Oliver Stone......?!

[MacGuffin]

Oliver Stone unveils ad calling for Iraq withdrawal

Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, whose movies voiced the frustration of the Vietnam War generation, on Thursday unveiled a political ad calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

But those expecting a broadside from the man who made the searing anti-war films "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July" some 20 years ago may be disappointed.

The 30-second television spot, sponsored by the MoveOn.org political action group and VoteVets.org, features a simple but impassioned plea by John Bruhns, a former infantry sergeant who fought in Iraq during the 2003 invasion and its aftermath.

"We were told to liberate these people. They were shooting at us," Bruhns says to camera. "To keep American soldiers in Iraq for an indefinite period of time, being attacked by an unidentifiable enemy, is wrong, immoral and irresponsible."

Ron Kovic, the author of "Born on the Fourth of July" who was shot and paralyzed in Vietnam, supplies a brief voice-over, saying "Support our troops. Bring them home."

The ad will air nationwide on CNN starting on Thursday for a week. It appears just after the veto by President George W. Bush of a bill from the Democratic-controlled Congress that would have set dates for withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Stone, 60, who fought in Vietnam in the 1960s, was asked to direct the ad for MoveOn.org, which says it has 3.2 million members in the United States campaigning for an end to U.S involvement in the four-year-old war.

Although Stone does not appear in the ad, he said the parallels between U.S. involvement in Iraq and Vietnam were obvious.

"I made three movies about Vietnam and I thought it was behind us," he said on Thursday. "This is a bad summer repeat of a war that happened 40 years ago. We must listen to the soldiers who are coming back."

Stone is one of only a handful of directors to tackle the events of September 11, 2001 and the fallout of the attacks.

His 2006 feature "World Trade Center" was seen as a surprisingly patriotic film that focused on police officers sent to rescue those trapped in New York's twin towers but who ended up buried in the rubble themselves.

Asked if he was planning a movie about the war in Iraq, Stone said; "It's not my generation's war."

"I'd like to do a picture about the politics behind it though. I find that fascinating."

[MacGuffin]

Stone's MoveOn.org ad:

[MacGuffin]

Oliver Stone May Return to Vietnam With 'Pinkville'
Source: Cinematical

Back in October we learned that Oliver Stone's next film would be Jawbreaker, another 9/11-related project based on the book by ex-CIA Gary Bernstein. It seemed to make sense at the time, because Stone had just released the 9/11-based World Trade Center. Jawbreaker is likely still going to happen, but there is now another project that the director is possibly taking on first. According to Latino Review, Paramount Vantage has picked up Pinkville (aka "One Day in March"), which will be Stone's return to a subject he knows very well: Vietnam. The studio had been in a bidding war with UA, but Paramount, which handled production on World Trade Center and is also handling Jawbreaker, won out.

The pic, which may star Sean Penn and Channing Tatum, is set around the events of the My Lai Massacre. On March 16, 1968, more than 500 Vietnamese (or 367, depending on the source), including unarmed women, children and elderly, were slaughtered by American soldiers who were given a "search and destroy" order. The horrible mission was eventually reported to the American public in November of 1969, and the news led to increased outrage concerning the Vietnam War. Stone already used the massacre as inspiration for a major scene in Platoon, but apparently he feels there's still more to say, and specifically to say, about the events.

Pinkville, if it happens, will mark Stone's fourth film to directly deal with the Vietnam War (if you don't count his student film, Last Year in Viet Nam, or a less-direct film like Nixon), following the "trilogy" of Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven & Earth. It should be a welcome return for the filmmaker, as he is, at least to me, associated with Vietnam (and the '60s and conspiracy theories) in the way that Woody Allen and Scorsese are associated with New York. Plus, the subject matter can now be made to have a different relevance -- both Penn, who starred in the Vietnam film Casualties of War, and Stone are probably interested in displaying parallels between that war and the current war in Iraq.

[MacGuffin]

Ahmadinejad turns down chance to star in Oliver Stone film
· JFK director sought access to make documentary
· President dismisses him as 'part of the Great Satan'
Source: The Guardian
 
His thirst for the limelight has driven him to launch a multilingual blog and issue a string of headline-grabbing statements.

But Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was surprisingly camera-shy when his extrovert persona drew the attention of Hollywood, turning down a request by Oliver Stone, the director of JFK, Nixon and Platoon, to make a documentary film about him. He dismissed the American film-maker as "part of the Great Satan", the Iranian regime's standard term of abuse for the US.

Mr Ahmadinejad's aides said Stone had requested special access to the president after contacting his office through intermediaries in the Iranian film business.

The 60-year-old director has made two documentaries about Cuba's Communist president, Fidel Castro, whom he considers a friend, and another about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

However, Mr Ahmadinejad, who has often criticised Hollywood as a bastion of pro-Zionist interests, was unimpressed by Stone's radical credentials after viewing the films.

"While it is true that Oliver Stone is considered to be among the opposition in the US, the opposition is still part of the Great Satan," the president's media adviser, Mahdi Kalhor, told the semi-official Fars news agency.

"We believe that the American cinema system is devoid of all culture and art and is only used as a device. In the last two years, the global arrogance [Iranian shorthand for the US and Britain] has made a lot of effort to portray their own image of Ahmadinejad, not the one which exists in reality. Hollywood and other Zionist media react to phenomena they don't like through different processes."

Mr Ahmadinejad's adviser, Javan Shamghadri, said Stone's request might be reconsidered if he could secure the rights for Iranian film-makers to make a documentary about the US president, George Bush, and the CIA without harassment.

Iran has complained repeatedly about how the country is depicted by Hollywood. Stone's 2004 film, Alexander, a biopic about Alexander the Great, was heavily criticised because of its sympathetic portrayal of the ancient Macedonian king, who is disliked in Iran because he is held responsible for the destruction of Persepolis, seat of the Achaemenid dynasty, in 330BC. This year, Iran protested to the UN about another film, 300, which portrayed the battle of Thermopylae between the Spartans and Persians in 480BC.

[Pubrick]

Mr Ahmadinejad's adviser, Javan Shamghadri, said Stone's request might be reconsidered if he could secure the rights for Iranian film-makers to make a documentary about the US president, George Bush, and the CIA without harassment.

if the iranian film-makers are kiarostami, ghobadi, or a makhmalbaf, this no-tie-wearing mofo's adviser may have a point there.

but in truth he would send the ratner equivalent.

[children with angels]

Stone Hits Back at "Great Satan" Tag
Source: IMDB

Moviemaker Oliver Stone has responded to Iranian critics who called him "part of the Great Satan" as they refused his official request to make a movie about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Doors director approached Iranian officials at the beginning of 2007 and revealed his plans to turn the life of the country's leader into a biopic. But with Iranian/American cultural relations at a new low thanks to the portrayal of Persians in films like 300 and Stone's Alexander, Middle Eastern film authorities have denied the filmmaker access to Iranian locations. Responding to Stone's request, Ahmadinejad's media advisor has said, "While it is true that Oliver Stone is considered to be among the opposition in the U.S., the opposition is still part of the Great Satan." The director is taking the snub in his stride, stating, "I've been called a lot of things, but never a Great Satan. I wish the Iranian people well and I only hope their experience with an inept, rigid idealogue president goes better than ours."

[MacGuffin]

Wall Street Crashes
The 20th Anniversary Edition of Gordon Gekko's claim to fame hits.

On September 18, 2007, Fox Home Entertainment will release Wall Street (20th Anniversary Edition) on DVD. The film follows an up-'n'-coming hot shot in the stock business that gets persuaded into a life of treachery from the big wig on Wall Street, and will feature bonus materials and extra features, and will be available for the MSRP of $19.98.

The Wall Street (20th Anniversary Edition) DVD will feature the following bonus materials:

On-camera introduction by Oliver Stone
New Interviews with Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas
"Greed is Good" Featurette
"Money Never Sleeps: The Making of Wall Street" Featurette
Extensive Deleted Scenes

[Ravi]

Is that the first DVD cover with a quote from a character and not a critic?

