Ché has drained the hotness out of Benicio del Toro.

Beno is looking quite fug these days, and honestly, am not shocked. The man has been traveling all around the world selling his movie. I get exhausted looking at pictures of him lately.

It doesn't help that the man has exceptionally sexy eyebags, but my blog, the extra weight, the shabby suits and really, really exhausted look on his face just leaves me drained. I am sure it is not helping that he seems to believe he can continue his ... ahem ... notorious drinking habit and hard partying ways at his age.

Beno, dude, you're getting too old for that shit.

Anyhow ...

It must the rough to have to lug your shit around the globe for a project you've spent 7 years researching, 1 filming and shooting and another year selling. Selling a controversial movie, shot completely in Spanish,  the old school Hollywood way instead going the way of the digital guerrilla.

Especially after winning in Cannes that Palm D'Or ---which, by the way, had a jury facilitated by his friend Sean Penn and the mother of one of the victims of his tragic taste in women, Catherine Deneuve. And double especially after he was wrongly denied nominations for the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, Film Producers Guild and Oscars.

So it's no wonder he had it with the journalist from the Washington Times, that venerable basation of right-wing journalism owned by the Moonies and loved by the wingnutosphere.

Washington Times - 'Che' spurs debate, Del Toro walkout
"I'm getting uncomfortable," Benicio del Toro said after fielding a question about his new movie's portrayal of the Bolivian and Cuban revolutions. "I'm done. I'm done, I hope you write whatever you want. I don't give a damn."

I had to address this article since it's doing the rounds in the gossip blogs and now the right-wing blogs. It seems it's author is patting himself for ambushing Benicio with wanker Goldfard also celebrating.

Well ...
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While I was on my way home after watching the double-bill roadshow of "Ché" for the second time around, I was stopped by half a dozen random people who wanted to know if the movies were worth the 4 1/2 hours in the theater. They noticed the catalog IFC printed for the movies and the "mala, loca y sin idea" look on my face --the one I get when struck by awe, confusion and excitement. All six were so impressed by my report that they said they'd indeed spend the 4.5 hours (with an intermission, of course) if it meant they were going to look as weirdly pleased as I was. (Note to Beno : I want my commission).

"El Argentino" and "Guerrilla" stand on their own as separate movies. Yet the thrill of watching "Ché" is to see the character unfold in his epic success in the Cuban Revolution and his wretched end in the badlands of Bolivia in a style true to the guerrillero's view of the world.

Soderbergh, Del Toro and company had the rather herculean task of tapping a narrative and aesthetic economy different from what's usually produced in the US movie industry due in part to Guevara's historical currency. It is based on close-up shots of his good looking face and sound-bites from his ferociously confrontational speeches; always frozen in the awesomeness of his celebrity.

If they were going to do any justice to Ernesto Guevara, they needed to heed aesthetically to a man who famously eschewed the need of fetishizing the psychology of intent or desire by elevating the work, action and never-ending process of becoming revolutionary as the true measure of man and woman.

I am most certain this is part of the reason why the movie has been deemed as "incomplete" and devoid of any emotional or psychological insight into the brain of el Ché. Soderbergh and Del Toro make the cojudo choice of going rather Brechtian with this movie and giving more than a nod and a tip of the hat to the Marxist inspired neo-realist literature, theater and movie-making of the first half of the 20th century.

Actually, Soderbergh's "Ché" reminded me very much of the neo-realism by way of Brazil's Cinema Novo with films like Hector Babenco's "Pixote" (who is also the director of the psychological yet brutally realistic "Kiss of the Spider Woman") and before it Nelson Pereira dos Santos' "Vidas Secas". This last film is considered one of the masterpieces of Latin American 20th century film-making. Based on Gracialiano Ramos' novel by the same name, it does the impossible : It puts into film a novel that was untranslatable and unadaptable.

