US films at Cannes go Bush-whacking
Sun May 21, 6:54 PM ET
by Marc Burleigh
US directors are using this year's Cannes Film Festival to pummel President George W. Bush, showing movies that take the US leader to task for everything ranging from sexual repression, Iraq, corporate collusion and climate change.
Sunday saw one of the most egregious attacks in the form of "Southland Tales" by Richard Kelly, the director behind 2001's cult movie "Donnie Darko".
In his new film, a satire set in a dystopian future Los Angeles, broad parallels are drawn between fascist pre-WWII Germany and the United States under a Bush government that holds onto power well into 2008.
A star-heavy cast moves the story along as it takes scattershot aim at a range of targets, particularly the war in Iraq, Big Brother-style spying on US citizens, the US dependence on energy and the fusion between celebrity and politics.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays a big-name actor tied to a political family who tries to unravel a plot involving him travelling into the future and back and trying to stop Armageddon. And any resemblance to a certain California governor who starred in "The Terminator" is coincidental.
(snip)
More stitched up than either of those two movies was a documentary also seen in Cannes' official line-up featuring former US vice president Al Gore Saturday and his personal crusade against global warming.
"An Inconvienent Truth", fronted by Gore, explains the dangerous path which the planet is pursuing, and presents statistics confirming the place of the United States as the principal energy-guzzler and principal polluter.
(snip)
"Fast Food Nation", a pointed jab at the creeping consumerism of US society and the power of corporations to dehumanise workers, also earned applause for its director, Richard Linklater, especially during a scene where characters proclaimed it their patriotic duty to violate the US Patriot Act.
LinkHere
by Marc Burleigh
US directors are using this year's Cannes Film Festival to pummel President George W. Bush, showing movies that take the US leader to task for everything ranging from sexual repression, Iraq, corporate collusion and climate change.
Sunday saw one of the most egregious attacks in the form of "Southland Tales" by Richard Kelly, the director behind 2001's cult movie "Donnie Darko".
In his new film, a satire set in a dystopian future Los Angeles, broad parallels are drawn between fascist pre-WWII Germany and the United States under a Bush government that holds onto power well into 2008.
A star-heavy cast moves the story along as it takes scattershot aim at a range of targets, particularly the war in Iraq, Big Brother-style spying on US citizens, the US dependence on energy and the fusion between celebrity and politics.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays a big-name actor tied to a political family who tries to unravel a plot involving him travelling into the future and back and trying to stop Armageddon. And any resemblance to a certain California governor who starred in "The Terminator" is coincidental.
(snip)
More stitched up than either of those two movies was a documentary also seen in Cannes' official line-up featuring former US vice president Al Gore Saturday and his personal crusade against global warming.
"An Inconvienent Truth", fronted by Gore, explains the dangerous path which the planet is pursuing, and presents statistics confirming the place of the United States as the principal energy-guzzler and principal polluter.
(snip)
"Fast Food Nation", a pointed jab at the creeping consumerism of US society and the power of corporations to dehumanise workers, also earned applause for its director, Richard Linklater, especially during a scene where characters proclaimed it their patriotic duty to violate the US Patriot Act.
LinkHere
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:28 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home