Soderbergh’s ‘Che’ and Historical Accuracy, Part II

Part I of this series can be found here.

Steven Soderbergh made certain his new movie, “Che,” about the life of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, couldn’t be attacked — at least on a factual level. (CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

“I didn’t mind someone saying, ‘Well, your take on him, I don’t really like,’ or ‘You’ve left these things out and included these things.’ That’s fine,” Soderbergh said. “What I didn’t want was for somebody to be able to look at a scene and say, ‘That never happened.’ “(CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

Well, Mr Soderbergh (and CNN), pull up a chair.

Soderbergh’s movie shows Che Guevara steely-eyed and snarling with defiance during his capture. Why, only seconds before, Che’s very M-2 carbine had been blasted from his hands and rendered useless by a fascist machine gun burst!

Then the bravely grimacing Guevara jerks out his pistol and blasts his very last bullets at the approaching hordes of CIA-lackey soldiers!

The (typical) viewer gapes at the spectacle. His eyes mist and lips tremble at Soderbergh and del Toro’s impeccable depiction of such undaunted pluck and valor.

(more…)

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Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Che, Che Guevara, CNN, communism
Posted Mar 10th 2010 at 10:51 am in Politics, Reviews | 31726285 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hfontova/2010/03/10/soderberghs-che-and-historical-accuracy-part-ii/Soderbergh%E2%80%99s+%27Che%27+and+Historical+Accuracy%2C+Part+II2010-03-10+18%3A51%3A57Humberto+Fontova

Rachel’s Corner: Fidel Castro Warholized

Fidel Castro, 2010. Mixed Media Silkscreen with Lipstick.

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Tags: arrest, Fidel Castro, pop culture, Rachel's Corner
Posted Feb 21st 2010 at 12:16 pm in Art, Politics | 31158236 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/rschmeidler/2010/02/21/rachels-corner-fidel-castro-warholized/Rachel%27s+Corner%3A+Fidel+Castro+Warholized+2010-02-21+20%3A16%3A57Rachel+Schmeidler

Castro Catches Useful Idiot Celebs on Candid Camera

“I’m very nervous!” twittered super-model Naomi Campbell during a press conference held in Havana’s Hotel Nacional in 1998. “I just spent an hour and a half talking with your president, Fidel Castro!  But he told me there was nothing to be afraid of because he already knew a lot about us (Campbell and her travel-chum, Kate Moss) from reading the press!” 

Castro undoubtedly knew plenty about Mss’ Campbell and Moss–but probably not from reading Vogue, Elle or Cosmo.  

“My job was to bug their hotel rooms,” disclosed high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector Delfin Fernandez, “with both cameras and listening devices.

“When word came down that models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss were coming to Cuba the order was a routine one: 24-hour-a-day vigilance. Then we got a PRIORITY alert, recalls Fernandez, “because there was a rumor that they would be sharing a room with Leonardo DiCaprio. The rumor set off a flurry of activity and we set up the most sophisticated devices we had.”  (more…)

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Tags: Chevy Chase, Fidel Castro, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Costner
Posted Feb 12th 2010 at 5:03 am in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Politics | 305354140 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hfontova/2010/02/12/castro-catches-useful-idiot-celebs-on-candid-camera/Castro+Catches+Useful+Idiot+Celebs+on+Candid+Camera2010-02-12+13%3A03%3A18Humberto+Fontova

Fidel Castro: Hollywood Screenwriter

“Che” film gets thumbs up in Cuba,” ran the headline from CNN’s Havana Bureau last December 8. Benicio Del Toro, who stars as Che, was being feted as the Castro regime’s guest of honor during the Havana Film Festival while presenting the movie he co-produced. “The lengthy biopic of the Argentinean revolutionary won acclaim from among those who know his story best,” continued the CNN story.

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Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Che, Cuba, Fidel Castro, Steven Soderbergh
Posted Dec 28th 2009 at 1:03 pm in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Film | 28368275 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hfontova/2009/12/28/fidel-castro-hollywood-screenwriter/Fidel+Castro%3A+Hollywood+Screenwriter++2009-12-28+21%3A03%3A54Humberto+Fontova

Che Guevara: Hollywood’s Mass-Murdering Phenom

I am a graduate of Brandeis University, a respected institution of higher learning that is also a bastion of liberal and left-wing thought.  It’s a sure bet that most, if not all of Brandeis’ professors are registered Democrats. While never overtly political, I was content to go along with the liberal crowd for years — until September 11, 2001.

