MOVIE REVIEW
South of the Border (2010)
Jose Ibanez/Cinema Libre Studio
When the media and regular folks complain about the Hollywood elite and its ardently left-wing political yammering, Oliver Stone is always one of the first names mentioned. With “South of the Border,” he’s handed his critics a heaping dose of ammo for the rest of his life, as the picture follows the filmmaker on a U.S.-government’s-nightmare journey across South America, meeting with and fawning over Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Bolivian President Evo Morales and other anti-Washington luminaries.
Continue reading “Toward a Third America” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Che (2008)
Daniel Daza/IFC Films
The complicated life of Ernesto “Che” Guevara — idealistic doctor, determined revolutionary, postmortem counter-cultural symbol — is fodder enough for dozens of movies, so it’s no surprise that Steven Soderbergh decided to make two. The magnum opus of a director increasingly drawn towards experimentalism, the nearly five-hour “Che” divides into “The Argentine” and “Guerilla,” with each focused on the defining periods of Che’s career as a revolutionary. Experiencing the “roadshow” version – in which the two films are combined in one sitting with a 15-minute intermission – can be taxing, but there’s no questioning the scope and depth of this achievement.
Continue reading “You Say He Wrought a Revolution” »