Bashir Is Deceitful Propaganda

Award-winning film on 1982 Lebanon massacre looks plenty familiar

(NEWSER) - Israel’s Gaza assault is slipping from US front pages, yet ironically, Waltz With Bashir, an Israeli animated film about the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war, is taking America by storm, earning mountains of critical praise and a Golden Globe. The parallels between that atrocity and the current conflict are striking, Gary Kamiya writes for Salon. More»

Billy Crystal brings the same old stuff

(NEWSER) - Last night's Oscars, like its Best Picture, was a throwback to a different time in film history. And though the show may have topped last year's Anne Hathaway-James Franco fiasco, it was boring and tired throughout:

• "The whole night looked like an AARP pep rally," writes Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times . "For a town that prides itself on tinsel and titillation, the night was pretty tame." "It all looked very familiar," but that "is perhaps necessary when so few of the nominated films are."

'A Separation' beat out 'Footnote' for best foreign film

(NEWSER) - Iran's rulers rarely acknowledge the country's much-lauded film industry, which hard-liners revile as a bastion of liberals and dissidents, and the Academy Awards weren't legally shown in Iran. But that didn't stop them from gloating over A Separation's win for Best Foreign Film—particularly its triumph over the Israeli film Footnote, the AP reports. State-run TV praised the film for "leaving behind" a film from the "Zionist regime." More»

Or, Natalie Portman: From Black Swan to Thor

(NEWSER) - This year has seen many an Oscar winner in less-than-deserving films, from Tom Hanks in Larry Crowne to Frances McDormand in Transformers. Over at Grantland , Lane Brown averaged the Rotten Tomatoes scores of all an actor’s films since the Oscar victory—first through 2010, then through this year. The difference—measured in “cubas” (sorry, Mr. Gooding)—reveals how much the actor tainted his or her Oscar this year. And the winners are: More»

Exchange of fire at border may have been over tree removal

(NEWSER) - Three Lebanese soldiers, one Israeli soldier, and a Lebanese journalist were killed as Israeli and Lebanese troops fired on each other near the border today in their most serious confrontation since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. The clash began when Israeli troops tried to remove a tree near or across the border, according to an al-Jazeera correspondent. Lebanese troops fired warning shots, and the Israelis responded by shelling a border town, a security source told Reuters. One shell hit a house in the village. More»