Venice Film Festival

Reuters:
Venezuela’s Chavez says hopes can work with Obama. Now that Hugo’s enjoying the lap of luxury at the movie premiere, he gets to tone down the rhetoric:

Chavez was in Venice for the world premiere of “South of the Border,” director Oliver Stone’s sympathetic portrait of a leader he says has championed the poor and who has been unfairly demonized by the U.S. media.

“I have no reason to call him (Obama) the devil, and I hope that I am right,” Chavez told reporters in Venice.

“With Obama we can talk, we are almost from the same generation, one can’t deny that Obama is different (from Bush). He’s intelligent, he has good intentions and we have to help him.”

Of course, Reuters wouldn’t remember that back in March Hugo was asking Obama to wash his a**, or that last week, during his stop in Libya, Chavez was telling Obama to rise to his African blood and,

“For the dignity of his race, he [Obama] should be the last president of the imperialist United States”

Why doesn’t Reuters remember this?

Simple.

Because they didn’t report on it.

Richard Fernandez, Jammie Wearing Fool, Weasel Zippers and Bluegrass Pundit are posting on the Reuters article, while Gateway Pundit has video of Chavez enjoying the adoration of the Venice Film Festival audience at Oliver Stone’s movie. Chavez praises Stone and Tariq Ali while there (if you want to hear what he said, the first three minutes is applause from the crowd).

The French are not buying it.

If you’ve had enough of the runway afterglow, go ponder that Venezuela May Duplicate Iranian Nuke Facilities. Chavez’s Venice stop is part of his tour Libya, Syria, Iran, Algeria, Belarus and Russia.

UPDATE
Photos, via Noticias 24

Hugo and Oliver both wore matching outfits. Sweet!

Italy Venice Film Festival South of the Border

VeniceStoneHugo

Oliver Stone, whose career is way beyond salvation at this point, has made a propaganda movie about Hugo Chavez titled South of the Border, which gives us a chance to see Hugo break and fall off a little kid’s bike.

Stone invited Chavez to go to the Venice Film Festival, where South of the Border will premiere outside of competition.

Well, what is a fashionable traveling tyrant to do?

Chavez has now taken time off his tour of Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Belarus and Russia and headed to Venice

The leftist leader was expected to walk down the red carpet at around 5:00 pm (1500 GMT) to attend the official screening of “South of the Border”

As a worthy Communist, Hugo travels in style:

His entourage has taken over the entire third floor of the luxury Hotel des Bains on the Lido near the festival venue, a Venezuelan journalist told AFP, adding that Chavez was under the protection of 26 bodyguards.

That’s four bodyguards short of Hugo’s other buddy and fellow fashionable traveling tyrant Muammar al-Qaddafi, who pitches his tent (except for New Jersey) with thirty female virgin bodyguards. There is no information available on the gender or purity of Hugo’s bodyguards.

I can’t decide whether the late Thomas Mann (since Mann’s character Gustav von Aschenbach stayed at the Hotel des Bains on the Lido) or the surgically-altered Joan Rivers would be the most appropriate person to review Hugo’s stay, but will post photos of Hugo on the red carpet once I find them.

While in Venice, Hugo and Oliver may have a chance to get together with fellow traveler Michael Moore and deplore capitalism

Blending his trademark humor with tragic individual stories, archive footage and publicity stunts, the 55-year-old launches an all out attack on the capitalist system, arguing that it benefits the rich and condemns millions to poverty.

Because nothing spells sincerity as bemoaning riches in the style one has become accustomed to while at one of the word’s premiere luxury settings.

Update 2
Venice Film Festival: A Movie Star Reception For Hugo Chavez

Update, Tuesday, 8 September
What did I tell you? Hugo meets Michael

Drooling on the lens of his Sincerity-cam

“Venezuela’s Chavez says hopes can work with Obama”

Hugo goes to Venice UPDATED with photos