By Emily Witt 6:54pm

Book Parties

che_guevara1

Viva la Book Party! A Soiree for Che

In 1995, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents about the C.I.A.’s involvement in the death of Che Guevara in Bolivia. Years passed — 16 of them — and Mr. Ratner forgot that he had ever sent the letter. But he was still living in the same apartment and one day some documents from the government began trickling in through the mail. With new information he now says definitively dispels “the myth that the United States was not involved in the order to kill Che,” Mr. Ratner decided to write a small book, joining forces with another attorney, Michael Steven Smith, to produce Who Killed Che? How the C.I.A. Got Away with Murder.

On Thursday night their publisher, independent outfit OR Books, held a party to celebrate the book’s publication at the somewhat unusual venue of the Cuban Mission to the United Nations. Read More

By Emily Witt 3/01/11 11:04pm

Observatory

The Mystery of Rosa Luxemburg’s Corpse

Of all the famous Marxist leaders, only Marx himself was afforded both a natural death and a dignified burial. His grave is in Highgate Cemetery in London, most of which is a creepy overgrown ruin of toppled marble angels and Gothic crypts. But Marx is in a nice corner of the graveyard where they still Read More

By Matt Haber 12/15/08 12:34pm

The Importance of Being Ernesto: Soderbergh Unspools Four-Hour-Plus Che to Cheers, Cries of ‘Murderer’

There wasn’t a single free seat at the Friday night screening of Che at the Ziegfeld Theatre. A sign at the box office window informed attendees that the historic 1,131-seat theater was completely sold out.

Reviews for Steven Soderbergh’s two-part biopic of Latin American revolutionary and T-shirt model Ernesto "Che" Guevara (played by co-producer Benicio Read More

By Staff, Staff 9/11/06 12:00am

George and Hilly

GEORGE: It’s funny, I was feeling rather low, and then Hilly walked into the waiting room and my spirits went way up. That’s gotta be a good sign.

[Silence.]

DR. SELMAN: So you were glad to see her?

GEORGE: Yep. She got some new shoes.

DR. SELMAN: Can I see?

HILLY: Little Ralph Lauren wedges. Read More

By Andrew Sarris 12:00am

Romantic Rebel Ché Guevera On the Road in Motorcycle Diaries

Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries, from a screenplay by Jose Rivera, is based on the books The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto (Ché) Guevara and Traveling with Ché Guevara by Alberto Granado. This review can only speculate on the prodigious research and reconstruction efforts required to bring this politically charged buddy-buddy road movie to the screen, Read More

By Lawrence Osborne 6/16/03 12:00am

Che Trippers

Long declared to be mere footnotes to history, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are riding high in the American media. The Cuban Revolution, it seems, is everywhere once again, and cold, hard historical judgment is harder and harder to find. HBO may have pulled Oliver Stone’s fawning documentary Comandante after Mr. Castro, in April, sentenced Read More

By Simon Doonan 12/02/02 12:00am

Boozy Funsters–on Vespas! My Anti-Armageddon Gift Guide

Radiation-blocking potassium-iodide pills do not a holiday gift make. Sure, in the event of exposure to certain types of radioactive material, these pills ($28 for 200 65-mg tablets from twotigersonline.com) will prevent your thyroid from absorbing the nasty stuff, but if the rest of you is burned to a crisp, what good is a healthy Read More

By Terry Golway 7/03/00 12:00am

A Political Pop Quiz: Who Cares About TV? Movies?

The heiress was chatting on the telephone the other night, her first real telephone conversation with a friend in her six years on earth. I just happened to be sitting in the same room, so I couldn’t help but listen in-I assume that by doing so, I was not violating some judge’s notion of a Read More