In Contention

Tag: festivals

  • TORONTO: “Passchendaele” (***)

    PasschendaeleLet’s face it, we all wanted it to be the great Canadian film we have been waiting for for so long, the one that would become mainstream enough to make its mark on the box office charts and enjoy some praise from critics around North America. We wanted “Passchendaele” to be the great Canadian film that was also popular with mass audiences in the manner of Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.”

    And it’s a rare occurrence.  Two examples leap to mind.  “The Sweet Hereafter,” Atom Egoyan’s 1997 masterpiece, was the last universally acclaimed work of cinematic art out of this country, while “The Barbarian Invasions” took home an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

    Paul Gross, a bona fide stud of a Canadian movie star (but no Spielberg) has wanted to make “Passchendaele” since listening to the stories his grandfather used to tell him. The $21 million dollars he was given to start production was unheard of for a Canadian film, but to his credit every penny is up there on the screen. His recreation of the period is quite stunning, capturing the very essence of a small Canadian town circa 1917.

    Gross catapults his audience back to the muddy fields of the First World War, where soldiers sat and slept in cold, wet and muddy trenches, the smell and sights of death all around them, awaiting the enemy’s advance, awaiting hell to escape from the bowels of the earth. His work at the helm in these sequences is flawless, and though all war films are forever compared to what Spielberg accomplished in the summer of 1998, this was a very different war.  It was one lacking the technologies we had by the 1940s, a much more brutal and unforgiving conflict with almost barbaric weaponry. I mean, Jesus, bayonets?  Gas? Rocks? Whatever they could hit with or throw.

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  • ‘Che’ to be released in the U.S. by Magnolia Pictures?

    Benicio Del Toro in CheLou Lumenick is hearing some rumblings on the “Che” buyer situation in Toronto. From his New York Post blog:

    I’m hearing from an exhibition source that Mark Cuban’s Magnolia Pictures has signed to distribute Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” in the United States. The deal is expected to be announced shortly for the two-part biopic of the Argentine guerilla who worked with Fidel Castro starring Benecio del Toro, which premiered to mixed reviews in Cannes. A slightly shorter version — 4 hour 22 minutes total — will be showing at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals. NYFF will be screening “Che” at the 1100-seat Ziegfeld and don’t be surprised if that’s where this epic has a reserved-seat, Academy-qualification run beginning on December 12.

    10 p.m. update: A Magnolia rep says an announcement would be “premature,” but I hear they’re already booking theaters.

    Frankly, it sounds like a done deal to me. Magnolia is no powerhouse distributor but the company nurtures creativity and smaller efforts well enough. Each year it represents the Oscar-nominated short films, providing more exposure for them than they’d receive otherwise. But a major Oscar campaign is a tough row to hoe when it comes to a season packed with big dogs.

    We’ve got a new buzz page for the film here, by the way.

    We’ll see.

  • Patrick Goldstein goes after Variety’s Todd McCarthy

    Greg Kinnear\'s Flash of GeniusHere’s another one of those “bloggers and critics are the story” pieces that some people hate so much, but when there’s a dust-up, I like to grab the popcorn and rubberneck like anyone else.

    This time around it’s Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times, you know, the guy that hates bloggers but finds himself doing just that these days.  Anyway, he seems to have taken umbrage with Todd McCarthy’s recent review of “Flash of Genius,” the Universal Greg Kinnear starrer that I’m, frankly, interested in seeing, despite its apparent tendency toward the sentimental.

    Goldstein seems to think there is more to McCarthy’s hemming and hawing than a simple dissatisfaction with the material:

    McCarthy seems intent on taking down the movie, which debuted over the weekend at the Telluride Film Festival…

    As it turns out, “Flash of Genius” is one of the few movies that was invited to both Telluride and Toronto, putting it in distinguished company. My colleague John Horn was at Telluride and says the people he spoke to who saw the film — just regular festival-goers — were impressed by it. In fact, the Telluride screenings were so popular that the festival had to put on additional showings.