[modage]

Is that the first DVD cover with a quote from a character and not a critic?

[john]

OLIVER STONE IN CONVERSATION


The San Francisco Film Society is co-sponsoring Oliver Stone In Conversation with Ruthe Stein at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on October 11. Tickets are $18, but Film Society year-round members can get them for $15  Oliver Stone, of course, is one of this country's most controversial filmmakers, having directed World Trade Center, Platoon and Natural Born Killers as well as Comandante (SFIFF, 2003) and Salvador (SFIFF, 1986).

http://www.jccsf.org/content_main.aspx?progid=1856&catid=542

[MacGuffin]

Oliver Stone Visits My Lai for New Film

Hollywood director Oliver Stone arrived in Vietnam to research his next film about the Vietnam War, which will focus on the My Lai massacre, local media reported Thursday.

Stone arrived in the central city of Da Nang on Wednesday afternoon and went straight to the site of the 1968 massacre in Quang Ngai province, where U.S. troops killed more than 300 Vietnamese civilians, including many apparently unarmed women and children, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reported.

The incident provoked international outrage and undermined U.S. support for the war.

Stone, a Vietnam veteran and multiple Oscar winner, has produced three previous movies on the Vietnam War, including Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven and Earth.

Stone was accompanied by producer Nicholas Simon, Tuoi Tre reported.

"We came to survey the field as part of the preparations for our new movie project, Pinkville," the newspaper quoted Simon as saying.

[Kal]

Oliver Stone: Life after 'Wall Street'

Fortune sits down with the Academy Award-winning director and discusses the lasting legacy of his classic film and its famous lead character.


NEW YORK (Fortune) -- With buyout kings swimming in wealth, markets in turmoil, and Ray-Bans back in fashion, it might seem like Wall Street has stood still since 1987. But to Oliver Stone, the creator of Gordon Gekko and director of the epoch-defining "Wall Street," times have certainly changed.

"Gordon Gekko couldn't manipulate the markets like he did back then," he says. "It's so big, so huge, that to be a minor player, you need to be a major bank."

Since its release in December, 1987, "Wall Street" has been required viewing for anyone working in finance and a standard way of framing the go-go '80s of junk bonds and power ties - an era that some say has returned during the recent private equity-led mergers and acquisitions boom.

With a twentieth-anniversary DVD released on September 18 and a sequel currently in development, "Wall Street" is again a topic of conversation.

The film is best-known for its lasting character, Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, who netted an Academy Award for Best Actor for the role. And its most famous line -"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good," typically shortened to just "Greed is good" - is a favorite of headline writers and Wall Streeters alike.

But Stone - who won the Academy Award for best director for Vietnam-themed films "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July" and was nominated for "JFK" - worries that people frequently forget the film's ending, when Gekko is charged by the SEC with insider trading.

"I'd just say anyone who took away that greed is good has missed the point," he says. "The movie speaks for itself. People who walk out of the movie and think 'he's such a great guy,' they need to think and ask themselves on what terms am I willing to do that?"

The meat of the film, as Stone sees it, centers on Bud Fox, a young stock trader played by Charlie Sheen, who gets swept into Gekko's favor with a few questionable stock tips, but eventually turns on him when Gekko attempts to takeover Bluestar Airlines, where Fox's father is a union leader.

"Really the main motivation was my father," says Stone, 61, who was raised in New York. His father worked as a broker during the Great Depression at Hayden Stone (no relation), a firm that became part of Shearson American Express in the 1970s. "He took me to the movies, and he would bemoan the lack of a good business movie. Businessmen were generally lampooned."

Inspired by the Robert Wise's 1954 film "Executive Suite," which Stone calls the best business movie ever made, he decided to tell a story that would resonate with his father, who died in 1985.

Stone and co-writer Stanley Weiser met with business tycoons like Ace Greenberg, Ken Lipper, and others to consult on the script. Real-life charcters like Carl Icahn, J. Tomlinson Hill (then at Morgan Stanley, now at Blackstone), and Ivan Boesky collectively inspired the Gekko character.

