PrintFebruary 24, 2008
Sylvester Stallone Deserves a Special Academy Award
Don't you just wish that at this years Academy Awards Show either Chuck Norris or California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, would appear on stage and say the following: "And the winner for this years Special Recognition Award goes to Sylvester Stallone for‘Rambo' -- a model of how to effectively deal with genocidal governments."
Alas, there doesn't appear to be much chance of that!
There are better films this year than Rambo, but there is no better movie.
If you were too embarrassed to see it at the Twelve Plex on a Friday night, apparently enough high school and college kids, plus a few Appalachian and Southern hicks with a few front teeth missing (or so they see them in Hollywood), made it a financial success without your business.
Here's the film broken down to its essence:
Approached at his home in southern Thailand, Rambo is cajoled into taking a group of non violent missionaries in his boat into Myanmar, (formerly Burma), where a village of poor rural people are awaiting urgent medical supplies. He drops the missionaries off to return for them a couple of days later. Unfortunately upon his return the missionaries are gone, half the village is burned down, and corpses of unarmed civilians, lie on the ground. Somehow a group of mercenaries appears on the scene. They team up with Rambo and together rescue the missionaries (including the good looking blond), and the remaining villagers. In twenty not for the Squeamish minutes, Rambo and associates mete out justice to a rather nasty battalion of Myanmar soldiers.
Though no doubt most Academy members didn't see Rambo, apparently the government of Myanmar recognized a sure hit when they heard about it, and banned it from theaters and the DVD market, where until the ban, business was reported as brisk.
So while the poseurs at the Academy who just a couple of years ago agonized along with liberal and leftist filmgoers over the conscience of a young Palestinian in Paradise Now - should he blow up some innocent Israeli Jews or not? - like the rest of the world, they have decided to avoid the question of really horrible governments.. But not Sly, bless
him.
him.
Unfortunately not every country, bad as it treats its citizens, can be on the UN hit list.
But one that any impartial panel would put right at the top of any "hit parade" is the jihadist government of Sudan based in Khartoum. About two weeks ago, in what appears to be another spasmodic bout of blood lust apparently sated only by attacking defenseless black Darfurians, - Jews not being available - Khartoum put the word out to attack them again, in the northern area of West Darfur. They sent their Jangaweed militias to roust and kill defenseless villagers. Some villagers scampered into Chad, adding even more refugees to the eastern part of Chad than it can handle.
As if to add insult to injury Khartoum in yet another slap to the UN, has also cut off all humanitarian movement into West Darfur, determined to do as thorough a job of murder and mayhem without hindrance as possible. (See http://www.sudanreeves.org/). The UN of course generally deserves as many slaps as it gets, but not when it means other innocent people suffer even more.
The shame can be divided among the UN, (which of course refused to declare Khartoum's action in Darfur genocide several years ago), the EU, and the U.S. where President Bush has pontificated long enough. Yes, he did a good job negotiating The Machakos Treaty in the south of the country in July 2002. But he can live off that only so long.
So next year, if anyone is still alive in Darfur, maybe Sylvester can make a movie about Rambo parachuting into Khartoum, mapping out coordinates and having the Marines drop a few Daisy Cutters where they belong.
Maybe the next President of the United States will get the picture.
