havana" Redford played a high-rolling American gambler during the final days of the Batista dictatorship, when Cuba was a mobster playground.
Castro has fascinated Hollywood stars. Jack Nicholson called him "a genius," Oliver Stone said he was "one of the Earth's wisest people" and Steven Spielberg said he spent "the eight most important hours of his life" with the Cuban leader.
"I came to present the film that I produced on Che Guevara and I am very happy to be in Cuba," Redford said at Sunday's screening of the film made by his company, Southfork Pictures.
The film, directed by Brazilian Walter Salles, is based on the diaries Guevara wrote on a nine-month trip through South America on an ancient Norton motorcycle in 1952 when he was an asthmatic 23-year-old medical student.
Guevara's motorbike journey opened his eyes to poverty in Latin America and he later joined Castro in Mexico, where the Cuban leader was organising a landing party to launch a guerrilla movement in Cuba that triumphed in 1959.
Guevara was executed by army troops after his capture in 1967 in the Bolivian jungle, where he had tried to trigger another revolution.
"The film is excellent," Guevara's widow, Aleida, who provided the diaries to the film-makers, said after the screening, also attended by Guevara's son and two daughters.
"The Motorcycle Diaries" was filmed at locations in Argentina, Chile and Peru, with Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal playing Che. The film received a standing ovation at its world premier at the Sundance Film Festival a week ago.
posted on January 26, 2004 09:43:47 PM new
All those people you list are in the movie industry...so your question would have better been "Why do actors/film makers admire a communist dictator".
posted on January 26, 2004 10:30:40 PM new
Well..I can see where men might admire that.
Actors too. Shoot a lot of people would admire a man that had slept with ALL the women.Not because he HAD, of course, but because he COULD.LOL All religions are equally right
posted on January 26, 2004 10:35:27 PM new
Seriously, Robin, in his early years (1960's) as Cuba's Primero Hombre, American women, particularly, fell all over themselves to "get at him". Especially women associated with the press. Maybe they were just looking for a "scoop", heh...
posted on January 26, 2004 10:41:40 PM new
Yes, I know SOME women were all over him way back then but ALL the women? I think ALL the women would be quite an accomplishment.
Do you not admire my liberal use of capitals in my post this evening? All religions are equally right
posted on January 26, 2004 10:46:48 PM new
"All" women relative to the 'staggering' number of male actors posted above. Not that they're all relatives of those fellows, nosireebob...
posted on January 26, 2004 10:49:59 PM new
Pat, I do know what you mean. I am simply being obtuse. Something I am very good at. All religions are equally right
posted on January 26, 2004 11:05:15 PM new
LoL you two!
It's like a broken record --- libruls are always the ones that are pro-abortion, anti-God, pro-communism, anti-war, pro-gays, anti-Bush, etc., etc., while conservatives are the good guys.
posted on January 26, 2004 11:18:26 PM new
Hey, wait a minute! I'm pro-God and anti-communism; okay with "righteous" wars and far prefer birth-control to abortion. Oh, and gay people are part of the neighborhood; and, yes, I would prefer living next door to Twelvepole's "queers" over Bush any day. So, what does that make me?
(I've given you a great opener, Krafty, so come back with a smart retort! )
posted on January 27, 2004 12:40:54 AM new
He is a powerful, charismatic and intelligent man. Perhaps those are the features they admire. There is no real way of knowing why those who have met with him admire him unless you were privy to the conversations they had.
Have you ever watched any interview with him? He does not come across as a monster and the persona of charm and intelligence that he projects vs the tales of the evils of the Castro Regime create a fascinating dicotomy.
I have to admit that in that fantasy dinner party with any five people living or dead that people talk about... Castro would probably be one of the people I would want there. Not out of admiration, but rather intrigue.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 27, 2004 03:58:05 PM new
Well at least there are still decent people in Hollywood!
Robert Duvall slams Spielberg
'I'll never work at DreamWorks again'
Thursday, January 8, 2004 Posted: 9:42 AM EST (1442 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Actor Robert Duvall probably won't be making any movies for DreamWorks any time soon.
In a CBS "60 Minutes II" interview set for broadcast Wednesday, the Oscar-winning performer sharply criticized filmmaker and DreamWorks SKG studio co-founder Steven Spielberg for visiting Cuba in November 2002.
"Spielberg went down there recently and said, 'The best seven hours I ever spent was actually with Fidel Castro.' Now, what I want to ask him, ... 'Would you consider building a little annex on the Holocaust museum, or at least across the street, to honor the dead Cubans that Castro killed.' That's very presumptuous of him to go there," Duvall told Charlie Rose, according to excerpts of the interview released by CBS.
The actor, who won an Academy Award for his role in the 1983 film "Tender Mercies," added, "I'll never work at DreamWorks again, but I don't care about working there anyway."
posted on January 27, 2004 04:56:13 PM new
My, how upset we get if others don't hate the same people we do.
Is there a head of ANY country in the world that doesn't have blood on his hands?
Plenty of Americans (very recently) sat with Saddam and made nice-nice when he was still serving Washington's needs and he was a bloody monster then. But as soon as our glorious leaders put him on the #*!@ list we are supposed to have a violently disgusted reaction to his very name.
I wouldn'tr sit to dinner with Fidel or Bush or Clinton (before I am labeled) they are all power hungry monsters with blood on their hands. Goes with the job.