During my years at Brandeis, dorm rooms were decorated with posters and photos of rock groups, pop stars, famous actors and a man so handsome that the first time I saw him, my teenage heart skipped a beat. There he was, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, so-called  heroic martyr of the Cuban Revolution. While I never displayed any images of Che, for many years I, too, ignorantly regarded him as an admirable rebel who fought bravely for “the people”.  Then I became a Republican and learned some facts about Mr. Guevara, as the New York Times might respectfully refer to him.  Here’s a list of just a few of the humanitarian acts performed or sanctioned by the Left’s favorite pinup: (more…)

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Tags: Castro, Che, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Fidel Castro, James Dean
Posted Dec 16th 2009 at 9:51 am in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Film, Politics | 280574190 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/safox/2009/12/16/che-guevara-hollywoods-mass-murdering-phenom/Che+Guevara%3A+Hollywood%27s+Mass-Murdering+Phenom2009-12-16+17%3A51%3A10Sara+Anne+Fox

NewsBusted: What Makes Sammy White?

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Tags: Al Gore, Current TV, Democrats, Fidel Castro, Jobless Americans
Posted Nov 20th 2009 at 5:46 pm in Media Criticism, Political Humor, Video | 2663429 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/newsbusters/2009/11/20/newsbusted-what-makes-sammy-white/NewsBusted%3A+What+Makes+Sammy+White%3F2009-11-21+01%3A46%3A05NewsBusters

Exclusive Excerpt: ‘Without Fidel’ — Hollywood’s Useful Idiots Go to Cuba

Today, Scribner sent along this timely excerpt from “Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington,” a new book by award-winning journalist Ann Louise Bardach. For those of you who don’t know, today, on behalf of Vanity Fair, Sean Penn’s in Cuba hoping to secure an interview with Fidel Castro. As you’ll read below, this is not Penn’s first trip and he’s pretty chummy with the Castro brothers. And don’t miss the short excerpt at the very end — an amusing anecdote revealing how visiting stars like Leo and Jack Nicholson are put under constant surveillance in Uncle Fidel’s Cuba. As long as it’s not Dick Cheney, right?

Without Fidel
by Ann Louise Bardach

Chapter 12 – Raul’s Reign: The Grave Yard Shift

In October 2008, Raul Castro granted his first interview as president of Cuba – and one of the very few he has ever given. The lucky recipient was not one of the dozen accredited reporters based in Havana. Nor was it a journalist who has covered the Miami/Havana beat, nor one of the hundreds of requests from representatives from media organizations and academia who have filed requests with the Foreign Ministry. Rather, Raul Castro’s first interlocutor would be the actor/director, Sean Penn, who periodically weighs in on politics.

Penn had just winged in on a Venezuelan military jet from Isla Margarita, the picturesque island near Caracas, having had spent two days with a convivial Hugo Chavez. With him were the writer Christopher Hitchens and historian Douglas Brinkley, whom Penn had invited to accompany him, presumably to lend gravitas to his efforts. The three had hoped to reprise their luck with Raul Castro and, according to Penn, seemed to have been promised as much. (more…)

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Tags: Ann Louise Bardach, Fidel Castro, Havana and Washington, Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio
Posted Oct 27th 2009 at 4:55 pm in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Politics | 25398662 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/10/27/exclusive-excerpt-without-fidel-hollywoods-useful-idiots-go-to-cuba/Exclusive+Excerpt%3A+%27Without+Fidel%27+--+Hollywood%27s+Useful+Idiots+Go+to+Cuba2009-10-27+23%3A55%3A29Big+Hollywood

Sean Penn Off To Interview Uncle Fidel

If you didn’t know any better, you would almost think that Sean Penn wants to make it extremely easy for conservatives to criticize Hollywood for being overly liberal. He’s flown to Cuba to interview his hero Fidel Castro:

Oscar-winning actor and political activist Sean Penn flew to Cuba hoping to interview its revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, entertainment news website TMZ reported Sunday.

“Sean (Penn) is going to the land of Fidel as a journalist, writing a story for Vanity Fair (magazine) about how the (Barack) Obama administration has affected Cuba,” TMZ reported…

“Barclays sources say Sean and Diana are going to meet (Fidel) Castro — presumably because that’s what Diana told them,” the website reported. Penn’s representative also told TMZ a meeting was possible.

