Road to Guantanamo Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The Road to Guantanamo is a thoroughly engrossing, sufficiently cathartic, but frustratingly one-sided indictment of the American military's appalling treatment of foreign "enemy combatants".  Michael Winterbottom (coming off Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, which might have been inexcusably silly if it hadn't been unbelievably dull), co-directed with longtime collaborator Mat Whitecross, and the two combine documentary-style interview footage with haunting, disturbing, and surprisingly beautiful reenactments, to tell the story of the Tipton Three -- three British-born Muslims mistaken for Taliban and imprisoned at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for over two years. Winterbottom, the renowned directorial chameleon whose other art house oddity of 2005 was the concert film/episodic porn 9 Songs, proves once again that if anyone is better at polarizing an audience, nobody does it with more style. He's got a potentially stunning piece of propaganda on his hands here -- it's just too bad he hasn't made a better film.

• Michael Winterbottom's controversial Berlin hit The Road to Guantanamo has been picked up for American distribution by Roadside Attractions, who plan to give the film its US premiere at Tribeca, and have it in theaters this summer. None of that multi-platform release action for this side of the Atlantic, but at least we get to see the thing.

• Did you know that Clint Eastwood has nine kids? And that one of them is an actor named Scott Reeves? Neither did I. Of course, if his Scott Reeves is the one the IMDB (there are actually two, but since one was born in 1966, I'm assuming he wouldn't be able to play a troubled teen), he's been in exactly one movie, so perhaps calling him an "actor" is going a bit far. Whatever his title, Reeves is joining the cast of P.D.R., as is Evan Ross, who will be making his debut in ATL later this month (and has apparently decided that it's a good career move to only appear in movies with three letter titles).

•  Man alive - Catherine Hardwicke's Nativity just gets better and better. In addition to its interesting story and kickass director, the movie's also got a cast with some serious acting chops. Already set to star is Oscar nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes, and Variety reports this morning that Shohreh Aghdashloo, Oscar-nominated for her supporting work in House of Sand and Fog, has been signed to play Saint Elizabeth (for those of you who are with me in heathen-dom, she's John the Baptist's mom).