    My suspicion is that McCarthy’s real problem with the movie — as he implied in his Telluride wrap-up — is that film festivals shouldn’t be showing what he believes are everyday studio product. If so, he oughta get off the festival circuit, starting with Toronto, which, as always, is loaded with studio fare, some of it no doubt bland and forgettable. The L.A. Film Festival actually premiered a Michael Bay movie a few summers back, which gives you an idea of the length festivals will go to get attention these days.

    Well, there we are.  Two of the old MSM guys going at it.  If only McCarthy had his own blog, we could see some real fireworks.

    But I guess Variety’s blog situation is in…flux…lately.

  • 9/4 Oscarweb Round-up

    Sean Penn in Milk• Tom O’Neil responds to the “Milk” trailer. [Gold Derby]

    • So does Seth Abramowitz. [Defamer]

    • “Appaloosa” director Ed Harris will receive the 3rd annual Kirk Douglas Award at this year’s Santa Barbara Film Festival. [Variety]

    • Peter Sciretta wonders whether “Slumdog Millionaire” stole “Happy-Go-Lucky”‘s thunder at Telluride this year. [/Film]

    • James Rocchi begins his sure-to-be-insightful Toronto coverage. [Cinematical]

    • John Horn looks at acquisition hopefuls in Toronto this year. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Sam Adams profiles “Waltz with Bashir” helmer Ari Folman. [The Envelope]

    • Susan Wloszczyna seems to think Toronto isn’t its Oscar-forecasting self this year. [USA Today]

    • Similarly, in addition to contending that “award-winning contenders appear to be fewer and far between this year,” Anthony Kaufman indicates that “recent market forces” could dampen the buying and selling of films at this year’s fest. [Wall Street Journal]

  • Huh?

    In a year when the Venice festival lineup has been roundly deemed the weakest — not to mention, least star-powered — in some time, you have to wonder what its organisers are thinking in going head-to-head with Toronto next year.

    I assume Venice director Marco Mueller is banking on the European prestige of a potential Golden Lion to lure titles away from Toronto, which doesn’t have a competition aspect, but as the Times succinctly puts it:

    This could leave Venice in a vulnerable position: it’s a film festival noted for its glamour and certainly has more public recognition than Toronto – but no business is done there; it doesn’t have a “market” (as Toronto does) where films are bought and sold. Quite besides the red carpet fun and games, the “market” is the nuts and bolts of a film festival, including Cannes.

     Madness.

  • Pete Hammond can’t resist sticking it to the blog-o-sphere

    You know, I kind of, sort of let it pass when Anne Thompson decided to take a mini-stab at bloggers (written as a pejorative, no doubt) who didn’t really like the 20 minutes of footage from “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” shown at Telluride last week. But I can’t help but be irritated at the gall of Pete Hammond offering:

    Voracious movie bloggers, with a need to be first rather than right, took shots at the film over the weekend on the basis of the modest Telluride peek. They would be advised to hold their reviews a few months until the other 2 hours and 25 minutes can be seen.

    “Right?” What the fuck does that mean? There is a right and wrong opinion to be taken from watching a few clips? One guy’s “They didn’t wow me” is not another guy’s “It could be good?” Give me a break.

    No doubt this is all a result of publicity teams circling their wagons, prodding other writers to get something up that is positive and FAST. But there is no need to shit all over the opinion of a few folks who didn’t react as the suits would have preferred.

    The buzz is the buzz, and if a couple of guys didn’t dig it, their opinion is valid. We linked to the dissenters here. Jeff Wells did too (though Thompson mistakenly thought he was reviewing the clips without having seen them…he was simply passing along an opinion).

    This stuff really gets on my nerves. Writers burned by the quickness of the net (indeed, those who are a valid part of the net) can’t help but douse the flames of opinion that go up before theirs. Sad.

    Personally, if I’ve taken anything from the mixed reaction to the clips it is that this could be a tougher Academy sell than I originally thought. And indeed, I expected as much all along. And with a truly Oscar-bait effort like “The Soloist” in the pipeline at the same studio…

    But that script…man, that script is a work of art.