(more…)

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Tags: Cuba, Fidel Castro, Obama, Raul Castro, sean penn
Posted Oct 26th 2009 at 9:29 am in Entertainment, Politics | 252518102 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mvandergalien/2009/10/26/sean-penn-to-pay-homage-to-his-hero-fidel-castro/Sean+Penn+Off+To+Interview+Uncle+Fidel2009-10-26+16%3A29%3A38Michael+van+der+Galien

A Name Americans Should Know – Jodie Evans and the Obama- Hollywood-Terrorist Connection

How much access can a possible agent of influence for state sponsors of terrorism buy from President Barack Obama? For Jodie Evans, a progressive Hollywood activist, the going rate appears to be $30,400 for dinner and a conversation.

Last week in San Francisco, Obama headlined a three million dollar fundraiser at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. The San Francisco Chronicle reports about 160 people paid $30,400 or more per couple for a private dinner with Obama followed by a reception costing $500 to $1000 that drew over 900 attendees. Among those at the dinner was the leftist, so-called antiwar group Code Pink co-founder, Jodie Evans.

The Chronicle reports Jodie Evans had a several minutes long conversation with Obama at the fundraiser.

Why does Jodie Evans merit such face time with the president even though she acts as an agent of influence for the anti-American governments of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Middle Eastern terrorists?

Over the life of the campaign, Jodie Evans became one of Obama’s top donors, giving the maximum $2300 to his respective primary and general election funds and tens of thousands of dollars more to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint Obama-Democratic National Committee fund.

(more…)

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Tags: Barack Obama, Barbara Boxer, code pink, Democrat National Committee, Fidel Castro
Posted Oct 23rd 2009 at 5:00 pm in Culture, Featured Story, Obama, Politics | 251790One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/taylorking/2009/10/23/a-name-americans-should-know-jodie-evans-and-the-obama-hollywood-terrorist-connection/A+Name+Americans+Should+Know+%E2%80%93+Jodie+Evans+and+the+Obama-+Hollywood-Terrorist+Connection2009-10-24+00%3A00%3A39Kristinn+Taylor+and++Andrea+Shea+King

Duck and Cover

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Tags: Cuba, Eco-Czar, Eric Holder, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez
Posted Sep 6th 2009 at 12:12 pm in Art, News, Political Humor, Politics | 21880234 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cmuir/2009/09/06/duck-and-cover/Duck+and+Cover2009-09-06+19%3A12%3A37Chris+Muir

‘NewsBusted’ 8/21/09 — Fake News from the Right

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Tags: Billie Jean King, Cap and Trade, Fidel Castro, Global warming, Hugo Chavez
Posted Aug 21st 2009 at 8:47 pm in Political Humor, Video | 20925023 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/newsbusters/2009/08/21/%e2%80%98newsbusted%e2%80%99-82109-%e2%80%94-fake-news-from-the-right/%E2%80%98NewsBusted%E2%80%99+8%2F21%2F09+%E2%80%94+Fake+News+from+the+Right2009-08-22+03%3A47%3A49NewsBusters

Examining Leftist Thinking

The question that’s been preying on my mind is who is best suited to study those strange beings known as liberals.  It strikes me that they’d be fit subjects for psychiatrists, who might be in a position to figure out why they revere the people they do — people such as Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Al Gore and Ted Kennedy — men who haven’t a single notable accomplishment to their name, aside from either winning elections or eliminating them altogether.  Or perhaps it would be more appropriate for biologists to delve into the left-wing organism, and determine how it is possible that creatures without brains could have survived so long in an often hostile environment.

If you don’t believe that liberalism is a serious malady, consider that Paul Krugman of the New York Times, when addressing Sonia Sotomayor’s remark about an Hispanic woman being better qualified than a white man to be a judge, said that she was merely being entertaining.  Even if Mr. Krugman is, as his comment suggests, more easily entertained than a backward three-year-old, I have a feeling that he wasn’t nearly as forgiving when Trent Lott, on the occasion of Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday in 2002, said it was a shame that the old Dixiecrat hadn’t been elected president in 1948. (more…)

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Tags: 57 states, Afghanistan, Al Gore, Barack Hussein Obama, Barney Frank
Posted Jun 11th 2009 at 5:03 am in Politics | 156682200 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/06/11/notes-from-the-liberal-front/Examining+Leftist+Thinking2009-06-11+12%3A03%3A57Burt+Prelutsky

I Guess You Had To Be There: The Barack Obama Celebrity Roast

(Thundering tympanies, swirling spotlights)

Announcer

Live! From the fabulous Turtle Bay Ballroom at United Nations Headquarters, it’s the Rat Pack of Evil All-Star International Celebrity Roast of President Barack Obama!