Gekko's aesthetic - the fine suits, the penthouse office - was most directly inspired by Asher Edelman, a corporate raider and avid art collector.

"When I grew up, men didn't talk about how much money they made," says Stone, "and take great pride, and swell like peacocks. I find this personally tasteless and disgusting."

The characters played by Hal Holbrooke (a broker who attempts to mentor young Bud Fox) and Martin Sheen (Fox's union-leader father) represent "the positive forces in the market," says Stone. "Especially the old stockbroker. He keeps trying to teach Bud Fox the ethics of the business. Hal Holbrooke represents my father, who always said Wall Street can do a lot of good. It is not simply a function of making money."

Although "Wall Street" was released to tepid reviews and earned just $40 million at the box office (about a third as much as that year's top hit, "Three Men and a Baby"), it enjoyed a renaissance in 1990 when the cover of Newsweek magazine asked "Is Greed Dead?" after '80s icons like Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky ran afoul of insider trading laws.

Today's financial crimes, however, don't interest Stone. "The biggest dramatic story is Enron," he says. "It was a corporation that existed to do nothing. But frankly I read the books, and I still can't understand what they did. It's very hard to do a financial movie, to make stocks and bonds sexy and interesting."

Stone was approached to work on a "Wall Street" sequel for 20th Century Fox, being produced by the original film's producer Ed Pressman and written by Stephen Schiff of TheNew Yorker . But he backed off to pursue other projects. Stone spoke to Fortune from Bangkok, where he's researching a movie called "Pinkville" about the 1968 My Lai massacre.

"I'm on to something else," he says. "Because of the nature of the modern business world, I found it very difficult to bring this character back as a significant figure. That's not to say it can't be done, as a good writer is working on it."

Even with names like Steve Schwarzman buzzing around the street, and with players like Carl Icahn still around, Stone thinks big corporations have replaced the flamboyant tycoon as the true players.

"You just don't hear about the buccaneers anymore," says Stone. "I try to follow business to some degree, but I think there's way too much business news."

[Gold Trumpet]

Of course Kal would catch the Oliver Stone interview from Wall Street and post it. Haha, just kidding. Great find and many thanks!

[MacGuffin]

Stone to produce another 'Escobar'
Film, slated for '08, is the second of its kind
Source: Variety

Antoine Fuqua will direct "Escobar," a biopic about the notorious Colombian cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar that aspires to be the first of two rival pics on the subject to make it into production.

Oliver Stone will produce with J2 Pictures partners Justin Berfield and Jason Felts, and James Reach.

Fuqua, Stone and J2 are up against "Killing Pablo," an adaptation of the Mark Bowden book about the hunt for Escobar that Joe Carnahan will direct. Bob Yari is financing that project, with Javier Bardem and Christian Bale attached to star.

Carnahan isn't immediately available, however, because he's committed to directing George Clooney in "White Jazz," a high-profile adaptation of the James Ellroy book.

"Escobar" is based on "Mi Hermano Pablo," a book written by Roberto Escobar Gaviria, who served as his brother's accountant and confidant and whose company, STL Holdings, committed the life and literary rights of the Escobar family.

David McKenna, whose credits include "Blow" and "American History X," is working on a rewrite under the supervision of Stone and Fuqua.

"Escobar" has its financing in place, according to J2 partners Berfield and Felts. Production is slated to begin the in first quarter of 2008 in Colombia and Puerto Rico, and Jere Hausfater will handle international sales through Essential Entertainment. Pic will be introduced at the American Film Market.

Stone, who has covered the drug-smuggling terrain as a screenwriter on "Midnight Express" and "Scarface," also knows a thing or two about winning a biopic race: His movie on Alexander the Great got into production first, halting a rival film on the Macedonian conqueror that Baz Luhrmann was to direct and Leonardo DiCaprio was to topline.

Carnahan has worked for five years on "Killing Pablo." Awareness of the subject was recently heightened by "Medellin," a fictional film that was part of an ongoing storyline in the HBO series "Entourage."

