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• Trying to summon attention span for Part 2 of "Che." I think I read a year ago that the two parts have different styles. Hoping that's true. #
• Hmm. Watch "Che" or play FIFA for two hours? Which will be more rewarding…? #
• "Che" it is: Bolivia. Ironic if pt2 suceeds like Cuban revolution but pt1 flounders like Bolivian campaign did. #
• Of course, this narrative format conveniently skips over Che's most brutal period, the part of his life that rarely makes it onto a T-shirt. #
• Why show Che's executions of prisoners, gays, priests & children in Cuba when you can skip ahead six years and show him as a loving father? #
• WTF is Lou Diamond Phillips doing in here? #
• Che's Bolivian gang is dysfunctional; we never saw why the Cuban rebels were more efficient. I sense scapegoating of the native Bolivians. #
• Yep those Bolivians were too self interested and lacked revolutionary spirit. Maybe Che also failed to inspire like Castro, despite his rep. #
• PT2 is interesting. Conflict in failure. PT1 was pristine, dull. Also pt1 ignored villains; 2 has cool CIA op on the trail. Tension works! #
• Minimalist expo recalls Crazy8s lyric: "it's hard to tell the good from the bad when they're both wearing camoflauge green jeans." #
• Thought I spotted Jeffrey Wright in small role as wounded rebel, but he's uncredited. #
• Great scene as lookouts for dwindling rebels discover the large number of army in pursuit of them. More of this kind of filmmaking needed. #
• SPOILER: Che's been captured! Looking grim. I hope he makes it; I wonder what will happen… #
• Good scene: Che's intimate conversation with soldier guarding him. Nowhere near enough of this kind of personal material in these movies. #
• What? Che's accused of executing someone? Not this Che. It's all CIA lies!!!!! #
• Death scene also excellently done; but Soderberg must be tool of rightwing: we all know CIA really pulled the trigger on Che! #
• My iPhone's winter coat was torn and frayed. Replaced terrific Marware Sportsuit for bargain price of $6.99: http://bit.ly/dCFuQg #
• @culturepulp That O clip is so disingenuous on so many levels Twitter is incapable of coping with a response… in reply to culturepulp #
• Recent diet of Breaking Bad, Fringe, and movies like Death in Love, wife complains about "ickiness." Any overlooked chick flicks I can rent? #
• Help Wanted: Justice Dept hiring civil rights lawyers. "Mental retardation, mental illness" preferred but not essential http://bit.ly/d71wC1 #
• Neat NYT interactive budget chart http://bit.ly/bZN01L #
• Walter Russell Mead: "The global warming movement as we have known it is dead." Nice summary of latest "science" goofs: http://bit.ly/ccbquo #
• I dislike these recap shows, but apparently I forgot the entire last season of Lost. #
• Bad sign when the recaps of episodes you've already seen are incoherent and confusing. #
• Kate must have been in Indiana Jones' fridge when that bomb went off. #
• I've always thought that the recurring slow, sad music cue in #lost borrows heavily from the chorus of Hall&Oates "One on One." #
• #lost time shifting is contagious: wife is tired so hr2 will wait until tomorrow night when flash of white light reveals nothing else on tv. #
• Has @Breitbart been banned from Twitter? Did he OD? Was he eaten by #demonsheep? After yesterday's flood, it's lonely around here w/o him. #
• "It is strange for a President to complain repeatedly about ten-year old policies and then not propose to change them." http://bit.ly/cpAmFm #
• Labash keeps falling of my radar, but he is hilarious. If only there were some way to keep up with him… http://bit.ly/8xkZ3l #
• Suspect parenting: Currently creating family-safe edited version of Airplane! for the kids to enjoy this weekend. Shit will not hit fan. #
• Labash: "Facebook is porn. With porn, you watch other people take off their clothes and abase themselves in public." http://bit.ly/coZQFL #
• Good for @andrewbreitbart: Exasperated Right Rejects Birther at Tea Party http://bit.ly/dmogFO Farah+WND are evil twins of conservatism. #
• Night of the Creeps, 1986. Aliens that look like ugly naked babies. This came highly recommended. http://bit.ly/a6qp1I #
• Ah, ugly baby aliens + sorority girls. Shows far more promise now. #
• Well, aliens + sorority girls + axe weilding asylum escapee. Now we have a movie. #
• Natch, evil frat guys. Waiting for movie wth good frat guys battling evil nerds. Wait, that was called "Old School," wasn't it? #
• We have a corpsesicle! The corpsesicle is killing David Paymer! #
• For a B-movie, #nightofthecreeps had got all the cliches + humor, awareness & lots of ideas. And a zombie David Paymer. #
• Anticipating obligatory shot of slithery alien slug inching up coed's bare leg…. #
• "Girls, the good news is, your dates are here." "What's the bad news?" "They're dead." #nightofthecreeps #
• Fact: #nightofthecreeps did the lawnmower vs. zombie challenge before Dead Alive. #
• #nightofthecreeps maybe 2nd best American zombie movie of 80s, after Return of the Living Dead http://bit.ly/93dyZX #
• Shot of slug on leg never happened, unless you count leg of crippled wisecracking male roommate on toilet. I do not. #

