Che Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The Soloist
It seemed like the sort of project to explode with praise and critical acclaim -- Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx in the story of a talented homeless musician who once went to Julliard. The reality, however, didn't live up to expectation. In her review, Jette Kernion said: "the overall film isn't compelling, and the plot falls into the easy traps of traditional melodrama." Still ... Rent it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Obsessed
One of the classic cases of reviewer v. audience. The story of a psycho Beyonce didn't charm the critical eye, and Scott even said: "Obsessed feels a lot like a refugee from the Lifetime Network that just happened to have a budget." Nevertheless, it exploded. I say Skip It ... but I have a feeling that won't matter. Also on Blu-ray.

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400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

The Oscars are on Sunday and awards season is almost over. The flavor of the month this season has been almost all war movies and biopics, as it has been roughly since 9/11. Though this year we have the occasional mention of Hurricane Katrina (which kind of falls in both categories). For example, Baz Luhrmann couldn't bring himself to make pure entertainment like he did with Moulin Rougue. This time he had to make Australia (110 screens), which starts out as a lightweight entertainment, and then morphs into a heavy war movie, and drags on too long in the process.

At least three movies managed to combine biopic and war elements: Edward Zwick's Defiance (442 screens) managed to please some viewers, but most critics as well as the Academy voters couldn't get past its awkward filmmaking to embrace the powerful true story hidden somewhere deep inside. On paper, Steven Soderbergh's Che (20 screens) seemed tailor-made for Oscars. Both the director and star (Benicio Del Toro) are former Oscar-winners, and the film runs four hours and encompasses both war elements and a true story. Many critics went bonkers for it, but Academy voters resisted it, possibly because of the length, but more likely because it doesn't spell out precisely what it wants you to think. It's a hugely complex, very intelligent, slightly aloof essay-like film rather than an emotional rise-and-fall story like most biopics.

The beige square on the Sundance schedule for today -- "Sneak Preview," 6:15 at the Eccles -- was, over the past few days, filled in with a thousand brushstrokes of rumor and intimation and heard-it-from-a-friend-who-heard-it-from-a-friend whisperings. The first murmuring I heard to make that "Sneak Preview" a must-see was that the presentation was going to be an evening with Steven Soderbergh, a night of clips and conversation -- until that proposition, exciting as it was, was supplanted by another rumor: That the Eccles Sneak was going to be Soderbergh showing The Girlfriend Experience, his new run-and-gun, shot-with-the-4K-Red-digital-camera, adult-actress-in-the-lead-role, largely-improvised drama about the life of a New York escort. The rumors, for once, were true.

Soderbergh introduced the film with, as he put it, "a few caveats" as a "work in progress" projecting a 1080p reduction of the 4K file. In 1989, Soderbergh gave Sundance, and then us, sex, lies and videotape; in 2009, he offers sex, truth, and digital video. Much fuss was made when Soderbergh announced this film, and even more was made when he cast adult actress (the polite euphemism for 'porn star,' and that itself a polite euphemism for 'someone who has sex on-camera for money') Sasha Grey in the lead role as a Manhattan call girl who offers not just rushed release but the more refined "girlfriend experience" -- a suite of services including, as we see in the opener, fine red wine and Marc Jacobs black dresses, soft kisses and small talk, and many more things, an experience that goes far beyond sex. And yet still includes it.

400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

This year we've got at least three biopics jockeying for space in the year-end awards, just like every year. Biopics continue alternately to fascinate and disappoint me. I've already written at length about how these movies tend to be roughly the same, following much the same format and formula (and brilliantly spoofed in last year's Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story). And I've written about how they're instant award-magnets, causing nearly every artist in Hollywood to scour every last barrel bottom for any famous person's life story that hasn't yet been filmed. So for them, here's a handy dandy field guide to getting awards.

