In light of the creepy' ness of a security state, and growing community response,
I'll be showing 2 excellent movies in my living rm. at 7pm this tuesday night,
- Which also happens to be my birthday (  !  ) They both may be kind of heavy duty at times, but so was world war II, which supposedly was about deciding the fate of facism for all time.   Come and join me, or us.  Bring your friend, bring a dog, bring something nice to drink.    I'll be making a hearty pot of stone and lentil soup for anyone who makes it.   Hope to see you  there!        A. H.

The Motorcycle Diaries, Movie Review

This review was written by a woman,

In 1952 two young Argentines, Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado, set out on a road trip to discover the real Latin America. Ernesto was a 23-year-old medical student specialising in leprosy; Alberto, 29, a biochemist. Romantic and slightly naďve, these two nice middle-class friends leave Buenos Aires on a knackered 1939 Norton 500, optimistically named La Poderosa (The Mighty One), to travel through the Andes, along the coast of Chile, across the Atacama desert into the Peruvian Amazon, arriving in Venezuela in time to celebrate Alberto’s 30th birthday.

Walter Salles’ follow-up to Central Station starts out, like Ernesto and Alberto’s journey, light-hearted and a little bit naughty. Alberto is single, horny, and looking forward to getting laid in every town in South America, while Ernesto is committed to his pretty, aristocratic girlfriend Chichina, whose parents disapprove of their relationship. The pair fall off their bike, bicker, make up, quarrel again. After a collision with a herd of cows leaves La Poderosa badly damaged, Ernesto and Alberto continue their journey on foot.

Physically exhausted, hungry, and relying on the kindness of strangers for food and lifts, the boys begin to see a different Latin America. Their chance meetings with people on the road take on a different meaning, as they encounter the poor and the dispossessed. They spend time in the ancient Inca capital Machu Picchu, contrasting the magnificent remains with the slums of modern Lima before travelling on to a leper colony at San Pablo, in the heart of the Amazon. The leper colony is administered by nuns, who have a policy of segregating the sick from the healthy, and refusing to feed those who don’t attend mass; Ernesto and Alberto choose to ignore this, refusing to wear gloves and freely mingling with the lepers while earning the displeasure of the Mother Superior. The Motorcycle Diaries is wonderful, working on so many levels; subtle and deft. It is at once a coming of age story, a rite of passage, a road trip and a buddy movie. Gael Garcia Bernal is splendid as the young Che, charming, awkward and passionate by turns, but the newcomer Rodrigo de la Serna is equally good as Alberto; their constant bantering and bickering – and their real concern for each other – so well done. These are two extraordinary young actors.

Walter Salles has said that the film is about Ernesto Guevara before he became the legendary revolutionary hero ‘El Che’. The political awakening of both Ernesto and Alberto is delicately done. There is no defining moment, just a cumulative effect, an organic process; the social and political reality of Latin America – the beauty of the landscape contrasted with the poverty of the people - takes over little by little, in such a way that, by the end, you realise that they have been transformed by their journey. It’s also very funny.

The Motorcycle Diaries made me want to give up my job, travel round South America, become a revolutionary, get shot by the CIA, and shag Gael Garcia Bernal. Not necessarily in that order…

Who could ask for anything more?



+ Here's a review of Pan's Labrynth :
Part gothic fantasy, part political statement, Guillermo del Toro's masterwork is clearly a labor of love, marrying his interest in the Spanish Civil War with his fascination with fantasy and horror. Del Toro should be very proud of himself; instead of taking this film to a studio, which would have desensitized (and thus gutted) the film, he set out on his own, filming the movie in Spanish and shooting it out of America. The result is one of this year's must-see films.

Pan's Labyrinth tells the story of young Ofelia (played by eleven-year-old Ivana Baquero), a child who is forced to move, along with her pregnant mother, into a massive old millhouse cottage which is nestled deep within a dense forest. This building also happens to house the militaristic Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), Ofelia's "father." From the outset it is clear that war is in the air, but none of this concerns Ofelia. She is fascinated with books and the amazing stories that fill them. No sooner has she arrived at the barracks/cottage than she encounters a "fairy" – a stick-like insect that is part dragonfly, part praying mantis, and is as fascinating as it is menacing.

Ofelia's insectoid friend soon reveals that it has shape-changing abilities and takes the shape of a svelte fairy, leading Ofelia on a moon-lit chase deep into the heart of the mysterious garden labyrinth found behind the cottage. Ofelia comes across a sunken grotto in the center of the maze. Within the hole, the little girl encounters Pan (played by longtime monster-man, Doug Jones), a mysterious and magical character who informs her that she is actually the princess of the underworld.


In order to return to her real father and take her place at his side, she must accomplish three tasks, each more dangerous and terrifying than the last. As Ofelia struggles to do as the faun has asked, her world is thrown into a shambles by the warmongering of the brutal fascist Vidal. It is only with courage, faith, and love that Ofelia manages to defeat the monsters, both fantastic and human, which threaten to claim her and her family.