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Reuters is reporting today from Havana that the city’s Malecon seaside avenue is hosting Hollywood stars like Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and James Caan who all arrived in Cuba on Wednesday. Del Toro is in town to receive an award today from Cuban artists and intellectuals for his portrayal of Che Guevara in the biopic Che directed by Soderbergh. 
The other three are said to be working on a “research project”, a spokesman told the news service. Others in the movie industry are accompanying the group, including some unnamed producers. (Who are you?) In the past, filmmakers like Oliver Stone, Steven Spielberg, Kevin Costner, Robert Redford, Sydney Pollack, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson have been excoriated for visiting Cuba despite the long-standing U.S. trade embargo and ban on American visitors to the Communist country. But now a “recast” of U.S.-Cuban relations has begun under the Obama adminstration, and cultural exchanges are being encouraged after years of being unwelcome during the Dubya administration. The celebs’ spokesman said the current Hollywood group visiting Havana is traveling under a license granted by the U.S. Treasury Department.
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I’ve been to Cuba and there is a fascinating thing about the place and its history, but can I tell you the place is grim and pretty much a disaster to its citizens. Oh sure, we gringos can stay in the plush setting of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba and fake like the “peasants” don’t have their hands and faces planted against the windows wondering why they can scarf on the huge buffet or are not allowed to even set foot in the place.
I will always say that the people are the best there is in kindness and they should all be our friends but the government that tolerates a standard of living that requires mothers and daughters to “walk the streets” just to crack the monthly nut, is about as fucked as it gets. Castro is just a big pimp, that’s all.
I do hope our Hollywood types forgo the government transportation and snag a few gypsy cabs. If you hire them and become trusted you’ll get the full story of how life is lived under the Castro regime. Nothing glamorous at all – just sadness all around.
But at least the cigars and rum drinks rock!!!
thats awesome. lets support communism by staying at hotels in cuba that locals arent even allowed to see. i challenge one person from hollywood to go stay in cuba as a true native cuban and see how much they want to support that. commumism is all well and good ‘equality for all’ until a family of 10 gets rationed the same powdered soap as a family of 4..
Well it’s not surprising with a socialist in the White House. Maybe they can get some excellent health care while they are in Cuba. It’s great that Hollywood can idolize Che who personally participated in the murder of thousands, but they hate Bush because he did much less than Che. But Che did for a good cause promoting an ideology that has failed everywhere and lead to TENs of millions of deaths (Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Eastern Europe) How about a movie about Lech Wa??sa? Nah, that doesn’t support Hollywood’s agenda.
Funny Pic. Looks a little bit like Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro… sorry Mr. Stone. And sorry to all of you who do not remember one of the first two….
And btw PEACE. We won the war. Lets not get miserable because of a little shitty governed island with a lot of talented people.
This is amazing but not surprising.
Che, a mass murderer. Let’s grab an award for a film celebrating his awful life.
Now, to those of you thinking “hey, Cuba quarantines AIDS patients. Isn’t AIDS activism a pet cause of the Hollywood community?”
You see, all issues are subservient to Hollywood’s love of Marxism. Hollywood doesn’t care if a regime restricts freedom and spreads bloodshed as long as that regime is leftist.
But if Bush is trying to combat terrorism and puts in policies 1/100th as objectionable as Cuba, hold on to your hats.
I am all for cultural exchanges and think the best way to democratize Cuba is by allowing the outside world in. I just hope our Hollywood people don’t have the wool pulled over their eyes and see only what the government there wants them to see. I too have visited, and once you get away from the tourist spots it is a very, sad sad place. I don’t care if they have high literacy or universal healthcae in Cuba. The average citizen lives in squalor and lacks basic freedoms that we take for granted. That is a sad thing to see in such a beautiful place.
The Cuban government is the worst human rights abuser in the hemisphere. To be a guest of such a government, one that jails librarians and poets, is to tacitly say “this is acceptable to me.” To be an artist and do so is the cruelest absurdity.
Celebrity Che fantasists like Del Toro are at best ill-informed fools whose notoriety helps keep the Castro regime in power. Murray perhaps may be given the benefit of the doubt. He appeared in Andy Garcia’s “The Lost City,” one of the few movies, like “Before Night Falls,” to depict the revolution as the grand tragedy it is.
No, Phil. I know it’s in Cuba, but Guantanamo and its egregious human rights abuses are actually 100% ours. Whoops! Innocent civilians turned in for bounties then tortured and held without due process for seven years anyone?
Meanwhile, since our interventionist foreign policy is all about “spreading democracy,” wake me when we send troops to aid the democratically-elected president of Honduras, who was illegally ousted by unelected military officials in bed with that country’s oppressive big-money elite.
Yes, of course, ordinaryjoe–Cuba should be blamed for the long-standing United States policy of punitive embargo that created the conditions you cite. They brought it on themselves by acting up! Just like when your dad beat your mom then complained the bruising made her look ugly. Meanwhile, international affairs genius, go check out the complete lack of poverty and exploitation in a Caribbean Island that totally bows to U.S. trade demands and foreign policy, like Jamaica or The Dominican Republic. It’s a veritable paradise of enlightenment, education, great health care, and upward mobility! Go visit. And carry a lot of money with you, late at night. Please.
Meanwhile, want to compare test scores between public school students in Havana and public school students in LA or Chicago? Yeah?
