Steven Soderbergh is directing a four-and-a-half hour biopic of Che Guevara? Sounds awesome! Or not. Stephen Garrett of Esquire saw the movie at Cannes:
Che, the combined version of two Spanish-language films separately entitled The Argentine and Guerrilla (rushed to completion for Cannes, by the way, and shot and shown digitally without titles or end credits), the Oscar-winning director turns away from the box-office catnip Ocean’s Eleven franchise to pay penance at the altar of high cinema. The impulse is unimpeachably admirable; the result is heartbreakingly misguided. Why try to avoid passing judgment? Why pretend that you haven’t anyway?... Soderbergh himself said that he sees his films as companion pieces to Salles’ work, forming a trilogy of Che’s life -- albeit one without the butchering death squads, homophobia, and other unsavory aspects that liberals might find a tad too distastefully indefensible. (So much for agnosticism.)I would rather sit through "Ocean's Twelve" ten more times than see this movie. It sounds like the real-life version of Vincent Chase's "Medillin," right down to the negative Cannes reception. Posted by Stephen Silver at May 22, 2008 09:40 PM