(orchestra fanfare: ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’)

With Pyongyang funnyman Kim Jong-Il! Borscht Belt headliner Vlady Putin! Queen of Mean Liz Windsor! Saudi Sheik of Schtick King Abdullah! Beijing jokeslinger Hu Jintao! Wacky al Qaeda Caveman Ayman al-Zawahiri! Nick ‘the Knife’ Sarkozy! Sassy Wanda Sykes! South-of-the-border slapstick team Hugo Chavez and the Castro Brothers! Taliban Madman Mullah Omar! Jon Stewart! Lovable Libyan lush Muammar al-Ghadaffi! Grovelin’ Guvner Gordy Brown! Bashar “The Chin” al-Assad! The Hamas Fattah Dancers! And starring your Master of Ceremonies — that suntan man with a plan from Iran — that Persian with a nuclear perversion — Sheckyyyyyy Ahmedinejad!

(applause)

Shecky Ahmedinejad

Okay, okay, pipe down. Let’s get this thing over with, this straitjacket is a rental and my magic carpet is double-parked on East 43rd. Mohamed H. Prophet, will you get a load of the evil on the stage tonight? I haven’t seen this many bombs since Janeane Garofalo played the American Legion convention. (more…)

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Tags: "without preconditions", Ahmedinejad, al qaeda, American Legion, Andy Kauffman
Posted May 13th 2009 at 5:57 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, Media Criticism, News, Political Humor, Politics, Religion | 13463465 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dburge/2009/05/13/i-guess-you-had-to-be-there-the-barack-obama-celebrity-roast/I+Guess+You+Had+To+Be+There%3A+The+Barack+Obama+Celebrity+Roast2009-05-14+00%3A57%3A28Iowahawk

The Streisand Effect – or People Who Don’t Need People

I have a confession to make: when I’m alone in my car – or in iPod isolation – I sometimes listen to Barbra Streisand.  And I’m neither a big fan of pop music nor of the current state of liberalism – the cushy, comfy, groupthink kind with which Streisand has become closely linked in recent years.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Whenever I’m feeling a little down, Streisand’s rousing, patriotic rendition of “Before the Parade Passes By” (from the Hello, Dolly! soundtrack) is the next best thing to shooting up a Diet Rockstar.  The movie may be deadly, but that track is classic Barbra: starts out quiet, plaintive, then slowly builds to an almost militaristic crescendo of chorus, trumpets, beating drums – and Babs, screaming her head off above it all with a heroic, never-ending high note that sounds like a war cry.

I know - that’s so gay.  But for me, the song is musical comfort food – and proof of the power of the human spirit: a rusty Main Street USA antique, shined up and brought back to life by a disadvantaged ugly duckling from Brooklyn, with a voice straight from God, who beat the odds.  That’s when Streisand was still one of a kind.

But that was 1969.  This is now.  Today, “Before the Parade Passes By” would probably be called something like “Whenever the Trans-Cultural Community Gathering Happens to Reconvene.”  And it would probably be sung by Sheryl Crow. (more…)

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Tags: a star is born, Arnold Scaasi, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barack Obama, Barbra Streisand
Posted Apr 17th 2009 at 5:03 am in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Politics | 9997879 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/04/17/the-streisand-effect-or-people-who-dont-need-people/The+Streisand+Effect+-+or+People+Who+Don%27t+Need+People2009-04-17+12%3A03%3A37Charles+Winecoff

Fidel – Happy At Last!

One day Hugo Chavez calls upon President Obama to join a great, global socialist revolution, the next Obama moves towards normalizing relations with Cuba. It’s good to see the U.S. listening to other world leaders again!

