Everything I know about Ernesto “Che” Guevara, I learned from Wikipedia and now The Motorcycle Diaries.

The film, which is an adaptation of Guevara’s memoirs of the same name, document his trip around South America in early 1952 with his friend Alberto Granado and their experiences on the road. The first half is fairly standard On The Road buddy/road movie type stuff, with the friends out looking for girls, adventure and generally just experiencing the amazing scenery of South America. It’s not until the titular motorcycle gives up the ghost and they must continue their trek on foot that the tone of the film shifts.

When they cross into Peru, they begin to see evidence the social injustices that would drive Guevara from an idealistic young medical student to a Communist revolutionary to a t-shirt design. The message of the film occasionaly flirts with heavy-handedness and its portrait of the Commandante as a young man is almost certainly over-romanticized, but for the most part the film strikes a reflective, sincere tone. But as much as the politics and ideology colour parts of the film, it’s first and foremost about the friendship and loyalty between the two main characters, helped along by excellent performances by the magnetic Gael Garcia Bernal as Guevara and Rodrigo De la Serna as Granado. Props must also go out to cinematographer Eric Gautier for committing some startling visuals of South America to film.

Broken Social Scene and “fellow label family members” (read: Arts & Crafts party) will be playing a special benefit show at Lee’s Palace on January 25th. Tickets are a very dear $30, but 100% of proceeds will go to a tsunami relief fund. On sale this Thursday at 10:00AM. I think… I will have to go to this.

A requiem for Guided By Voices, by Nude As The News. From LHB. Wow, it took me five days to get to my first Largehearted Boy citation of the year!

Team Canada won the gold in the World Junior Hockey Championship. YAY. With no talks scheduled between the NHL and the NHLPA, the 2004/2005 season is almost surely done. BOO.

After a long seven-month break, the season premiere of Alias is on tonight! YAY. It’s now on opposite one of the only other shows I watch regularly, The West Wing. BOO.

Metacritic is reviewing books now! YAY. …No, no “BOO”. This is good news all around – I’ve been waiting a long time for a resource like this.

np – Mojave 3 / Excuses For Travellers

Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.