Funny, but America was founded on a declaration of independence, meaning we would never sacrifice our autonomy and self-determination to the self-interested financial whims of an imperial power like Britain. But now… now… any little upstart that dares follow our example must be starved and condemned like runaway slaves, because the multinational corporation-owned USA is now in charge and flag-waving morons too dim to actually understand what made the United States unique and unprecedented–a powerfully principled refutation of, and rebellion against, the hegemony of colonialism and imperialism–carry on as if what Thomas Jefferson actually had in mind, secretly, was world-domination by starving or crushing all resistance.
Nice.
You fools mindlessly root for America like it was a pro-wrestler: mesmerized by the big lights, explosions, and insipidly staged, entirely fake, child-ready story lines–while the real value of America rots on the vine, with debt, foreclosures, dwindling health care, and all the rest.
The Founding Fathers gave us paradise and tools like you are insuring it is now lost. Patriot Act, anyone? Secret prisons, illegal wire-tapping and Nazi-style slogans about protecting “the homeland”? Just what George Washington fought for, right? Well, guess what, dipshits–Exxon, Monsanto, Lockheed Martin or Haliburton ain’t gonna be cutting you a fucking check out of gratitude.
I see at least ten people a day in Che t-shirts around LA, you know at least some of those people read this site. Can’t any of them defend Cuba’s policies? I feel like I’m reading Newsmax. Come on, let’s hear how great it is down there. How can we have a flame war and see someone get pwned if no one has the opposite opinion? I’m bored.
Maybe Ollie can visit the HIV positive people they throw in prison there.
Hey Dustintime,
You know, I stand on the exact opposite side of the political spectrum as you. And I absolutely loved what you wrote. No sarcasm. That was well thought out and actually made me think a bit about things from another perspective. So from “across the aisle” I say thank you.
@dustintime, the sins of the good ol’ USA are certainly cause for outrage. I do not blindly support my country or my government. In fact, I consider it my great honor to live in a place where dissent and free speech are protected. In Cuba there is no free press, and access to the Internet is severly restricted. Dissidents are harassed and jailed. For more information on what life is like for free thinkers in Cuba, visit http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/
The fact that other nations have problems, or perpetrate injustice, does not excuse the government of Cuba. That is like arguing that the U.S. can’t be criticized for torturing because Iran does it too.
Whatever you think of the trade embargo, and there are thoughtful arguments on both sides of the debate, Cuba has myriad trading partners. The poverty cubans face is the result of the gross mismanagement of the Cuban economy by their government, a tradition, incidently, begun by Che himself. To say that the embargo strangles the Cuban people is to perpetuate a reductive, albeit powerful, myth. I encourage you to read further about Cuba, and its economic history, particularly what happened to their GDP right after Castro took power. Castro, by the way, is listed by Forbes as one of the richest world leaders in the world. You can learn much of this by doing a wikipedia search.
The situation in Honduras, while not really relevant to this discussion, is not exactly as you describe. Their freely elected leader wanted to circumvent strict term limits hard-wired into their constitution. His actions were determined to be illegal by his own supreme court, and he was removed from office by a freely elected parliament, according to the rule of law. If you want to understand more about his character, take a look at who his chief supporter is: Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.
As a footnote, if you feel the need to be sarcastic and personally insulting, I encourage you to stand behind your comments with your real name, as I have done. It only seems fair.
To Dustintime:
Oh monsieur, you are a loo-loo.
Castro has been in power for 50 years he’s a horrible dictator. Would these stupid celebs be celebrating Nixon or Bush and Cheney if they cancelled elections and stayed in power for five decades? No? Why not?
Hollywood always loved Dictators if they say they are left wing…for some reason they don’t seem to see there is no difference between a Stalin killing millions and a Hitler….
Also they admire Castro, how sick of Rich,gated Hollywood actors who care about the poor and oppressed only in their movies in which they are oppressed by the American Government or evil christians.
I say to the gated actors get out in the real world sell you many houses you don’t need, share with all the cast and crew your large salary so everyone is treated equally. Be a good comrade.
Phil, come back and present us with complex facts when you can demonstrate a grasp of the simple ones: Hugo Chavez is not a dictator. He was democratically elected by a popular majority.
You may not like him. A lot of people clearly don’t. That doesn’t mean you can petulantly call him a dictator and that magically redefines the term to make it so. Our good friends in Saudi Arabia are dictators. How many American officials have you heard call them as much? Hmmm? (See, they take the bribes to suppress their population and keep the oil flowing on our terms… get it?)
And by the way, there was also an illegal military coup launched against Chavez, with backing from the Bush administration. It just happened to backfire. Historical fact.
As for PB, your thoughtful compliment is deeply appreciated. It’s not about left versus right, it’s about upholding our principles instead of the mercenary needs of an empire sustained at the grave expense of our moral, spiritual, and, yes, financial well-being. The Founding Fathers anticipated the threat. We abandon their prescriptions, and our constitution, at our peril.
Dustintime, it is true that Chavez was initially elected to power. He has since rewritten the constitution in order to, among other things, allow for his indefinite reelection. He has revoked the freedom of the press and recently authorized jail time for journalists he doesn’t like. He has imposed state ownership of their industry. He is a documented supporter of FARC rebels in Columbia. His most recent election came among accusations of fraud similar to those in Iran this year. His victory at the polls far outpaced exit polling. Whatever he calls himself, that sounds like a dictator to me.
PL