"Lost City" is actually a pretty good movie. Yeah, it has its problems, but it is not at all the giant turkey that reviewers insisted it was.
Problem? The movie depicts Che Guevara as less-than-saintly. Oh-so-politically correct reviewers can't have that! Look, Che liked to kill people, himself, with his own hands, without benefit of trial. That's amply documented. And that's the big secret this movie exposes.
What else have you got? "Lost City" is beautiful to look at. Even its detractors can't deny that. Want to look at some of the most beautiful people in the world, wearing gorgeous fashions from the late 1950s, and black Cubans, all in white, channeling African deities as they achieve trance state? There are turquoise waters, sandy beaches, forested mountains and a tobacco plantation.
Speaking of beauty, Nestor Carbonell and Ines Sastre are two of the most beautiful people alive today, and you get to ogle them here.
The soundtrack is out-of-this-world terrific. You can't second guess Andy Garcia's taste in Cuban music. The combination of music and scenes is intriguing.
Bill Murray as a expat American writer / comedian is one of the most interesting characters I've ever seen in a movie. I never was sure if he was a real person or Garcia / Fico's imaginary friend and secret sharer, sort of like a character whose identity I won't spoil for you in "A Beautiful Mind." Dustin Hoffman is always great, and he's an interesting Meyer Lansky, going on about "beshert" (destiny) and egg cream recipes. Ah, the glory days of organized crime.
There are a couple of really memorable scenes: Che Guevara arising out of a green field in the Sierra Maestra, his men arising behind him; a noble man dies in a scene that is an obvious homage to Wajda's "Ashes and Diamonds." I wonder if Garcia was embedding a political message in that homage -- "Ashes and Diamonds" also depicts a morally comprised world of shifting historical tectonic plates, where taking any stand is an iffy proposition.
The best scene in the movie occurs when heroes of the revolution take a firm stand against saxophones. This one scene is worth the price of admission.
The woman who leads the charge against saxophones is so perfect in her ugly righteousness, she could be a multiculti professor on an American campus. If you've been on an American campus lately, you know what I mean.
I've lived under communism -- have you? Have the folks who panned this movie? Listen, it's really like that -- just like that saxophone scene. And worse. Don't believe me? Go. Right now. Check it out. Write me. And, no, right wing dictatorships are no better, and "Lost City" provides a very brutal portrait of Batista and his thugs. What gets me is that American critics seem to think that when Che shoots you dead it feels better than when Batista shoots you dead. And that's just wrong.
Okay, so the movie is not perfect. The romantic leads have no chemistry. You can be beautiful and still not generate a lot of heat. Andy Garcia, as a director, is not Orson Welles; he's not John ford. But then, who is? There are a lot of characters and subplots. At one minute Meyer Lansky is walking into a room; the next minute a beautiful woman trailing the threads of a whole 'nother subplot comes walking in -- it doesn't all hang together.
After a while I just surrendered to Andy Garcia's passion. This movie is so obviously his labor of love, and there are much worse things a movie could be.
I wish this movie could have been an eight, or a nine, or a ten, but it's certainly not a 2.5, its Rotten Tomatoes' rating. "Lost City" is at least a seven, just like "I Am Cuba," another beautiful, flawed movie -- but one critics champion, because in that one, Fidel is heroic. Check it out.
But do give "Lost City", and the people of Cuba, a chance.
Problem? The movie depicts Che Guevara as less-than-saintly. Oh-so-politically correct reviewers can't have that! Look, Che liked to kill people, himself, with his own hands, without benefit of trial. That's amply documented. And that's the big secret this movie exposes.
What else have you got? "Lost City" is beautiful to look at. Even its detractors can't deny that. Want to look at some of the most beautiful people in the world, wearing gorgeous fashions from the late 1950s, and black Cubans, all in white, channeling African deities as they achieve trance state? There are turquoise waters, sandy beaches, forested mountains and a tobacco plantation.
Speaking of beauty, Nestor Carbonell and Ines Sastre are two of the most beautiful people alive today, and you get to ogle them here.
The soundtrack is out-of-this-world terrific. You can't second guess Andy Garcia's taste in Cuban music. The combination of music and scenes is intriguing.
Bill Murray as a expat American writer / comedian is one of the most interesting characters I've ever seen in a movie. I never was sure if he was a real person or Garcia / Fico's imaginary friend and secret sharer, sort of like a character whose identity I won't spoil for you in "A Beautiful Mind." Dustin Hoffman is always great, and he's an interesting Meyer Lansky, going on about "beshert" (destiny) and egg cream recipes. Ah, the glory days of organized crime.
There are a couple of really memorable scenes: Che Guevara arising out of a green field in the Sierra Maestra, his men arising behind him; a noble man dies in a scene that is an obvious homage to Wajda's "Ashes and Diamonds." I wonder if Garcia was embedding a political message in that homage -- "Ashes and Diamonds" also depicts a morally comprised world of shifting historical tectonic plates, where taking any stand is an iffy proposition.
The best scene in the movie occurs when heroes of the revolution take a firm stand against saxophones. This one scene is worth the price of admission.
The woman who leads the charge against saxophones is so perfect in her ugly righteousness, she could be a multiculti professor on an American campus. If you've been on an American campus lately, you know what I mean.
I've lived under communism -- have you? Have the folks who panned this movie? Listen, it's really like that -- just like that saxophone scene. And worse. Don't believe me? Go. Right now. Check it out. Write me. And, no, right wing dictatorships are no better, and "Lost City" provides a very brutal portrait of Batista and his thugs. What gets me is that American critics seem to think that when Che shoots you dead it feels better than when Batista shoots you dead. And that's just wrong.
Okay, so the movie is not perfect. The romantic leads have no chemistry. You can be beautiful and still not generate a lot of heat. Andy Garcia, as a director, is not Orson Welles; he's not John ford. But then, who is? There are a lot of characters and subplots. At one minute Meyer Lansky is walking into a room; the next minute a beautiful woman trailing the threads of a whole 'nother subplot comes walking in -- it doesn't all hang together.
After a while I just surrendered to Andy Garcia's passion. This movie is so obviously his labor of love, and there are much worse things a movie could be.
I wish this movie could have been an eight, or a nine, or a ten, but it's certainly not a 2.5, its Rotten Tomatoes' rating. "Lost City" is at least a seven, just like "I Am Cuba," another beautiful, flawed movie -- but one critics champion, because in that one, Fidel is heroic. Check it out.
But do give "Lost City", and the people of Cuba, a chance.