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Just finished watching Steven Soderberg’s two-part biopic of Ernesto “Che” Guevara.  (I “live-tweeted” my reactions here.)

Che: Part One juxtaposes the successful 1957-1598 Castro-led insurgency in Cuba with Che’s post-revolution visit to the United Nations, where he is received as a celebrity amongst Manhattan socialites and other Third-World diplomats.  Che: Part Two follows Che’s rather less successful attempt to bring the revolution to Bolivia. I won’t tell you how it ends. (Actually, I will.)

First, it’s no secret to anyone who has read my previous writing that I am not a fan of communism, and I am ideologically predisposed to not dig Che’s pop-cult status or feel any empathy toward his struggle. However, I like to think I am somewhat capable of appreciating good movies, regardless of their ideological content. For example, you can read my glowing review of the quite relevant 1962 masterpiece of pro-Castro propaganda I Am Cuba here. (Also relevant: my review of the “meh”  romance  The Motorcycle Diaries.) I also recently enjoyed the fascinating Baader Meinhof Complex, which is admittedly critical of the leftist German “Red Brigade” terrorist faction, although it does a good job of also depicting the youthful glamour of the movement.

I did not care for Soderberg’s Che — especially not the first part — for reasons primarily due to Soderberg’s stylistic approach, and secondarily its politics, which I found to be quite subdued, perhaps too much so.

It’s hard to say from watching exactly what Soderberg meant to accomplish with Che, largely because the style of the two movies is so austere that only rarely is there an opportunity for connection between the audience and the title figure. This approach particularly hampers Part One, as its depiction of Castro’s successful fomenting of rebellion throughout the Cuban countryside is so effortless that the movie utterly lacks tension.

While we do get a glimpse of Che’s evolution from a slightly bumbling, green asthmatic rebel into a feared commandante, Soderberg shows no interest in relating the secret of Che’s success nor the source of his later reputation. Likewise, Che chooses not to frame any narrative of the revolution. Castro insists at the beginning that his planned revolution will gain momentum in rural areas, and it does so with few obstacles, but tactically the effort is left a mystery. Soderberg doesn’t even attempt to characterize Batista’s enemy army until the very end, at which point they are demoralized and eager to surrender.

Just like the movies’ narrative, Soderberg’s characterizations of the Che and the other rebels is so ascetic, that unless one is presumably already empathetic toward leftist insurgency, there’s little cause to mourn their casualties or celebrate their victories. Che is a complete enigma from start to finish, as he quietly marches through the jungles toward Santa Clara.

Part Two fares better, primarily because its subject matter is rife with the kind of conflict absent from Part One: as Che attempts to carry on the revolution by leading a dysfunctional band of guerillas into Bolivia, they not only find sterner resistance from the Bolivian army, but sympathetic politicians offer no support, and the poor peasants in whose name Che professes to fight, reject both the violent nature and ideological content of the revolution. The answer to the question, “What if they gave a war, and no one comes?” is that you find informants everywhere, your rebels demoralized and defeated, and yourself face down riddled with bullets on the floor of a rundown Bolivian shack.

With both movies assembled as a dispassionate series of chronological events, the best scenes are the few, remote moments when Soderberg lets his camera close on on a feeling, rather than an action. Batista’s demoralized soldiers at the end of Part One, Che’s rebels discovering the size of the encroaching Bolivian army, and Che’s intimate conversation with the Bolivian soldier assigned to guard him. The rarity of these moments make them profound, but the bloodless rest of the film has drained them of real impact.

It’s almost as if Soderberg felt the need to atone for the excesses of his Hollywood movies, like the bubblegum Oceans series, and at the same time was leery of romanticizing or sensationalizing a controversial historical figure.  Part One amounts to little more than a mildly polemic nature hike.

