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Justice, 146 years later ‘Historical court’ exonerates Nisqually Chief Leschi as watchers cheer ROB CARSON; The News Tribune Last updated: December 11th, 2004 07:21 AM (PST) To no one’s great surprise, a “historical court” that met Friday to re-examine the trial and execution of the Nisqually Chief Leschi found the martyred Indian leader was unjustly convicted. After listening to nearly four hours of testimony from historical experts and tribal representatives, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry Alexander huddled briefly with six other members of a special judicial panel and returned with this announcement: “Chief Leschi should not have been tried...

Oliver Stone has been out of the limelight for a long time, having gone five years between major theatrical releases since the 1999 football film "Any Given Sunday." The delay could be due to his turning slightly crazy, including an October 2001 panel discussion where he suggested Sept. 11 happened because the Hollywood studios are run by six "princes" that wouldn't let him make a film about Martin Luther King. Christopher Hitchens spoke for many when he summarized that Stone had "lost it." In November, Stone proved Hitchens' point by releasing "Alexander," as in Alexander the Great, the Macedonian conqueror....

The box office flop of “Alexander” is cause for celebration. That Stone’s pretentious film debuted at a weak sixth place—well behind the animated “The Incredibles” and “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie”—is even better.Not because of its debatable portrayal of “Alexander the Great” as bisexual.But because “Alexander’s” director, Oliver Stone, and star, Angelina Jolie, are Soft On Terrorism.  Extremely soft.  Especially Palestinian terrorism.OLIVER STONE’S TERRORIST BUDDIESRemember the 2002 Passover Massacre, when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up 29 innocent, elderly Israelis celebrating the important Jewish holiday?Right after that, Oliver Stone paid homage to Yasser Arafat, visiting the now-deceased Palestinian terrorist-in-chief at his...

A movie as bad as Oliver Stone's Alexander usually would not be worth notice, but Stone has indulged several cinematic and political pathologies that are illuminating. Some of the film's flaws are curiously old-fashioned, redolent of studio schlock of the 1950s — the bombastic musical score, Angeline Jolie's pointless Elvira "Mistress of the Night" accent; the heavy-handed, stale Oedipal psychology, complete with snakes; and the corny dialogue whose purple patches sound positively late Victorian. And Colin Farrel's waxed legs and dye job are as embarrassing as Richard Burton's were in his turn as the Macedonian conqueror. More interesting is what...

With two star-studded motion pictures featuring Colin Farrel and Leonardo DiCaprio, Alexander the Great seems to be suddenly all the rage. In keeping with the spirit of Hollywood, the movies will probably focus on Alexander's impressive military career, his colossal battles with the Persian Empire and his sordid personal life. What will be overlooked are the fascinating interactions Alexander had with the Jewish people and the complex relationship that developed between the Greeks and the Jews that set the stage for the story of Chanukah.A LITTLE BACKGROUNDAlexander, born in 356BCE, was the son of Phillip II (382-336BCE), the King of...

“Few modern historians accept Alexander’s greatness upon his military abilities alone, and none, certainly, upon the pomp which he acquired as Lord of Lords of the Persians and as Pharaoh, the god-king of Egypt. More noteworthy to them—as it was to may of his contemporaries—is Alexander’s surprising cosmopolitanism. By his colonization, Alexander spread the Greek language, Greek social institutions, and Greek culture from Athens to India. He seems to have envisioned a new culture rooted in Hellenism but united with the ancient civilizations of the Near east and any other area which might be added to the empire of the...

The failure of "Alexander," the newspaper wrote, has "brutally exposed the cultural and moral divide which slices America in two." Uh-huh. "It is being suggested that a film about a global warrior with dyed blond hair and waxed legs was never going to conquer an America fresh out of a presidential election in which gay rights became a major issue." Is there another America they might be talking about? Major issue? Brutally exposed? The last thing an American movie brutally exposed was Kathy Bates in the hot-tub scene of "About Schmidt."

A large part of "Alexander's" downfall is attributable to the moral distastefulness of the subject matter. Alexander the Great is played as a mop-top, indecisive bisexual by Farrell. During the course of the movie, Farrell kisses a eunuch full on the mouth and exchanges numerous lingering glances with boyhood chum and grown-up gay lover Hephaistion (played by an eye-liner-wearing Jared Leto). Anthony Hopkins, playing Ptolemy, intones: "It was said ... that Alexander was never defeated, except by Hephaistion's thighs."

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Oliver Stone had a really rotten week. His huge-budget epic drama “Alexander,” starring Colin Farrell, Angeline Jolie, Val Kilmer, and Anthony Hopkins, premiered to critical raspberries and popular apathy. “Alexander” reportedly cost over $150 million to make, and over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, it garnered a mere $21,837,517, finishing sixth at the box office. In all likelihood, Warner Bros., which produced the film, will still recoup its costs, despite the probability that “Alexander” won’t come close to $100 million in domestic grosses. Europeans are expected to turn out in high numbers to see the Macedonian wunderkind; they turned out en...

