It may seem naive, but only one man is enough to change the world. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, John Kennedy … The history has less retained its name, but Harvey Milk is part of this prestigious line of men who have helped the world grow. With simple words, like hope or change that reverberate still pretty good way today, with the courage of those who disappear behind their cause, he has over 70 years old, gave meaning to the expression “right to difference”. But like his predecessors, he also paid for his fight of his life.

Rating: 4/5
Cast: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna, James Franco, Alison Pill, Victor Garber, Denis O’Hare, Joseph Cross, Stephen Spinella
Directed By:Gus Van Sant

It was on his last 8 years of existence that looks “Milk”, a new and magnificent achievement by Gus Van Sant. Party live in San Francisco with his lover Scott in 1972, where they opened a photo shop in the Castro district, Milk, 40 years old, gradually found its way: politics. In 1977, after 3 attempts, and with much help from his friends, he was finally elected to the board of supervisors of the city, thus becoming the first gay politician elected in the United States.

In its sights: the former singer Anita Bryant and Senator John Briggs both decided to remove homosexuality from the American card “to protect our children” via the infamous proposal 6 to refer to all homosexuals teachers and their supporters.

So far. So close. Seeing “Milk”, is observing the violent and daily homophobia he describes, the fact is quickly bittersweet: the widespread intolerance, almost institutionalized, these gestures and reactionary about dating there is barely 30 years from now.

Entirely shot in San Francisco in a soft and almost melancholic photograph signed Harris Savides (the DOP favorite Van Sant, which also saw the levers of “American Gangster” or “Zodiac”) as appropriate to the enthusiasm political scene as the sensuality of intimate scenes, the film then moves in precisely reconstituted decors which Gus Van Sant continues to integrate images and archival photographs.

The process, as powerful as dynamic, is clever: the ever-increasing power of truth in his images, the film manages to make us almost touch the pulse of this critical battle for human rights and finally, the birth of a chaotic community.

Integrating its cast of real actors in this tragic saga but also some high end comedians (except for Diego Luna as the unbearable lover, Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, or, more surprisingly, James Franco are impeccable), “Milk” had especially to find a player up to the legend that began to revive. With Sean Penn, it’s done.

Inhabiting the character with an energy and undeniable conviction, despite some annoying tics ways, it makes a man so crazy that he knows how to be galvanizing, as light he knows to be noble. No wonder then, that the Harvey we see at the end is very endearing. No wonder either that, directed with so much passion and sense of epic, it reaches us literally upset.

Without any doubt, this movie deserves its place as an Academy Award Winner.

Steven Soderbergh revisits the myth of Che in 2 episodes of 2 hours each. If the first can be gained by the exaltation of the Cuban victory, the second is lost in the stalemate in the Bolivian conflict.

Rating: 3/5
Cast: Demián Bichir, Rodrigo Santoro, Benicio Del Toro, Catalina Sandino Moreno, María D. Sosa, Raúl Beltrán, Raúl ‘Pitín’ Gómez, Paty M. Bellott, Othello Rensoli
Directed By: Steven Soderbergh

For some, he is a hero. For others, the incarnation of evil. For all, it is, and has remained the strongest symbol of the Cuban revolution. After Walter Salles and his “Motorcycle Diaries”, the turn of Steven Soderbergh (”Traffic,” “Erin Brockovich”) to present his “Che”, with many years of research.

Dividing its ambitious undertaking to recount the two major guerrilla campaigns carried out by Ernesto Guevara – in Cuba and Bolivia – 2 films of two hours each (presented in a separate block with a short intermission), Soderbergh chooses resolutely towards myth than man. Treated as a figure rather than as a being of flesh and blood, Che appears in its most iconic, the most memorable. To learn more about his commitment and his feelings, we must read elsewhere. We are not in a biopic. Like the commitment of his heroes in “Che” are the revolution and inspiring ideas that come first.

In the first part, the process works well. Despite the mounting chaos. Despite the absence of large pieces (the reasons for the involvement of Che, for example). One shudders at the first meeting among friends in Mexico in 1955, between Fidel Castro (Demián Bichir, excellent) and Guevara, the feeling of seeing history written in front of our eyes jumped at the throat. It can be caught by the revolutionary blast leading the 80 men arrived by boat on the island of Cuba.

We admire the ethics and integrity of thought in the process of shaping a new country. It was the breath before the oratory skills of Guevara at the United Nations, extracts of black and white streaky her story. The enthusiasm of the vast history walk takes all in its path. Soderbergh trust our sense of the myth of justice and freedom. Benicio del Toro, who won at Cannes for this role, also producer of the film, is perfect, giving just enough weight and substance to the hero for not letting him go down under the weight of its own idealism.

It’s in the second part, the mechanism starts to creak. After the excitement, the stalemate. The Bolivian campaign, begun in 1967, is a debacle. The local Communist Party drops the guerrilla fighters struggling to convince farmers and Che suffers from increasingly violent asthma.

Soderbergh attempts to transform his film with a kind of clued mysticism, plunging at the pit of harassment and discouragement of a man uprooted, wrongly convinced that the Revolution may extend its tentacles to change throughout the Latin America. Existential poetry was not far away, Terrence Malick would have perhaps found. Unfortunately, it is lost by turning scenes of long and repetitive fighting, filmed without much soul. And it’s not the appearance of Matt Damon that will entertain. The party is well and truly lost. Benicio del Toro remains at the top of his art, fragile and emaciated on the intensity of his incarnation to a climax during a particularly moving final sequence.

NOTORIOUS is the story of CHRISTOPHER WALLACE who, through raw talent and sheer determination, transforms himself from a Brooklyn street hustler to become the greatest rapper of all time, THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. This story charts his meteoric rise to fame and his refusal to succumb to expectation and redefines our notion of “The American Dream.” The Star cast in the movie are Brandon Bailey , Angela Bassett, Kenya Cagle, Joy Curry, Rico Devereaux, Mohamed Dione, Taylor Dior, Edwin Freeman, Corey Hibbert , Osas Ighodaro, Julia Pace Mitchell.

Based on actual events, a plot to assassinate Hitler is unfurled during the height of WWII. The Star cast in the movie are Tom Cruise , Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy , Tom Wilkinson, Carice van Houten, Thomas Kretschmann, Terence Stamp , Eddie Izzard, Kevin McNally, Christian Berkel