Best Bet: War heroes or political figures. In 1970, was any other movie going to beat Patton for a bunch of Oscars? Robert Altman's M*A*S*H may have been more popular and more artistic, but it didn't have Patton. In 1982, Gandhi beat out the infinitely superior Blade Runner. Schindler's List (1993) counts too. So does Erin Brockovich (2000). And this year, though I'm not ready to bet the farm just yet, it looks like Milk (309 screens) could be the big winner. Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon (205 screens) will probably get some nominations this year, but it's hard for old Tricky Dick to stack up against Harvey. Exceptions to the rule: you have to clearly define your character as either a hero or a villain. Sorry Oliver Stone, no Nixon or W. Malcolm X (1992) came close, but it was a bit too subversive for voters. Forest Whitaker's award-winning Idi Amin was actually the villain of that film, so his purpose was clear. This year Steven Soderbergh's Che (2 screens) is worthy, but a bit too complex for voters, failing to explain whether or not they should actually like Che.

Many of this year's foreign and indie releases showed up on some of the more obscure top ten lists of 2008, and will no doubt be rolling out across the country in various irregular patterns all year long. For example, Steven Soderbergh's Che turned up on more than half a dozen lists that I saw (including our own James Rocchi's), yet most people haven't seen it yet. I have seen it, and I doubt it'll be sticking around long, though I greatly admire it. It's a deliberate attempt to subvert the current biopic formula, and though it's somewhat cold and ultimately a bit one-sided, it's also endlessly mesmerizing. Silent Light, the newest drama by the great and peculiar Mexican director Carlos Reygadas (Battle in Heaven) is also due to show up this month. Matteo Garrone's Italian gangster movie Gomorrah and Steve McQueen's British based-on-a-true-story drama Hunger have also placed well on several top ten and awards lists, and will be turning up in February and March.

The two-time Cannes champs Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have a new one, Lorna's Silence, which I haven't seen, but that has a very nice poster. (It's supposed to be coming around in June.) And James Gray (The Yards, We Own the Night), who for some mysterious reason is quite beloved in France, opened his new film, Two Lovers -- starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix -- there to great acclaim. It's due here in February. And one of my contacts tells me that Roy Andersson's outstanding deadpan Swedish comedy You, the Living, which I saw early in 2008, will finally open to theaters sometime in 2009. I'm still waiting for a release date for Kathryn Bigelow's war film Hurt Locker, but it has enough buzz that I'm not worried. I'm a little more concerned about John Woo's Chinese epic Red Cliff, which will hopefully return that master to his former glory; so far there's no U.S. release date -- and no indication that the entire, uncut film will make it over here.

(We're reposting our review of Che from the Cannes Film Festival to coincide with the film's theatrical release)

By: James Rocchi

Plenty of people are going to be talking about Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara biographical films -- The Argentine and Guerrilla, screened at Cannes tonight as one presentation simply called Che -- over the next few months. There will be arguments about the politics of the films; there will be discussions of whether or not the films have any emotional center; there will be questions of if, when the film gets some kind of U.S. distribution deal, exactly how they should be released -- two films released staggered throughout the last half of the year or cut down to one three-hour film or shown as a long, big double bill that presents the separate films back-to-back. There will be talk of if Benicio Del Toro deserves a Best Actor nomination for his work as Guevara, or if Soderbergh's portrait of Che is too flat to engage us; I can easily imagine discussions of the look and feel of the film, shot in high-resolution digital with all the craft and care Soderbergh usually brings to shooting on film. I can't predict how all of these questions and possibilities will play out, but I can say -- and will say -- what a rare pleasure it is to have a film (or films) that, in our box-office obsessed, event-movie, Oscar-craving age, is actually worth talking about on so many levels.

We've got another bushel or so of trailers for films just over the horizon. How promising are they? You tell us.

Monsters Vs. Aliens
Dreamworks latest animated feature has a group of terrestrial monsters (a blob, a fish man, a giant bug, a human-sized cockroach/mad scientist and a very tall woman named Susan) fighting off an alien attack. This homage to 1950s sci fi features the voices of Seth Rogen, Will Arnet, Paul Rudd, Hugh Laurie, Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert and looks flat out awesome. It opens on March 27 but I really want to see it NOW.

