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Che-a-palooza!

In response to Stephen Steven Soderbergh’s swooning hagiography of Che Guevara, Reason has posted no less than four different articles in the last couple of days condemning the film and lamenting the disgusting love affair people have with the Che, the Castro regime, and its Chavista sidekick in Venezuela.

There’s way too much to try to summarize here, but they’re all worth reading. After all, Soderbergh’s “Guerilla” is almost certain to end up being screened here at the U of O by some student group or another purporting to promote “social justice” or some other euphemism for anti-capitalism.

  1. Vincent says:

    Olly: Interesting review. I just can’t escape the feeling that the ending of the film is going to rival “Braveheart” in cheesy sentimentality, substituting “Revolution!” for “Freedom!”

    That the film seems to, by all accounts, mostly skip over Che’s role in unleashing revolutionary violence in Cuba serves to reinforce (consciously or unconsciously) “Che: the Man, the Myth, the Legend” as he’s commonly understood by his fans stateside.

    In any case, I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t say anything definitive about it.

  2. Olly says:

    Soderbergh (no “u”): “We’re certainly seeing the result of what happens when you make profit the point of everything, where money that’s being earned doesn’t represent any particular product or labor on anybody’s part.”

    Oh, ouch. Wonderful filmmaker, apparently not so hot on economics.

    I don’t think the film (of which “Guerilla” is only one part – in the US I think they will be screened as a single event) is necessarily a “swooning hagiography”. After reading this I’m actually fairly psyched about it. (On DVD, mind you. It’s four fucking hours long.)

  3. Maria Hanson says:

    it’s Steven not Stephen…it’s not hard to spell someone’s name right.

  4. Close Encounters says:

    Gettelfinger and the UAW are destroying this country’s jobs. They demand too much, just like the picture of Paris Hilton giving a bj in the latest issue.

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