Che

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Part One: The Argentine written by Peter Buchman and Benjamin A. Van Der Veen

Part Two: Guerrilla written by Peter Buchman

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

Che Guevara

There is a silent fragment of a scene in Guerrilla, the second part of Steven Soderbergh’s epic cinematic experience, Che that is very telling. Che Guevara, portrayed brilliantly by Benicio Del Toro, is trying to motivate a group of reluctant Bolivian peasants to join him in overthrowing their own government, but most of them are not buying it. Mario Monje, portrayed by Lou Diamond Phillips, one of only a handful of recognizable actors in this film, has also heard enough politics and leaves. Someone suggests that maybe democracy could work. Silence. In this group is a dead ringer for a young Evo Morales, the indigenous President of Bolivia, who recently won a recall election with 67.4% of the vote.

This is one of the few political messages that Soderbergh leaves even a trace of his own fingerprints on.

Last October, Che’s death was marked, in the Bolivian village where he was killed, by President Morales proclaiming his own political movement to be “100% Guevarist and socialist.”

The CIA may have killed the man, but his ideas have lived on, especially in South America today.

I attended Che-stock (4 ½ hours in length) at its Los Angeles premiere Saturday night at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Red carpet, bright lights, flashing cameras, movie stars – the works. After a short speech by the president of the AFI, Steven Soderbergh spoke to the audience humorously about his non-Che-like ride to the theatre in an Audi (one of the sponsors for the festival). Benicio Del Toro (Best Actor at this year’s Cannes Film Festival) then spoke briefly and thanked many others, including producer Laura Bickford.

The first part of Che, entitled "The Argentine," is sharp, energetic, visceral and historic. It covers the meeting of the Argentinean doctor Ernesto “Che” Guevara with Fidel Castro as well as, many of the battle scenes and training that provided the framework for the Cuban revolution from 1956-1959 ending with the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.

These detailed military actions have very rarely been depicted in dramatic cinema. Here for the first time we see through Soderbergh’s cinéma vérité style what it would have been like for the Fidelistas to liberate village after village while gathering the support they needed to take their revolution into Havana. In December of 1958, we see Che leading his “suicide squad” in the attack on Santa Clara.

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You have been served. While we're all celebrating a Republican thrashing, Carville is egging Howard Dean on. Well, Dean's spokesperson responded...

via The Plank:

After the Republicans have admitted to a thumping, why is it that the only one complaining on the Democratic side is James Carville, who today in addition to trashing Howard Dean, praised the RNC, the outfit that brought us the racist ad that defeated Harold Ford, James' supposed candidate for Chair?

Perhaps he's not aware that under Dean in this midterm election the DNC has raised record cash --- all hard dollars -- including three times as much from major donors, eight times as much online and made a $30 million investment in the '06 cycle, three times as much as the DNC put into the last midterm. Not to mention we made an $8m overhaul of our voter file which was successfully used in 47 states and through the 50 state strategy invested in states like Pennsylvania, Kansas, Indiana and Montana where we had critical victories on Tuesday.

Jane Hamsher:

Since Carville's wife Mary Matalin has been mentioned as possible future head of the RNC I think it's great he's offering suggestions about how the DNC should comport itself. He is no stranger to the inside job, after all.

I was talking to a friend and he says it's gotta be the DC insider mentality that results in Carville's stupidity. I concur. I mean it was his pal Paul Begala who called the 50 state strategy to rebuild the party---"just a bunch of nose pickers."

John has the latest results...

You have to give it up to the netroots, Bob Brigham and Paul Hackett. To make the race this close was fantastic.

Bob says: "It's over. Paul lost by about 4000 votes--he got 48.2% of the vote at the end of the night. We didn't take the seat, but holy shit was this a win for the 50 state strategy, the netroots, and the future of the country--the grassroots of the Democratic Party.

We have sent a powerful message for 2006 tonight, and over the past several weeks. Close the book on round one, an overwhelming victory of us.?

Duncan wraps it up nicely:

"Let's remember what the Cook Report said earlier: If Schmidt's victory margin is in double digits, this tells us that there is not much of an anti-GOP wind in Ohio right now. If the margin is say six to nine points for Schmidt, then there is a wind, but certainly no hurricane. A Schmidt win of less than five points should be a very serious warning sign for Ohio Republicans that something is very, very wrong, while a Hackett victory would be a devastating blow to the Ohio GOP.