Recent studies have also raised the question of whether he was a hopeless alcoholic (or perhaps an almost sacrificial votary of a cult devoted to Dionysus, the god of wine) and of whether he was just another bloodthirsty conqueror. But note this first: This man really did exist, and these events really did occur. Our sources may be fragmentary and inconsistent and contradictory, but they involve us in disputes about real people and events. For the next four weeks, you won't be able to go into a supermarket without hearing pseudo-devotional music concerning an episode 2,000 years ago that may...

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A short review of Oliver Stone's Alexander the Great Well, I thought it was simply terrible. The film goes on for nearly three hours, but we hear nothing of what either supporters or detractors of Alexander, both ancient and modern, have agreed were the central issues of his life. Did he really believe in a unity of mankind, and were his mass mixed marriages, Persian dress, and kowtowing cynical, sincere, or delusions of megalomania? We see nothing of the siege of Tyre, Gaza, much less Thebes or even the burning of Persepolis. Other than the talking head Ptolemy, none of...

"Shlockbuster!" "Borefest!" "Trainwreck!" Oliver Stone's gay sand-and-sandal epic "Alexander" got a thorough critical roasting for its Thanksgiving opening — and Times Square moviegoers yesterday seemed equally allergic to the toga turkey. Dubbed a work of artistic suicide by most critics, the $155-million flick appeared to be headed for the box-office abyss after a limp Wednesday/Thursday take of just over $8 million. "It's garbage," a bewildered Benny Fosco, 28, said after seeing the film at Loews E-Walk yesterday. "I want my money back. This is a hype. Phony as heck." The Warner Brothers release stirred controversy when it emerged that...

If you played a word-association game with "Alexander the Great," you'd probably come up with "conqueror," "king," "warrior," "legend," "despot," "wastrel" or "killer." Unfortunately, Oliver Stone has chosen to build his epic of the Macedonian military genius around a word highly unlikely to make the list: "crybaby." In Stone's view, this is a highly neurotic young man whose emotions, far from being repressed or disciplined as one would expect of a great soldier of the 4th century B.C., are worn on his sleeve, except, of course, that he doesn't have sleeves, the shirt still being two millennia down the road....

Aristotle’s dictum still stands: “He who asserts must also prove.”  When you make a claim, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that claim.  Let’s ask some clear, practical questions in light of Oliver Stone’s Alexander:  Did Alexander ever kiss a man on the mouth?  No evidence.  Did he ever play a passive or active role in same sex sexual unions?  No evidence.  Did he have sex of any kind with the eunuch Bagoas?  No evidence. Did he ever play footsie with men or boys at a sports bar? No evidence.  Did he have sex with Hephaestion or...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - While critics savaged Oliver Stone's long-waited epic "Alexander," novelist and social activist Gore Vidal rallied to the $160 million movie's defense saying it was "barrier-breaking" because of its frank depiction of bisexuality. Stone's film opened on Wednesday to near universal pans from critics who called it everything from a "noble failure" to an "indifferent epic." The Charlotte, North Carolina, Observer said the movie was "an act of hubris so huge, that, in Alexander's time, it would draw lightning bolts from contemptuous gods." Vidal said the critics failed to see it was a seminal movie because of...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Filmmaker Oliver Stone, whose "Alexander" got a lukewarm reception from critics in America, said Thursday he thought the three-hour epic would get a better welcome in Europe. Stone visited the Stockholm International Film Festival to pick up a lifetime achievement award and promote "Alexander," which was having its European premiere in Stockholm. "I think one of the reasons I am being honored here in Sweden is that (Europeans) tend to see me a little differently than they do in the U.S.," Stone told reporters. He said the film "is not an easy movie, but then I've never...

"Alexander lived in a more honest time," Stone told Playboy magazine. As you do. "We go into his bisexuality. It may offend some people, but sexuality in those days was a different thing. Pre-Christian morality. Young boys were with boys when they wanted to be."But Stone said he had no interest in showing gay sex scenes. "You only need five words. Alexander says, 'Stay with me tonight, Hephaistion,' and you get it. If you don't get it, f*** you, it's your problem."

Not content to direct a merely mediocre historical epic, filmmaker Oliver Stone marshals all of his talent as a provocateur to direct a colossally bad one in "Alexander," starring Irishman Colin Farrell as the legendary Macedonian warlord. It's a shame, too, because mediocrity is so tantalizingly within the director's reach. Beginning with Alexander's childhood around 350 B.C., Stone drafts a standard character arc involving Alexander's accomplished but ineffectual father, King Philip (Val Kilmer); his domineering, snake-charming mother, Olympias (Angelina Jolie, butchering vowels like Natasha from "Rocky and Bullwinkle"); and his precocious success as a field commander after rising to power...