benicio del toro

Opening Weekend: Reviews of ‘Che,’ ‘Stone of Destiny’ and ‘The Necessities of Life’

Which of these social-justice films will catch fire? A) 4 1/2 subtitled hours on Che Guevara or B) a Jolie melodrama.

Slept in for a change. The Cannes programmers gave us a break today, clearing out the schedule to leave our palates fresh for this evening’s premiere of Che, Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour-plus epic about Che Guevara. For once it was sunny. I was tempted to hit the beach, and almost did. But dark rooms exert an addictive pull in this place, along with the fear of missing something unmissable. So this afternoon I caught the final market screening of Hunger, which opened the Un Certain Regard sidebar last week. It’s a much-buzzed feature debut from British visual artist Steve McQueen (you think he’d at least call himself Steven to avoid confusion with the dead actor on IMDB.)