While Carnahan and Yari downplayed a rival's emergence in announcing that their Escobar film was on firm footing, the "Escobar" producers said theirs is an honest depiction of Escobar's rise to become one of the world's richest men by leading the Medellin drug cartel and inflicting terror upon Colombia.

"Joe Carnahan's notion of us poaching his territory and rushing for a pre-strike start is false. We've been working with Robert and a half-dozen consultants for a year and a half to tell an accurate story," said Berfield, the former "Malcolm in the Middle" star who's also mobilizing a feature about Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia.

Berfield said that while Escobar's brother is a consultant with a first-hand perspective on how his brother built a drug empire, the sibling doesn't have script approval.

"My brother will be portrayed as a ruthless head of the Medellin cartel," Escobar Gaviria said in a statement. "This is just 10% of the story. The other 90% is the story others trying to portray him simply don't have."

Stone said: "This is a great project about a fascinating man who took on the system. I think I have to thank 'Scarface,' and maybe even Ari Gold."

"Escobar was Robin Hood, a saint to some, and the devil to others," Fuqua told Daily Variety. "He's a fascinating study in contrasts... He came from the wrong side of the tracks with nothing, but when he died was worth $3 billion... He was one of the most successful criminals we've ever seen, and that's why I find him such a compelling subject for a movie.

Biopics often seem to happen in stereo, and there's a lot of pressure not be runner-up. That lesson was underscored by the fate of two films about Truman Capote's quest to write "In Cold Blood."

The Bennett Miller-directed "Capote," which came out first, drew acclaim and an Oscar for Philip Seymour Hoffman. The Douglas McGrath-directed "Infamous" came second and fizzled. A similar struggle is being waged by rival movies about Harvey Milk, the openly gay San Francisco politician who was murdered along with S.F. Mayor George Moscone by Dan White, who like Milk was a city supervisor.

Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron finally turned a corner on a 15-year quest to adapt "The Mayor of Castro Street" with a reteam of "The Usual Suspects" director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie for Warner Independent Pictures, but that duo is busy making the Tom Cruise starrer "Valkyrie." Gus Van Sant, once attached to "Castro Street," is mobilizing his own Milk project for an early 2008 start. Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen are producing, funding comes from Michael London's Groundswell, and Sean Penn has shown an interest in toplining the film.

Fuqua last directed the Mark Wahlberg starrer "Shooter."

[MacGuffin]

Oliver Stone quashes Iran visit report
The director says that while he's open to making a documentary on the country's controversial president, he has 'no plans at this time' to travel to Tehran.
By Robert W. Welkos, Los Angeles Times

A spokesman for Oliver Stone said today that the Oscar-winning director has "no plans at this time to go to Tehran," despite recent reports suggesting that he could soon be traveling to the Iranian capital for a project about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Stone "is open to making a documentary" about Ahmadinejad, Steven Rubenstein, president of Rubenstein Communications, said, but he is considering a number of projects at this time.

Stone had been slated next to direct "Pinkville" for United Artists, but the project, centered on the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, was put on hold due to the writers strike, Rubenstein said.

Last summer, Stone applied for permission to travel to Iran, but his request was rejected by Iranian officials. The Tehran Times reported at the time that Medi Kalhor, the Iranian president's media advisor, called Stone "a part of the great Satan," a name first given to the United States by the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But now the Iranian press is reporting that Ahmadinejad had personally reconsidered and approved Stone's visit "if certain conditions were met." These conditions, the Tehran Times reports, stress that "Stone would not be allowed to invent any scenarios. [Instead,] he should only use incidents from the president's real life in the film."

The film project has been variously referred to in the Iranian media as "Ahmadinejad's Adventures" or "The Truth About Ahmadinejad."

Stone has developed a reputation in Hollywood for taking on controversial topics, such as "Nixon," his 1995 film about the late Republican president who was at the heart of the Watergate scandal, and "JFK," his 1991 film about the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas. His films "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Platoon" were critical of the U.S. war in Vietnam.