  • A note on IC’s festival season coverage

    We’re in the midst of the Telluride and Venice film festivals at the moment, and though we don’t have correspondents on the ground, we’ll be bringing you updates as we can suss them out.  But a quick reminder of what we will be offering over the next couple of months.

    John will start his Toronto coverage on Thursday.  He’ll be updating daily with quick thoughts on the goings on.  I’ve been catching some Toronto films here in L.A. so I’ll be reviewing in tandem.

    Guy Lodge, meanwhile, will be covering the London Film Festival for us, which begins October 15.  The full schedule for the fest hasn’t been revealed yet (coming on September 10), but we do know that Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon” will have its world debut there.

    Finally, I’ll be overing the AFI Fest here in Los Angeles.  The festivities begin on October 30 and will take us into November.  Again, no schedule yet, though I do know one major Oscar contender expected to bow at the fest…stay tuned.

  • 9/2 Oscarweb Round-up

    Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler• Todd McCarthy does cartwheels for Danny Boyle’s “Sulmdog Millionaire.” [Variety]

    • Bruce Springsteen’s “Wrestler” track chokes Darren Aronofsky up every time he hears it. [darrenaronofsky.blogspot.com]

    • Peter Sciretta gives a quick, somewhat lacking review of Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” seems to be mixed. [/Film]

    • Across the pond, Penélope Cruz talks “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and working with masters. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Not really awards-related (yet), but, wait…they’re turning “The Wave” into a German language film? Cool! News to me… [Empire]

    • Andrew Pulver separates the cheers from the jeers in Venice. [The Guardian]

    • If you’re looking for one hell of a spiffy awards section… [Rope of Silicon]

    • Rupert Friend makes one creepy Nazi in “The Boy in Striped Pyjamas.” [The Times]

    • Scott Bowles runs down ten fall flicks bursting with potential. [USA Today]

  • OFF THE CARPET: Make way for the little guys…or not

    Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting MarriedIt may be Labor Day, but the work at hand is breathing down our necks. So it is that we come to the first weekly Oscar column of the new awards season.

    Though to be frank with you, I’m beginning to wonder whether we’ll be able to keep the conversation going, much less interesting on a weekly basis as we push through the last four months of the year. I knew going in to this year that it was going to be a somewhat low-key season, and my own worst fears have been founded in a number of pre-Toronto screenings of films that will be discussed in a week’s time, films leaving me cold, irritated or otherwise just unconvinced.

    I don’t sense a lull on the level of 2005 by any means, but I do get the feeling that after two solid years of cinematic goodness, 2008 could just be one of those “rebuilding” years, to steal a sports term and painfully attempt its application here. It’s interesting (and telling) that my two favorite films of the year are a stoner comedy and a superhero adaptation respectively (though the latter obviously has a legion of fans banking on major awards success…more on that later).

    The most intriguing component for me is the playground that Toronto will provide for a bevy of independent and genuinely smaller product. The heavy-hitters (or, at the very least, the presumed heavy-hitters) are incomplete and not prepared for fall fest unveiling (aside from “Frost/Nixon,” which has already been seen and seems to be riding a wave of confidence at Universal).

    But efforts like Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married,” Vicente Amorim’s “Good,” Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain,” Rian Johnson’s “The Brothers Bloom,” Richard Eyre’s “The Other Man,” etc. — true indies with a fighting chance to turn some heads — won’t have to suffer in the shadows of big studio films angling for the press of an Oscar season starting gun.

    Meanwhile, Cannes entries such as Fernando Meirelles’s “Blindness,” Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York,” Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” get an uninhibited second chance in front of festival audiences. Ditto Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling,” in the case of the New York fest.

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  • ‘Button’ footage raises concerns at Telluride

    Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonWell I was willing to let the first murmurs go by without commentary, but the more I poke around, the more I’m hearing that the footage from David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” shown last night at the director’s tribute is underwhelming to say the least.

