Free Republic

“Green Book” is the worst best picture Oscar winner since “Crash,” and I don’t make the comparison lightly. Like that 2005 movie, Peter Farrelly’s interracial buddy dramedy is insultingly glib and hucksterish, a self-satisfied crock masquerading as an olive branch. It reduces the long, barbaric and ongoing history of American racism to a problem, a formula, a dramatic equation that can be balanced and solved. “Green Book” is an embarrassment; the film industry’s unquestioning embrace of it is another.

<p>LOS ANGELES — Viggo Mortensen (search) was never supposed to be the man who would be king.</p> <p>When director Peter Jackson (search) started filming "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy in October 1999, he had another actor cast as the warrior Aragorn, a reluctant hero whose courage and royal bloodline help defeat the ancient evil of Sauron.</p>

"Since 9-11, more people have died in Afghanistan and Iraq than in New York that day — and for not a very good reason." TOKYO — Wherever actor Viggo Mortensen goes, people ask him about the analogy between the U.S. fight against terrorism and the epic battle between good and evil in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The comparison has received a lot of press particularly in the U.S. where some have even gone so far as to suggest Christopher Lee's character — the evil Lord Saruman — looks like Osama bin Laden (does that mean George W Bush...

December 4, 2002, Charlie Rose (PBS) -- Viggo Mortenson. He is the actor who plays Strider (Aragorn of Arathorn) in the Ring Trilogy. He is, he says, an American. He appeared on the program with Peter Jackson, the director, and Elijah Wood, who is Frodo. Wearing a t-shirt he made himself, which said "No more blood for oil,"....(snip) For Complete Article Please Click Here.

December 4, 2002, Charlie Rose (PBS) -- Viggo Mortenson. He is the actor who plays Strider (Aragorn of Arathorn) in the Ring Trilogy. He is, he says, an American. He appeared on this program with Peter Jackson, the director and Elijah Wood, who is Frodo. Wearing a t-shirt that he made himself, which said "No more blood for oil....(snip)For Complete Article, Please Click Here.