That's basically all you need to you know about "The Last King of Scotland." This movie is terrifyingly good and takes a different approach to the whole "horrors of Africa" theme that has somehow actually managed to infiltrate Hollywood and even mainstream culture recently. The movie centers on an intense and extremely personal portrayal of Idi Amin, the maniacal dictator of 70s Uganda. Like, other stuff about the movie is good--the other actors/actresses do a sweet job, the cinematography is frigging sweet (the whole thing is actually shot in Uganda, with a few shots of Scotland, and it is gorgeous), etc. But the real story is you totally get inside Amin's head. So, whereas many of these Africa movies (Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda, etc) tend to give you like 2 hours of intermittent horror scenes consisting of 8 year old kids spraying people with machine guns, street riots, people writhing around in masses on filthy "hospital" floors, and other highly disturbing scenarios, The Last King gives you 2 hours of very heavy psychological and personal encounters between 2 or 3 people that are relatively sheltered from the horrors around them, and then concentrates all of the violent, visceral potential that is inherent in any story of African tragedy into a single moment that comes dangerously close to being completely unbearable.

Anyway, fuck all that. The movie's phenomenal, but what's more interesting is its mere existence. Since 2004, Hollywood has been popping Africa movies out like babies--first Hotel Rwanda, then the Constant Gardener, and now Blood Diamond and The Last King. What exactly is the meaning of all this? Because, last time I checked, no one gives a fuck that 20,000 people die every single day purely because they are too poor to stay alive. I mean, the Times seems to have no problem printing the same story every day about Iraq--"a car bomb blew 36 people to hell yesterday and killed 2 marines"--and the first world as a whole has been completely obsessed with terrorism since 9/11, despite the fact that over the course of the past several decades of modern terrorism, not 50,000 people have been killed by terrorists. Granted, these things suck too. But fuck! 20,000 people every day?!?!? Why does this not make front page headlines at least once a month?

The fact that it doesn't, and never has, makes this Hollywood Africa-fest seem downright surreal. But, I have to admit I continue to be amazed by the extent to which this general issue has entered the public consciousness. It indeed seems to be a new day. Bono is running rampant trying to get people to think about this stuff, Bill Gates is doing spreadsheets and throwing money all over the place (and will soon "retire" to pursue this end full-time and give away the rest of his fortune--praise Jesus!!), Hollywood's making these movies, and you even have the Gap with it's Red campaign thingamabobber. One might even hazard the notion that giving a fuck about poor people is now (double gasp!)....cool. This trend, coupled with the fact that people suddenly know what climate change is and actually believe stuff should be done about it, is shocking and refreshingly encouraging. Are we on the verge of a new 60s-esque revolution, or what? I have no fucking clue, but I think that after 25 solid years of extreme conservatism in government and culture (the backlash to the 60s), people are fucking tired of it. It's high time we get our shit together and embark on a radical alt energy development plan, and it's also high time we give the requisite cash and expertise to developing nations that want our help and that demonstrate that they can improve the lives of their people with it rather than tricking out the homes and cars of like 6 really powerful dudes. Ending poverty makes all the economic sense in the world, because it would be like injecting another China or India into the global economy--besides the fact that doing so is a moral duty for people like us who have money coming out of our ears.

This rant could continue on for days, were I not humane enough to spare my faithful readers (all zero of you) of the bore. Maybe that's why these movies and other things, like Live 8, work so well......because who the fuck wants to look at the paper every day and be reminded that 20,000 people died yesterday, and the same thing is in the process of happening again today and will also happen tomorrow? Answer: no one. We all have to stop thinking about others long enough to attend to our own needs, including having a good-ass time whenever possible, or we'd go insane. But no one has a problem with sitting in a theater for a couple of hours every once in a while and watching a film that is undeniably art in its own right but that also reminds you "hey, fucker. don't forget about this." It's still easy to forget, being the ADD Americans that we are. But the sheer fact that large numbers of people are now becoming receptive to this information is a good thing. Yes, Darfur continues to careen wildly out of control (and incidentally has now matched the number of deaths Amin was responsible for in Uganda in the 70s). Yes, people are struggling to keep the issue afloat. But the attention this fiasco has gotten is actually startling, and ultimately the only way anything will get done is if people simply make clear to their governments that something needs to be done. It would be nice if Hu Jintao had to answer to anybody about anything, and that somebody happened to be someone who cared about Darfur, because China has more leverage (via trade) over Sudan than anyone. But, we'll see what happens with that. And, I'm going to stop now. This movie has been going for long enough and all zero of us need a fuckin break....