    This is disconcerting.  As much as I loved Eric Roth’s screenplay, I also made it a point of mentioning that it had a lot of room to be interpreted peculiarly on screen.  It’s the sort of narrative that could fly off the rails in the transition and it seems that perhaps — just perhaps — this could be the case.

    I’m keeping my hopes up for the moment, but it seems Jeffrey Wells conveyed these sentiments from one attendee:

    It just wasn’t particularly exciting or engrossing, one explained. Excellent visual effects (old Pitt as a baby, etc.) and fine cinematography but with a kind of enervated, waiting-for-something-to-happen quality. The footage showed portions of the entire film, the other friend said, but in a way that kept you from getting into it with cuts coming too abruptly. And so people were kind of…whatever, grunting and muttering on the way out.

    And now Peter Sciretta of /Film has unloaded this first hand reaction:

    I’m all for conserving the director’s artistic vision, and I’ve enjoyed most of Fincher’s work, even if Zodiac could have been 30 minutes shorter on the back end. So when I first heard rumors of the studio pushing Fincher to cut back, my first response was to write it off as another movie studio exec that just didn’t get it. But as it turns out, they might be right.

    The footage I screened tonight was met with disappointment and concern. There are moments of magic and wonder, but interrupted and surrounded by moments which had me questioning, “Is this really the best footage he has?”

    Sciretta has some nice words to say about Brad Pitt and the cinematography, but regardless of the brief high marks, I don’t think I’m alone in saying: “Gulp…”

  • Most anticipated films of Toronto

    Miracle at St. AnnaArmed with the fat program book, detailing every single film to be screened at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, I have gone through it several times to find the films I am interested in seeing. The press schedule is announced online today, at which time I will begin the nightmarish process of creating a calendar that details screening times, interview times, and leave room for the unexpected, a last minute call from a frantic publicist to do an interview I had requested and been declined, but now they want me.

    I love TIFF.

    Aside from Christmas (for my kids) this is my favorite event of the year. Admittedly this one is a tad lower key than in other years as there were some last minute disappointments, films we thought were coming, rumored to be coming, and are not. The hottest whisper on the wind saw “Body of Lies” here with Leo, Russel and Sir Ridley, as well as “The Road,” a film I cannot wait to see, having read the amazing book in three scant days.

    I had hoped Eastwood’s “Changeling” would be here, but for some goofy reason Angelina Jolie could not make it and the festival folks felt Clint Eastwood was not enough star power on his own…(ouch!).

    Those minor complaints aside, I am now officially pumped for the festival to begin. Following are the ten most anticipated films of the fest for me and me alone. I will see more than 40 films over the 10 days, conduct 20 interviews or so, and maybe get four hours of sleep a night. I will ingest more coffee than is healthy, drink far too much water, and eat poorly, but hey…it’s festival.

    Check out the list after the jump…

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  • Seven-minute ‘Other Man’ preview/trailer/thing

    Richard Eyre’s latest hasn’t landed domestic distribution yet, but it could be a great vehicle for stars Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Antonio Banderas and Romola Garai.

    UPDATE (5:04 p.m.): As it turns out, the footage that was in this space was a promo reel meant for distributors, not for audiences.  It’s been yanked from YouTube, so if you saw it, consider yourselves lucky.

  • TIFF 08 looks promising, but still some disappointment

    TorontoThere have been complaints in recent years that the Toronto International Film Festival had gone Hollywood, openly courting the directors and stars to bring their films to town.  Like Dorothy beginning the journey down the yellow brick road, the fest began to become a launching point for Oscar campaigns. No secret, many films that premiere at Toronto move on to win Academy Awards or grab nominations. What began as the upstart Festival of Festivals is now among the top three festivals on the planet, certainly the most important of the fall.

    I have many fond memories. Seeing Robert Duvall’s superb film “The Apostle” for the first time, not realizing a bidding war was happening in the lobby; watching Atom Egoyan’s haunting “The Sweet Hereafter” with the knowledge that Egoyan had become a world class director; seeing a star director born with “Boogie Nights”; knowing that “American Beauty” had begun its journey to Oscar here; screening “Almost Famous” and believing it too was headed for Oscar glory; Ellen Burstyn’s stunning performance in “Requiem for a Dream”; the brilliant Canadian films “The Barbarian Invasions” and “C.R.A.Z.Y.” both from our French speaking province of Quebec; Sofia Coppola becoming a major writer/director with “Lost in Translation”…on and on and on.

