The Perfect Hypocrite?

Producer condemns Hollywood films

The Mexican producer of the third Harry Potter film has called Hollywood movies worthless.


"Hollywood is a machine, 90% of whose product is garbage," said Alfonso Cuaron, the producer credited with the success of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Hollywood makes "the world's worst cinema," he told reporters.

Cuaron also rejected being labelled as part of Hollywood, after working on the third film based on the adventure books about the young magician Harry Potter written by British author JK Rowling.

"That distinction is as offensive and sad as saying that the (US) Drug Enforcement Administration certifies other countries for their cooperation against trafficking, when we are really talking about the number-one producer (of drugs) in the world," he said.

He went on to say that although there are some good things about Hollywood, it makes the worst cinema in the world.

And that "makes it a cultural crime to encourage Mexican filmmakers and those of other Latin America countries to produce films with the only goal of entering those markets.

"Why should one be proud of reaching Hollywood?" he asked.

He called on Latinos to support Latin American films.

"Enough of saying that Latin American films are not good," he said.

Cuaron took two films to the recent Cannes film festival: The Assassination of Richard Nixon and Cronicas (Chronicles) by Ecuadoran director Sebastian Cordero.

Cuaron came to prominence in 1991 with Solo Con tu Pareja (Only with Your Partner), then in 1995 with the Hollywood production A Little Princess, and in 2001 with the road movie Y tu Mama Tambien.