Pink Panther 2
While it's hard for me to work up much enthusiasm for a sequel to a remake I didn't see which was based on a series that had pretty much run out of steam by the end, Steve Martin's Inspector Clouseau does have an endearing charm and I found myself hoping the damn fool doesn't get himself killed falling down stairs, impersonating the pope and brawling with eight year old karate students. Also, this time Inspector Dreyfus is played by John Cleese who I think is one of the funniest guys on the planet. Pink Panther 2 hits theaters on February 6.

Cadillac Records
Set in 1950s Chicago, this one follows the lives of musical legends such as Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf and Elvis Presley, with a cast that includes Beyonce Knowles, Adrien Brody and Mos Def. Cadillac Records comes out on December 5.

You know, if I didn't know any better, I would say that Steven Soderbergh was having a bit of a 'creative crisis' lately (talk about a guy who is all over the map). But, it hasn't stopped him from taking on more 'traditional projects' like a good old-fashioned mob film. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Soderbergh is teaming with Paramount to produce an adaptation of Joaquin "Jack" Garcia's true-life mob story, Making Jack Falcone. According to THR, Soderbergh will not direct, but will be "on board to read drafts of the script and offer other guidance on the project."

Che collaborator Peter Buchman has already signed to adapt the story of an FBI agent sent to take down the infamous Gambino crime family. The book is based on Garcia's (also known as Jack Falcone) life undercover, and how he managed to climb through the ranks of the FBI to end up as one of one of the few undercover agents in history to almost become a 'made man'. Garcia's life is ready-made for big screen treatment; between his numerous aliases and the lure of a good underworld story, there is plenty to recommend this role to any Oscar-hungry actor.

It's a bit of a disappointment that Soderbergh will only be producing this time around, but when you take a look at the guy's schedule for the coming year, its not like you can blame him. No sooner had he finished his earnest political drama, Che, before he was off to work on the whistle-blowing thriller The Informant with Matt Damon. But, as if that wasn't enough for him, there is still the small matter of a 3D rock musical about Cleopatra, a Liberace biopic starring Michael Douglas and The Girlfriend Experience with porn star Sasha Grey. Like I said, the man likes to mix it up.

Who do you think should take over where Soderbergh is going to leave off? Sound off below...

"Darren did not put a strip pole in his office." -- Marisa Tomei.

Does the New York Film Festival still matter? The 46th edition opened last Friday, and while the fest may not have the celebrity cachet and discovery intent of Sundance and Cannes, or the welcoming populist mentality of Toronto, it stubbornly insists on being recognized as the gatekeeper for all that is worthwhile in world cinema.

Nonetheless, press conferences with a big-name American director and a resurrected American star (and his fetching, Academy Award-winning co-star) have stolen the spotlight during the first week of the festival. Looking somewhat like a guerilla himself, Steven Soderbergh arrived to promote his four-hour epic Che, starring Benicio del Toro as the revolutionary leader. According to the director, "There are a million Ches -– he means something different to everyone."

That attitude has irked some critics; Karina Longworth at Spout felt that Soderbergh's "unwillingness to make a statement may be a major part of the problem." On the other hand, Glenn Kenny of Some Came Running opined: "Silly me, I imagined that such an approach constituted a statement sufficient unto itself, but apparently not." The film will get a rare "roadshow" treatment when it opens in December: trotted around in its four-hour entirety to selected cities for one week only by IFC Films in December, complete with elevated ticket prices and a fancy giveaway program of some sort. Dreamgirls for the intelligentsia?

After the jump: The Wrestler and two fresh new films about those darn kids.

It's hard to imagine for the few exhausted stragglers still going from film to film, but the end is in sight for the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Joining us this week on The Rocchi Review is critic, journalist, analyst and man-about-town David Poland, best known for his work at Movie City News and The Hot Blog, as well as his "Lunch with David" videocasts. Which films got a boost out of Toronto? What's it like to work at the Festival as a journalist? How crazy is it to feel 'behind' in covering movies that may not open for at least another three months? And what classic graphic novel did David dream of finally seeing adapted for the big screen after catching Waltz with Bashir? We talk about all those topics, Che, Slumdog Millionaire, Rachel Getting Married and much much more this week, all live from the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Cinematical's podcast is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



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