    This year, once again, the programmers have done an excellent job finding films from around the globe to bring to our fair city. Among the Gala Presentations are “Burn After Reading,” the latest from the brothers Coen, “The Lucky Ones,” “Pride and Glory,” a cop drama with Edward Norton and Colin Farrell, “Nothing But the Truth,” which Kris revealed yesterday, “Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” with Bryce Dallas Howard in a little known Tennessee Williams screenplay, and “Dean Spanley” with the great Peter O’Toole perhaps again making a run for the Oscar?

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  • Audiences to handle ‘Nothing But the Truth’ in Toronto

    Kate Beckinsale in Nothing But the TruthThe final announcements for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival will land tomorrow morning, and one of the films that will be on the list is Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth.”

    The festival organizers have been hopeful that they could show the flick as a Gala and now they’ll be doing just that. ‘Truth’ won’t release until December, leaving quite a gap between the festival bow and the domestic unveiling. But this is a good move if early buzz is going to start building for actors Vera Farmiga, Kate Beckinsale, Alan Alda and, to a lesser extent, Matt Dillon.

    I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention that I saw an early cut of the film a few weeks back. And to be sure, I think Beckinsale is going to turn a few heads with her work as a reporter caught on the fence between the security of a source and the demands of the federal government. It’s a de-glam role but not in the typical sense. She is still beautiful throughout, of course, but seems capable of wearing that tired look of a downtrodden warrior.

    Alan Alda is, as usual, a perfect fit as Beckinsale’s attorney. He rolls the dialogue off his tongue in just the right ways and when he’s off screen, I was left wanting more of him. That can go a long way in a supporting campaign. Speaking of which, Vera Farmiga is an absolute firecracker every moment she’s on the screen as the Valerie Plame-like outed CIA operative Erica Van Doren.

    In the film, Lurie is taking what we learned from the Plame affair and spinning it into the realm of (not-so-unthinkable) fiction. He explores the vague nature of shield laws and the perfect track record “national security” enjoys over the First Amendment in this regard, and he does so in typical Lurie fashion.

    Lurie has always been a filmmaker willing to face down tough issues in his films, displaying a knack for boiling them down to a serviceable and entertaining essence. He’s also proven to be more than capable of drawing stellar performances out of his actors (Jeff Bridges, Gary Oldman, Joan Allen, Samuel L. Jackson). I think we could be looking at his next dance with the awards season with this effort.

    Anyway, now is not the time for an in-depth review of “Nothing But the Truth.” Something along those lines will drop closer to the festival, but for now, I’d wager it is a film that will have some support. Hopefully it’ll get the same from a studio with nothing else on the slate this year.

    (Also playing at the fest, by the way, is the Lurie-produced “What Doesn’t Kill You.” That film will be looking to make a splash in an already indie-heavy TIFF slate with Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke starring.)

  • More announcements from TIFF

    Toronto International Film FestivalPaul Dano and Zooey Deschanel are to be featured in “Gigantic” with John Goodman in a supporting role. In “Lovely Still,” acting icons Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn portray two seniors who find love late in life struggling with the baggage that comes with a life so long lived.

    “Lymelife” looks interesting, a film seen through the eyes of a young boy, portrayed by Rory Culkin, and what happens when an outbreak of Lyme disease hits a small town. Alec Baldwin portrays the boy’s loud mouth father with strong support from Cynthia Nixon, Timothy Hutton and Kiran Culkin in a film executive produced by no less than Martin Scorsese.

    One of the more intriguing films of the fest will be the US film, “The Stoning of Soraya M”, a study of an Iranian woman falsely accused of adultery which is a crime punished with death by stoning. Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo stars in the film.