It must be said, that in many ways the narrative of the movie is utterly, dourly Marxist, just like Che himself. Individuality is never emphasized. The rebels are a faction of green-cloaked faceless, impersonal tools of the revolution. The enemy is faceless and flavorless. There is a polemic to be followed to its resolution, a system to install, with a distaste for the decadence of feeling or style. The personal needs of man are not to be bothered with.

This deep narrative Marxism aside, the politics of Che lie mostly in what is omitted. We see Che as a serious Marxist, we see Che as a celebrated critic of U.S. Imperialism, we see Che as a noble rebel who protects the poor in theory and practice, we see Che as a caring doctor, we see Che as a tender father. These moments do not feel exaggerated, but there is only a rare glimpse at the controversial side of Che, who by most accounts was in charge of executing political prisoners during the early days of Castro’s regime, and who is reported to have taken specific delight in executing dissidents, homosexuals and religious leaders, and is even accused of torturing children. Conveniently, the brutality attributed to Guevara and Castro falls in the narrative hole between the two movies. We do see Che command the swift execution of a rapist, severely mitigating his only depicted act of violence as a just cause. Soderbeg can deal his hand with the straightest of faces because he’s already loaded the deck in every conceivable way.

So what do we make of Che after spending 4.5 hours with the Soderberg treatment? Is there any sense of the pop icon plastering hipster T-shirts today? Not really. We see a serious rebel who coasted to victory with Castro, who built up a mysterious bad-ass rep despite being mostly quiet and noble, and once left to his own devices failed ineptly to lead a revolution nobody wanted.

The parallel structure of the two movies begs for some kind of directorial point of view, which is wholly absent. Why did the Cuban revolution succeed but the Bolivian campaign didn’t? Was Castro the secret ingredient? Was the disaffection the rebels tapped a local phenomenon that sputtered on the continent? Was Che ultimately just a dullwood who looked cool in a photo but lacked a real life quality of inspiration?

These questions are not so much provoked by Soderberg’s movie, but mulled over in the boredom of enduring yet another scene in the jungle where nothing is happening.

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• "Red" envelope indeed: Netflix just delivered Soderbegh's 42-hour "Che" biopic. If I haven't finished it by Friday, send the CIA to kill me. #
• Rob Zombie is an interesting movie director. I'd even say "good." His main problem? Too much "Rob Zombie." Also, not so good as a writer. #
• Can Rob Zombie be less "Rob Zombie" without losing that "Rob Zombie" feeling? (He being Rob Zombie, he already has it in spades.) #
• Enduring Z's Halloween 2 (with sick baby sleeping on my chest) before I get to start "Che." Now, Zombie's "Che" – that I would pay to see. #
• Halloween2 is not good, of course, but still hints at Zombie's promise. When he shows restraint: wow. When he doesn't: overkill. Literally. #
• Yes, it takes me 4 hrs to get through a single movie. Crying baby + work + ADD. No kidding the impending Che-a-thon will be epic at my rate. #
• Our Constutional-Law-Professor-in-Chief's SOTU Supreme Court flub, explained: http://bit.ly/9YwN3j via @addthis #
• Watching original Parent Trap with daughter. Haley Mills in short hair looks like an alien, or Mena Suvari. #
• Finally making time to watch Soderberg's two-part Che biopic. The interminably slow opening map sequence does not bode well for pacing. #
• Castro's 1957 invasion of Cuba looks like it was filmed on the island from "Lost." Will Batista get eaten by a cloud of black smoke? #
• Half hour in, Che is quiet, compassionate, and a somewhat bumbling soldier. It's a bloodless revolution! #
• This is more of the same VH1 treatment as in Motorcycle Diaries. Expect Soderberg to put some edge in here at some point. #
• Ah, becoming a bit of a ball-buster now. (diificult to tweet and keep up with subtitles). #
• 1st good scene: Che bemused by Manhattanite socialites fawning over him at 60s cocktail party. Probably looks a lot like film's wrap party. #
• Finally a gunfight. This revolution was starting to resemble a particularly joyless nature walk. #
• First peek at Che the executioner, but the circumstances weren't unreasonable: he passes a death sentence on a rapist. #
• He's a champion of literacy, natch, earning his future cred with bookstore hipsters. #
• About 1/2 way thru PT. 1, feels too sober so far. Was it wrong to hope 4 "Out of Sight"-like style, or Luis Guzman as foumouthed rebel? #
• "Baader Meinhoff Complex" set a high standard for edgy, stylish depiction of Marxist revolutionaries. Che suffers from solemn reverence. #
• First Che movie I saw was arthouse doc about Bolivia days. Boring. MC Diaries, listless. Convinced now Che was simply a dullwood in camo. #
• Nearing Havana, and no real illustration of how Castro's rebels continue to dominate Batista's armies. Godfather 2 nailed it with 1 scene. #
• Battle scenes in Che are sterile like GI Joe combat: lots of gunfire, few casualties. Only empathetic rebels get close-up injury or death. #
• Che is a chronology stripped of thematic or narrative substance. Few characters, little tension, not even caricatured villains. The point? #
• First empathetic characters are the Batista underlings left dangling in Santa Clara as their superiors desert them while demanding loyalty. #
• He's so principled, but moments earlier a man was trembling at the sound of his name. Why? End of PT1 and Che's reputation is an enigma. #
• Not watching pt2 tonight. Match of the Day beckons. Maybe the revolution continues tomorrow. #
• FWIW, for pure Castroite propaganda, I'll take the beautiful I Am Cuba any day. Soderberg's first half is so aimless, not even provocative. #

