Valkyrie and Che

I'll extend this in the coming days. Have been a little busy but both of these are well worth a viewing, both are about the over-throws of a repressive government (kinda like losing one George W Bush).

Che is the more self-serious of the two, is about Che in the Cuban revolution. Its a bit long and unstructured but is interesting in its showing about how difficult it is to manage and execute a cultural revolution. I've only seen part 1, which is why I'm so brief. Its difficult to talk about half a film but Benecio Del Toro is great in the lead.

Valkyrie is about the plot to kill Hitler, is sold as an old-fashioned World War 2 romp. Its a lot of fun but has a terrific set-up that makes the story of a failed plot interesting. What is it like to be a military man in a fascist dictatorship whose ideals you find disgusting. It follows that line for the entire film, keeps at the idea of the army trying to escape from Hitler and the SS's insanity to save Germany in some way, and is fascinating in how close they came to killing Hitler. It also has some terrific visuals and uses its inventive images rather than dialogue to give mood, cultural and story information. Its had some bad reviews so far, which is undeserved and feels like critics trying to be serious for when they rave about The Reader (which has a terrible trailer and is based on a horribly over-rated, stupid book)

To end, Benecio Del Toro and Valkyrie writer Christopher McQuarrie made a terrific crime film The Way Of The Gun years ago. Its very underseen and is the best crime film of the decade by a long way.