The authors you list were "Communists" were from a different time. Depending on their level of devotion, they would at worst fall under the useful idiot category. I can't see an American who had a problem with poverty like Steinbeck french kissing scum like Castro in the fashion of Spielberg or Stone. Especially in light of the concrete evidence that Spielberg and Stone have of Castro's crimes against the Cuban people(100 million dead from this idealogy-with London, the evils of Communism were not yet as obvious and the full fledged slaughter had not been made common knowledge-thanks to the NYT and it's Pulitzer Prize winning Duranty). It sounds to me like you are a cineaste and can judge a work on it's merits, divorced from the background of the creator. I find that difficult. Leni Riefenstahl comes to mind. I am comparing Castro to Hitler. He is just as evil, fortunately he doesn't have the means Hitler did. Speilberg's devotion to him is sickening. He thinks that a crime was committed against the Jews but he could care less about the Cubans in Castro's gulags. I think my problem is that I feel that movies have supplanted the written or intelligent spoken word in power. Schindler's List is a good example. You are right, you can't, indeed shouldn't, compare it to Schindler's List. Shoah is history. Schindler's List is entertainment. Many people saw SL. Nobody saw Shoah. That is a tragedy. The Holocaust should never be viewed as "entertainment". I realize this example is rather extreme. Ultimately, I really despise Hollywood. When a Hollywood elite such as Sean Penn or Amanda Peet condemn American culture or America as the problem in the world, when it's obvious that what an average, fundementalist Muslim father hates most about America is the crap that Hollywood spews out, I get frustrated. When Speilberg, who has to know what Cubans who have been tortured under Castro's regime have to say about him, still praises him or Stone actually makes a movie celebrating him, it's too much. I suppose that these sentiments account for my taste. Although in truth, I have never seen a movie of his that I truly liked. Even beofre I became political. He caters to a particular mentality. "AI" didn't interest me. "LA Confidential" did. No acounting for taste I suppose.