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Enduring Z’s Halloween 2 (with sick baby sleeping on my chest) before I get to start “Che.” Now, Zombie’s “Che” – that I would pay to see.

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Can Rob Zombie be less “Rob Zombie” without losing that “Rob Zombie” feeling? (He being Rob Zombie, he already has it in spades.)

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Rob Zombie is an interesting movie director. I’d even say “good.” His main problem? Too much “Rob Zombie.” Also, not so good as a writer.

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“Red” envelope indeed: Netflix just delivered Soderbegh’s 42-hour “Che” biopic. If I haven’t finished it by Friday, send the CIA to kill me.

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Hayek serves Keynes with a supply-side of phat rhymes.

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Eric Cantona @ Selhurst Park.

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Need a contraceptive? Watch 1st 4mins. of “Death in Love.” Boaz Yakin manages to take fun out of Morena Baccarin naked.

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Billy Corgan + Jessica Simpson: not only dating, but recording? Something is wrong. http://bit.ly/6764t3

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Today FIFA drew the groups for 2010’s World Cup in S. Africa.

My first reaction is how balanced all of the groups are. There is no “Group of Death” this year, overloaded with historically powerful teams, but rather the typically strong, middling and weak teams seem to be pretty well distributed.

The only first round match-ups of note are England vs. U.S.A, Brazil vs. Portugal, and maybe Argentina vs. Nigeria (if either of those teams finds form).

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Saw 1st 6 eps of Mad Men this week. Curious: does this show make women angry @ men? It should make them worship today’s men and stop PMSing.

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W. Portland has shitty water! Literally. Glad to be an unsophisticated east-sider. http://bit.ly/8KZqdS

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@ the zoo, a can of coke: $2.25. Something about “no drinking water west of the Willamette.” Marketing ploy?

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Bastard!

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It was inevitable that the Seth Rogen comedy Observe and Report would, regardless of its own qualities, suffer from its thematic association with the ubiquitously advertised simpleminded slapstick of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. What was not expected, however, is that O&A would utilize that same suburban security guard shtick to ambitiously homage, parody and even sort of critique the dark, paranoid fanatasy of Martin Scorsese’s infamous Taxi Driver.

While writer/director Jody Hill’s strange and eventful movie may not be entirely successful (it may take me a few viewings to settle that), it is often surprising and challenging in its wild shifts of tone, in much the same way that Rogen’s other recent movie, Judd Apatow’s Funny People, cavalierly mixed conventional genre expectations with unsettling examination of the psychology of failure and desparation. I wasn’t sure it worked in Funny People, but mostly because I objected to the pathos of that film’s more conventional elements.

Observe and Report treads on somewhat less dangerous ground in that regard, but delves much deeper into the darkness, with Rogen turning in a remarkably effective (and, importantly, understated) performance that enables the movie to swing violently from the absurd comedy his fans expect to bracing contemplations of sociopathy, while never leaving his orbit.

I was beginning to worry about the state of the Apatow-style comedy over the past year, as it began to spawn too many watered-down off-shoots, like last year’s underwhelming Role Models. But this new trend of entries that are trying to subvert the genre from within have the potential to reinvigorate the movement, and Observe and Report is a promising indicator.

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Got home tonight to find our house in a 4000-home blackout. House next door and beyond have power. We live on the edge, literally.

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My 3yrold son likes to pretend his crayons are Jets & Sharks from West Side Story. Constant Crayola rumble. Cool, boy…

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What’s harder than teaching soccer to 5-year-olds? Teaching soccer to 5-yr-olds in 93 degree heat. They call it a “mutiny.”

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