Ernesto Guevara was many things to many people and given his penchant for glorifying action as the ultimate measure of an individual, he in a sense also defied any interpretation or translations of who he was as a man. Yet somehow that's exactly what Soderbergh and Del Toro accomplish.
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My papi chulo was on the Colbert Report, which had last night one of the best jokes about bees and cocaine I've ever heard. Yes, bees and cocaine ... you had to be there.

PS : I not only want the t-shirt Beno got, I would have hoped for his production company to have a bit of tongue-in-CHEek and made Beno/Ché t-shirts. C'mon, respect tradition

From the IFC Center website:
November 26, 1956; led by Fidel Castro (Demian Bichir), a band of 80 rebels sails to Cuba. Among these young rebels is Argentine physician, Marxist, soldier, Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Benicio Del Toro, Best Actor winner at the Cannes Film Festival). Nation-less, strapped for resources and fueled only by determination, the group engages in swift, bloody battle to free the Cuban people from the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Che and his soldiers wrestle the nation's resources and affection from Batista's grasp. Though considered a hero by some, Che becomes a hugely controversial figure. At the height of his fame and power, he disappears. Entering South America incognito, Che recruits another band of guerilla fighters in the harsh Bolivian jungles. They embark upon a mission to spark revolution throughout Latin America.

Related :
Four things you need to know about Ernesto Guevara before watching Benicio del Toro as "Ché"
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Every time Benicio Del Toro (Ché) and Santiago Cabrera (Camilo Cienfuegos) are on screen together you are almost most sure to end up laughing your head off. They really worked on that bromance Ché and Camilo had in real life and the chemistry between them is just fantastic.

Last night I had the good fortune to see both "El Argentino" and "Guerrilla", the Benicio del Toro obsession directed by Steven Soderbergh and co-produced with Laura Bickford. I actually had a wonderful time sitting through the 4 1/2 hours of the movie but found myself bothered by some of the things that jumped at me for their absence.

It's probably why I found myself spending too much time on this preface.

So let's have it as a whole separate post because I believe there's quite a bit of background that is needed before going to see the movies.

Benicio cannot help but play Ché Guevara "larger than life"

Ché Guevara was a half an inch shy of being 6 feet tall. Due to his asthma he carried himself with a bit of a hunch that made him look much shorter than Fidel Castro who is a mountain of a man at 6'3".

The photograph I've appended to this section is the exception to the rule of most photos with Ché and Fidel together. Search for images under "Fidel and Che" and you will notice in most of the photographs this height difference was never, ever played up. Actually, in many photographs with Castro, Ché was always positioned to look the same height.

This is important because Benicio del Toro is 6'2" tall. To those of us who grew up with the vivid myths of "La Revolución Cubana" in América Latina (and yes, that includes Puerto Rico), Benicio by default is playing a Ché that is larger than life.

Guevara was a sexy motherfrucker --and Benicio was born to play him:

Over at the Internet Movie Database one commenter wrote : I wonder how iconic he would have become if he'd looked like Bob Hoskins or Danny De Vito. Truer words couldn't have been written.

I knew people who met Ché in the flesh and they'd all say that he had that "It factor" that celebrities are made of. Allegedly photography nor film did justice to Ché's incredibly good looks. He was a hunk with capital H and one who tried very hard to keep it in check.

Exactly like Benicio del Toro, by the way. 

And just as with Benicio, the harder Ché tried fight his good looks and natural attractiveness,  the more people swooned around him. Check out this interview on Oprah to see what I mean. Benicio is not even trying and even Oprah is losing her shit.

Fidel Castro knew this about El Ché and historical gossip has it that he hated that aspect of Ernesto Guevara. Whereas Ché would walk into a room and leave everybody breathless, Fidel had to work really hard at being liked. It wasn't that either weren't nerds. They were. Yet Ché was the incredibly good looking nerd.

And, mind you, Fidel Castro is known to be a flirt and a social butterfly. The thing is that he had to work hard at it whereas Ché's looks and natural charisma were the thing of legend --and when combined with his smile, the perfect weapon of mass seduction.
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