Oliver Stone under assault again

Oliver Stone is under attack again, which isn't a surprise, given that no other filmmaker has been so willing to challenge the "conventional wisdom" in an effort to uncover the facts about important events. After seeing what the media did to Stone for his excellent and provocative film "JFK," I concluded that the press had become almost a reverse template. If the media trashes a Stone film, I know something important must be onscreen. And the template holds true with Stone's latest film, a documentary called "South of the Border." In the film, Stone talks to several leaders of the new left in Latin America, many of whom came to power in democratic elections by protesting America's overt and covert meddling in their countries. Stone meets, separately and in groups, with Hugo Chávez (President of Venezuela), Evo Morales (President of Bolivia), Lula da Silva (President of Brazil), Rafael Correa (President of Ecuador), Cristina Kirchner (President of Argentina) as well as her husband Néstor Kirchner (former President of Argentina), and Raúl Castro (currently running Cuba for his ailing brother Fidel). Stone asks us to look behind the American media's one-sided portrayals of these leaders and the countries they represent so we can make up our own minds about who they are and what they are trying to do.