It’s been two years since Fidel Castro retired, and not much has been heard from him. What exactly does an all-powerful, all-knowing, great and glorious communist revolutionary leader do in retirement? Like most things in communist Cuba, Fidel’s retirement has been shrouded in secrecy. Until now. As a Breitbart columnist it is my responsibility to bring you, the reader, the truth as uncovered by my world-wide network of investigative reporters, spies, finks and stoolies. (more…)

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Tags: Dave Konig, Fidel, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Obama
Posted Mar 9th 2009 at 5:41 pm in News, Political Humor | 7514232 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dkonig/2009/03/09/fidel-happy-at-last/Fidel+-+Happy+At+Last%212009-03-10+00%3A41%3A30Dave+Konig

A 12-Step Liberal Recovery Program

Most 12-step programs start out by requiring that people understand that they’re powerless over their addiction and that only by turning their lives over to a Power greater than themselves can they be restored to sanity.  Far be it for me to suggest that I am that Power, but clearly someone has to step in and try to rescue these poor liberal souls.  Even the most harebrained among them deserves that much.

First, though, they have to acknowledge that Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Dick Durbin, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer, are not moderates, but, rather, leftists with a Socialist agenda.  Furthermore, they must recognize that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, CNN, the three major networks, the news magazines and the New Yorker, are not objective in their reporting of political events, and neither are Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher, in their commentary.  If these entities and individuals are not on the payroll of the DNC, they certainly should be.  They certainly put in longer hours than Howard Dean. (more…)

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Tags: "under God", 10 Commandments, 12-step programs, abc, ACLU
Posted Mar 6th 2009 at 2:42 pm in Media Criticism, Political Humor, Politics | 7413869 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/03/06/a-12-step-liberal-recovery-program/A+12-Step+Liberal+Recovery+Program2009-03-06+22%3A42%3A04Burt+Prelutsky

I Pledge to Ridicule Celebrities Who Refuse to Recognize We Are At War With People Who Want to Kill Them, Too

Many of the celebrities that were central to demonizing and making life impossible for President Bush for eight loathsome years NOW want to help with the heavy lifting of bringing America back together under President Barack Obama.

Witness Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s cavalcade of shiny, happy situational patriots appearing in a derivative public servitude announcement: A “Presidential Pledge” to President Barack Obama.

Forgive and forget? Right.

(more…)

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Tags: "Oceans" franchise, 9/11, Afghanistan, AIDS, Anthony Kiedis
Posted Jan 19th 2009 at 2:42 pm in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Video | 24317386 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2009/01/19/where-were-you-celebrities-after-911/I+Pledge+to+Ridicule+Celebrities+Who+Refuse+to+Recognize+We+Are+At+War+With+People+Who+Want+to+Kill+Them%2C+Too2009-01-19+22%3A42%3A40Andrew+Breitbart

Part II: “Che:” Bad Movie About A Bad Guy Gets Worse

“How I would like to rise to power just to unmask cowards and lackeys of every sort and squash their snouts in their own filth.”

Che Guevara, Bolivia, September 8, 1967.

“No rapport had been established with the locals…” Anderson, p. 722

As I said in part one of my review of Soderbergh’s “Che,” The film gives us no idea of what happened after the Cuban Revolutionary government took power. Quite a lot did happen. We all know about the Bay of Pigs invasion, which deserves its own four-hour movie, hopefully directed by someone other than Soderbergh. We also all know that hundreds of thousands of people left Cuba in the early 1960s. People have never stopped leaving.

What’s less known to outsiders is that under Castro’s command, the Cuban Revolution began, very early on, to eat its own. The highest rank in the Revolutionary army was then the rank of “Comandante.” Here’s what happened to a few Revolutionary Comandantes:  In October 1959, Comandante Huber Matos, who is omitted from this film, criticizes the influence of Communists in the Revolutionary Government, and tenders his resignation. He is arrested, and serves twenty years in prison, during which time he endures severe torture. The dashing Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos is killed in an airplane crash within a week of the arrest of Huber Matos. The wreckage has never been found. Matos, who along with Camilo flanks Fidel in the famous photographs of Fidel’s entry into Havana, is among many who have never accepted the plane crash story. In March of 1961, Comandante William Morgan, of Cleveland, Ohio, also omitted from this film, is arrested and executed.

(more…)

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Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Che Guevara, Cuba, Fidel Castro, Steven Soderbergh
Posted Jan 13th 2009 at 5:01 pm in Entertainment, Media Criticism, Reviews | 1802945 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jlima/2009/01/13/part-ii-%e2%80%9cche%e2%80%9d-bad-movie-about-a-bad-guy-gets-worse/Part+II%3A+%E2%80%9CChe%3A%E2%80%9D+Bad+Movie+About+A+Bad+Guy+Gets+Worse2009-01-14+01%3A01%3A41Joe+Lima