Hollywood: It's one thing for Oliver Stone to release a propaganda film glorifying Venezuela's dictator and let it bomb at the box office. It's quite another to see it dis tributed as "history" in schools, which is Stone's real aim.

One has to wonder why a big-league filmmaker like Oliver Stone, who's capable of producing good movies, would waste his time on a $2 million documentary called "South of the Border." It's nothing but a gooey valentine to Venezuela's failing dictator, Hugo Chavez, comparable to Soviet-style propaganda.

Chavez is portrayed as an adored leader who's been given a bum rap by Fox News and the editorial page of the New York Times.

Chavez's claims of ending poverty are taken at face value while his growing ties to Iran are dismissed as paranoia. What's more, Chavez's retrograde Marxism, which has left Venezuela the only economically shrinking nation in the region, somehow represents the "consensus" of Latin America. Stone may want to check recent election results, which show a turn to the right in several countries.

Sure, documentaries make less than feature films at the box office, but it would take a lot to do worse than this one.

According to Variety, the film drew just $18,600 from 20 theatres in Venezuela over 12 days, a cold shoulder from the very citizens who, according to Stone, revere Chavez as a hero.

In the U.S., Box Office Mojo reports that the film drew a hefty $21,545 in its opening weekend, and a worldwide total of $125,000.

Obviously, Stone did this partly because of his man crush on Chavez, just as he's done hagiographic films about Cuba's Fidel Castro. Stone gushed about the bloated, washed-up dictator's "energy" and described him more than once as "like a bull."

But Stone also revealed at Friday night's showing in Santa Monica that the documentary wasn't about box office returns. No, he's more concerned about showing it through "the cultural circuit" to impressionable audiences with little knowledge of Latin America.

"We've got demand from a lot of universities," Stone said, for "as many as possible to see it." It'll play on TV next year too, he said.

Who's paying for this flop? Stone's Web site claims the $2 million film was financed by Muse Productions, not Chavez. It's possible, but Muse's Web site doesn't list Stone's film in its list of works.

Last September, during the Venice Film Festival, the press reported that Chavez himself said he put up the funds.

"Do you really think Stone would put up $2 million of his own money for a man sitting on a trillion dollars in oil profits?" asks Venezuelan film producer and human rights activist Thor Halvorssen.

If he did, then distributing the film to schools makes it something more nefarious than Stone's desire to be a new Leni Riefenstahl — it becomes foreign government propaganda masquerading as "art."

Chavez already has done a lot of meddling in U.S. affairs through his cheap oil programs and cash to immigration activists. If he's also using Stone as a pawn, it ought to stay out of our schools.

Halvorssen notes that Iraq's Saddam Hussein used to fund such propaganda through U.S. activists. "One day we will learn if Chavez has, too," he said. "If he has, I hope Stone pays a price for this.