San Diego’s local film publicists refuse to show the latest edition of Pirates of the Caribbean for critics, and I’m not terribly sad about it. If I’m going to see Johnny Depp do drag, I’d much rather it be in Before Night Falls, in which he plays, in one of his two roles, a transgendered Cuban prisoner.
It’s a small part, but he’s most excellent. But not as excellent as Javier Bardem, who plays the gay Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, whose memoirs of awakening and escape this gorgeous, moving movie is based on.
