Stallone: Burma A "Hellhole Beyond Your Wildest Dreams"

It did seem a bit odd to me that he had set Rambo 4 in Burma and suddenly all this mayhem happens. Hmmm, I wonder if he might have some New York Money Men investing in his movie, hmm? Hmmmm?

If you're wondering how he got into Burma to make a movie about the psychotic Burmese government, well, he didn't quite; he was on a river on the Burmese-Thailand border. Close enough.

"I witnessed the aftermath - survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off.

"We saw many elephants with blown off legs. We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia and this was more horrific," he said.

...

Shots were fired over the film crew's heads and there were threats, he said.

"We were told we could get seriously hurt if we went on," Stallone added.

He had first hand accounts, too, from the Burmese extras whose families were imprisoned.

Stallone returned eight days ago - before the crackdown last week against the largest pro-democracy protests in Burma in two decades.

He has faced criticism for his choice of location. "I was being accused, once again, of using the Third World as a 'Rambo' victim.

"The Burmese are beautiful people. It's the military I am portraying as cruel," he said.

Assuming the bolded bit is true -- which I do -- comprehend this: Someone actually criticized him for depicting the murderous Burma tyranny as murderous and tyrannical. I guess we're supposed to "respect their culture," even if it's not actually their culture, but a lunatic autocracy inflicted on the people at bullet and bayonet point.

Here's the latest trailer:

On the other hand there's Sean Penn, who's currently engaging in an Apologism Tour for Hugo Chavez.

Sean Penn's the smart one, huh? Look, both are weird looking, both are inarticulate and make animal-noises as their major form of actorly emoting, but only one writes his own scripts.

And apparently only one is smart enough to call evil evil.

posted by Ace at 05:00 PM

| Access Comments