I lucked out with a couple of prime, mid-theater seats here at Grauman’s Chinese for tonight’s heavily anticipated screening of “Che.” Suffice it to say I won’t be posting for another five hours at best. I’ll try to hammer out something on the screening and after party either later tonight or in the A.M. For now, nothing but excitement. A once-in-a-lifetime event.
Comments
4 responses to “Awaiting ‘Che’ at the Chinese”
I thought the first film was fascinating, but was disappointed in the second one. As interesting as the depiction of the building revolution in Cuba was, the thing that really made it work was intercutting it with Che’s appearance at the UN; this gave the whole revolutionary effort a context, and the narration gave insight into the scenes about Cuba. I didn’t like the Argentine that much though. I think I know what Soderbergh was going for, but he failed to sustain my interest for another 2 hours of Che traveling through the jungle. I thought the stuff after he got captured was very good (esp. the conversation with the guard and his execution, which was kind of extraordinary), but that was the last 10-20 minutes of the movie, not enough to redeem what came before.
PS: Is it just me or did the stuff shot on digital look really bad (at least on occasion) for the first hour or so? It didn’t bother me for the rest of the film but some of the stuff in the earlier passages looked really subpar to me.
Err whoops, looks like I got the titles mixed up. I meant to say I didn’t like Guerilla much.
I personally was a bit more taken with “Guerrilla,” though I agree it’s fairly slow going — but I found Del Toro’s work more nuanced and affecting in the second film.
I still think the films need to sit with me for a while longer before I can form any concrete opinions, however.
Truthfully I think both films are utter failures. But I don’t have the energy to get into it yet…