12 | Campus Circle
[DEC. 3 - DEC. 9 ’08]
film
DEC. 12 Che (IFC) Screened for one week as a fourplus hour biopic, Steven Soderbergh’s Spanish-language passion project in the making since Traffic, will be released to audiences as two separate films, Che Part 1: The Argentine and Che Part 2: Guerilla in January. If you can help it, don’t let the ambiguous reviews deter you. It’s true that Soderbergh’s Che Guevara abides by what many would call a saintly myth of a politically righteous icon, but the film is jampacked with a brilliant execution of the
y a d i l o H
The Reader (Weinstein Company) Director Stephen Daldry (The Hours, Billy Elliot) adapts the bestselling novel set in post-WWII Germany by Bernhard Schlink about a man (Ralph Fiennes) who discovers that the older woman (Kate Winslet) with whom he had had an affair when he was a teenager, may be guilty of Nazi war crimes.
FILM GUIDE
Wendy and Lucy (Oscilloscope) The writer/director team behind 2006’s Old Joy is back with a conversational, but often-silent lament set in the Pacific Northwest. Wendy Carol (an excellent and constantly improving Michelle Williams) is driving to Alaska with her dog, Lucy, after hearing they need workers at the Northwestern Fish Cannery. She’s got big hopes for a new life and a fresh start, but when her car breaks down in Oregon, the thin fabric of her plan – and finances – comes apart, as she is confronted by the reality of her situation in a series of minor but fateful crises. It’s a quiet film about how pregnant with possibility, how fertilized for despair and how ultimately fragile life is for people trying to make it on their own without much to back them up.
Daniel Daza
’Tis the Season to See Movies B Y R AY H A N É S . S A N D E R S
fascinating – and heavily researched – war strategy responsible for the overthrow of Batista’s Cuba and the installation of Castro. Benicio Del Toro did not win Best Actor at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for nothing, either; he is incredible as Guevara, and you can’t take your eyes off him ... even when they’re tested for over four hours! Part 1 tells the story of Guevara’s relationship with Castro and how he climbs the ranks in the rebel army, as well as addressing Guevara’s visit to the United Nations where he was confronted by the New York elite, the international media and displaced Cubans angry at the revolution. Part 2 deals with Guevara’s time – and ultimate failure and death – in Bolivia, where, incognito, he attempts to stage the great Latin American Revolution by replicating what was done in Cuba.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (20th Century Fox) A remake of the 1951 classic sci-fi film about an alien (Keanu Reeves) who visits Earth with a message: Live in peace, or be destroyed. Jennifer Connelly, John Cleese, Kathy Bates and the sexy Jon Hamm costar.
Doubt (Miramax) Writer/director John Patrick Shanley adapts his play about a Catholic school going through changes
(Yari Film Group) Brian (Mark Ruffalo) and Paulie (Ethan Hawke) are two broken kids running loose on the crime-laden streets of South Boston. As they get older, they get into more and more trouble until, finally, they find themselves in jail. When they get out, Paulie asks Brian to help him on one more con job before they go clean, and Brian has to decide between standing by his friend and salvaging his family.
DEC. 17
The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) Having won the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival, this latest by Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain) is one of the most surprising and
in the Bronx during the mid-’60s. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Father Flynn, a priest who is trying to modernize the school’s customs, but who inspires suspicion of foul play in the principal (Meryl Streep) and a young nun (Amy Adams) when he develops a relationship with the school’s first black student.
Nothing Like the Holidays (Overture) Washington Heights director Alfredo De Villa goes commercial with this holiday movie about a family reunion at the Rodriguez home in Chicago. John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Luis Guzmán, Alfred Molina and Freddy Rodríguez star.
Niko Tavernise
Aleida Guevara (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and Che (Benicio Del Toro) in Che
What Doesn’t Kill You
In anticipation of turtle doves, French hens, partridges in pear trees and the arrival of $20 poinsettias at your neighborhood Whole Foods, we present our guide to all your holiday movie going needs. Enjoy!
Evan Rachel Wood and Mickey Rourke star in The Wrestler