Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2004

The Contenders:

Before Sunset
Finding Neverland
Million Dollar Baby
The Motorcycle Diaries
Sideways (winner)

Birth of a Communist

Films: The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios di Motocicleta)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

When I did the 1001 Movies list originally, I made a massive effort to remove foreign language films at a regular clip. I haven’t really done that with the Oscar lists. A big part of that is that there aren’t a substantial number of non-English films on my Oscar lists. Because of this, I find myself nearing the end of this part of this project with a relatively substantial number of foreign language films still to see. I should probably do something about that, which is one of the reasons I watched The Motorcycle Diaries (or Diarios de Motocicleta if you prefer) today.

Depending on your political persuasion, The Motorcycle Diaries is either a terrible tale of the creation of one of the greatest enemies of freedom to ever exist or it’s a superhero origin story. Why? Because this is the story of Ernesto “Che” Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal) and a formative journey he took with an older friend named Alberto Granado (Rodrigo De la Serna) from Buenos Aires up along the Pacific coast of South America on an old, dilapidated motorcycle (hence the name of the film).