Cannes: Che Meets Mixed Response

Links (5)

Cannes: Che Aftermath
Published 5/22/2008 by Karina Longworth at SpoutBlog
... Last night was the first night since I’ve been here that I had an opportunity to go to bed at a reasonable hour and, after a week of dozing off in screenings on three hours of fitful sleep, I took it. Regrets? Reading the recaps and reviews, I have a few. I mean, if Anne Thompson is right, the Cannes cut will, like the Cannes cut of Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, never again see the light of day. Comparing Che to that film and others which were brought to Cannes straight out of the oven and half-raw, she blogs: ...

Is ‘Che’ This Year's ‘Southland Tales’?
Published 5/22/2008 at Vulture
... that most quickly made its way across the online film world. "Neither half feels remotely like a satisfying stand-alone film, while the whole offers far too many aggravations for its paltry rewards." McCarthy's Variety colleague Anne Thompson is kinder, though she too views the screening as a disaster; the movie was a "noble failure," she writes, and she takes issue with Soderbergh's famously last-minute edits to get the film ready for the festival: ...

Today in Cannes Hell: The Great 'Che' Debate Begins [Cannes Film Festival]
Published 5/22/2008 by STV at Defamer
... to yet emerge among critics: "Neither half feels remotely like a satisfying stand-alone film, while the whole offers far too many aggravations for its paltry rewards. Scattered partisans are likely to step forward, but the pic in its current form is a commercial impossibility, except on television or DVD." His colleague Anne Thompson agreed, likening Che to previous rough-cut Cannes clusterfucks including Southland Tales, The Brown Bunny and 2046 and scolding: "DON'T TAKE AN UNFINISHED MOVIE TO CANNES!!!!" ...

Cannes Audiences Not Thrilled With Soderbergh's Che
Published 5/25/2008 at Cinema Blend News
... to the festival and getting booed out of the festival. It happened to Richard Kelly with Southland Tales , it happened to Wong Kar-Wai with 2046 , and now it may have happened again with Steven Soderbergh and his two-part epic about Che Guevara, Che . Well, it might not be quite as bad as what happened to Southland Tales -- which took a year and a half to get released after everyone at Cannes hated it-- but the reactions are pretty mixed. Anne Thompson, a blogger and critic for Variety , quotes anonymous fellow critics calling it “ 'A folly.' 'A mess.' 'Great.' " She ...

Cannes Hell Wrap-Up: What Does 'Variety' Have Against 'Che,' Anyway? [Cannes Film Festival]
Published 5/27/2008 by STV at Defamer
... credited "scattered partisans" with contrarian buzz before suggesting "the pic in its current form is a commercial impossibility, except on television or DVD." Fair enough, although a survey of reviews suggests McCarthy himself is the most vocal of the anti-Che minority. Which is fine, right? OK! So we thought we'd let it go, but then came Anne Thompson with her all-caps admonition, "DON'T TAKE AN UNFINISHED MOVIE TO CANNES!!!!" But NY Times critic A.O. Scott, while hardly over the moon, later ...