Oliver Stone to get under right-wing pundits’ skin again

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Documentaries aren’t exactly the most welcome form at movie theaters these days, especially documentaries about starchy subjects like South American leaders.

But those wishing to see ‘South of the Border,’ Oliver Stone’s look at Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez — his background and the various perceptions of him — will now have their chance. A lefty-oriented distributor named Cinema Libre — they also released Robert Greenwald’s ‘Outfoxed’ in its limited theatrical run — has acquired North American rights and will release ‘Border’ this summer. The movie will come to Los Angeles on July 2 after opening in New York the previous week; it will subsequently expand to about eight more cities.

The film, which made several stops on the festival circuit last fall, features conversations with Chavez and other South American leaders, including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

With left-right partisanship growing fiercer by the day (see under: a certain item about James Cameron and Glenn Beck), it remains to be seen whether the Stone imprimatur prompts people to buy tickets to the movie or to protest it (or buy tickets because they’re piqued by the protests). And it’s an open question as to what effect any backlash could have on Stone’s ‘Wall Street 2,’ which after a release-date change now comes out in September, after ‘Border’ is released. Let’s just say we don’t expect Stone on Glenn Beck’s show any time soon.

— Steven Zeitchik

Photo: Oliver Stone. Credit: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
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