    Mark Ruffalo is back in town with more than one film, co-starring with Ethan Hawke in “What Doesn’t Kill You” about two friends looking out for one another in a tough Boston neighborhood. The film was produced by filmmaker Rod Lurie, who’ll be in the thick of the Oscar hunt this year with his own “Nothing But the Truth.”

    The other titles include “Rain” from the Bahamas, “Cold Lunch” from Norway, “Vacation” from Japan, “Apron Strings” from New Zealand, “Better Things” from the United Kingdom, and “Daytime, Drinking” from South Korea.

  • ‘Che’ and ‘Porno’ among 20 new films announced for Toronto

    Benicio Del Toro in CheJohn hasn’t addressed this yet, so I’ll put it out there…

    Variety’s Anne Thompson is reporting on 20 new films added to the line-up of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Following suit with yesterday’s New York fest news, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” (listed as “Part One” and “Part Two” for Toronto) will make the trip up north.

    Other special presentations of note include Rian Johnson’s “The Brothers Bloom,” Richard Linklater’s “Me and Orson Welles,” Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” Kevin Smith’s controversial “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain” (could be Oscar bait for actress Charlize Theron), Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” and Marc Abraham’s “Flash of Genius” (which could be an awards vehicle for Greg Kinnear).

    The big news, however, seems to be that Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” will not be heading to the fest. Here’s Thompson on that front:

    Clint Eastwood’s Cannes Fest entry “Changeling,” which will be the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival, will not be at Toronto because there was uncertainty about new mother Angelina Jolie’s availability to participate in a gala premiere. “We would have loved to have had Clint Eastwood,” said Bailey, “but the only way to present the movie in a big way was as a gala with Eastwood and Jolie.”

    Basically, the Toronto crew can’t star-fuck, so they’d rather not show it. Gotcha.

    Anyway, read all about the new additions here. The full line-up will be unveiled next Tuesday.

  • NYFF reveals full line-up

    Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerThe full schedule of the 46th annual New York Film Festival was released today.  indieWIRE has the scoop.

    The big showcase I’m looking forward to is, of course, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” (which I touched on yesterday).  But also landing in the Big Apple will be Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling,” Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Che.”

    Time will tell if the latter remains distribution-less after a North American bow.  Something tells me, given Soderbergh’s tenacity, that it will.

    I’m also interested in Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” (with an “h” this time), which was a considerable favorite at this year’s Cannes fest, as well as Wong Kar-Wai’s “Ashes of Time Redux.”  Despite a personal distaste for the Chinese helmer, this project has a special something keeping my interest piqued.  Ari Folman’s Canne fave “Waltz with Bashir” will also make the trip.

    And then there is Steve McQueen’s “Hunger,” a meditation on the IRA hunger strike that made Bobby Sands a national hero in Northern Ireland.  I spent a weekend in Belfast while I was overseas this summer and remember coming across a giant wall mural of Sands, part of a guided tour with one of his former compatriots who also participated in the protest.

    I’ve been hearing fantastic things about Michael Fassbender’s performance in the film.  He dropped an amount of weight that supposedly makes Christian Bale look obese in “The Machinist.”  It might be one of the lowest flying turns on the awards radar so far, and if IFC Films can spin a valiant campaign around the actor, watch out.

    Check out the full roster of NYFF titles here.  The festival begins September 26 and runs through October 12.

  • ‘Che’ trailer hits

    A trailer for Steven Soderbergh’s “The Argentine” (the first half of his “Che” epic, which received mixed reactions at Cannes this year but certainly has its devotees) has landed on YouTube. James at Cinematical points the way, but get it while it’s hot. Not that there’s a studio involved that could yank the trailer down, but I don’t imagine this was an intentional leak.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAsyGJbuU9Q

    It’s certainly not good news that the film hasn’t secured U.S. distribution as far as the upcoming awards circuit is concerned. We struck the film from the record (well, the charts in any case) a month ago because that grim feeling is starting to set in. “Che” may have to live to fight another day in 2009.  But this should be enough to whet your appetite in the interim.