Reviews

As I have found time and again, the SNL Cast thinks they are funny, but don't realize that poor sketch comedy doesn't translate into feature films. The actors are universally poor and lack any polish. The writers clearly think crude vulgarity is a substitute for writing. I like the occasional harsh word to punch up a joke, but this non-stop line of profanity is neither humorous nor ads to the story or character development. It shows a writer completely bereft of ideas how to stretch a 5 minute idea into a 90 minute feature, so he padded the script with profanity.

This film is demeaning to dogs. I am surprised that both PETA and SPCA are not howling with derision over the treatment of the animals in this film.

I understand the idea that some pet owners are bad people. My hometown is littered with strays as a result of the poor choices of humans (COVID Pets anyone?) and my home is richer because of the street dogs we have taken in and made family.

There is no defense for the level of violence vulgarity and mean spirits that "you shouldn't take it seriously, the film is made for laughs", when it is completely unfunny. This much vulgarity and crude behavior makes for a terrible film.

We rented this from Redbox for $1.25 on sale,and it is the biggest waste of time and money.

Don't bother watching this. It's not funny, it's not a family film, and it has no redeeming qualities. It's just 90 minutes of cursing.

It is obvious that the only reason the child actors were cast was because they are progeny of film industry insiders. The wroted[Rus give thin dialog and a hackneyed plot, but the actors can't even salvage this threadbare excuse for a movie. I love Shi-Taunya dogs, but even I turned this awful thing off. Whoever greenlighted this turkey should be ashamed of themselves.

Its been more than a year since I read the book that was made into this film, so I can't count point by point whether this film followed the book exactly. That being said, the narrative was beautifully done and conveyed the full impact of the story to the screen.

With the change in directors comes a slight change in feel of the HP series of movies. The film is faster paced, and warmer feeling. The dialog is snappy and smooth, with genuine interactions between the now veteran actors who have had 4 years to work together on the series. They truly act like old friends and the situations are believable and real. This film still maintains a sinister edge. Where the first two were pensive and gloomy with lots of languid scenes and many shots of cold winter skies and enclosed dusty old spaces, this film is shot much more in the open skies.

Yes, the big story in the news is "my how the kids have grown." That misses the point. The real story is how you can take a set of actors and make (approximately) one movie per year of their life and use it to chronicle each year in Hogwarts as they grow. This is a golden opportunity, and one that some sociology student no doubt will use as the subject for their dissertation.

The film is excellently shot and well scripted. The dialog rarely felt forced, and most characters had some depth, with the surprising exception being Draco Malfoy, who was a one note solo of scared running and sneers. Much of the Potter-Malfoy banter and traded jibes of previous movies is gone, replaced with the other characters coming into their own to defend themselves and their friends. The film focuses much more of its time on the three primary characters, sacrificing the development of the ancilliary characters (the professors, other students, relatives who barely rise above cameo status). This is OK, because by now many of them are fully formed after the first 2 movies, as far as they are needed to support the background of the series.

This film introduces two (three really) new characters to the screen, that of Professor Lupin (David Thewlis) and Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). Nobody plays crazy like Gary Oldman (Leon, 5th Element), so I thought he was an excellent choice for the part, as his moving "WANTED" poster shows again and again. However, Thewlis as Lupin was less of a good choice. While a fine actor who played the part with sufficient gravitas, he lacked the physical look and presence that I would have expected of Lupin. His demeanor and carriage did not convey his significance as a character. Picking up the role of Dumbledoor (a mighty tall wizard cap to fill) is Michael Gambon, who plays the role with the right attitude. He is less distant, and more open and engaging than in the previous movies, his short screen time we a delight.

The action of the film is well done, with sweeping views and interesting effects that don't grow stale. The Quidditch match in the rain was a delight to watch, as is the lovely flight of BuckBeak.

There were a few misfires. The CGI characterization of the werewolf was cartoonish and totally unlike the established (clichéd?) stereotype of what a werewolf should look like. The transformation scene from man to beast reminded me of Michael Jackon's "Thriller" (ooOOH!) video, and that is not a kind comparison. There is much more realistic CGI work out there, so to see this was disappointing. Also the costuming of Peter Pettigrew was too cliched and a bit silly.

All in all, this is a thoroughly enjoyable movie. It is well paced, with no dull moments. It does not move so fast that you miss the details. Less time was spent immersing you in the magic of the environment (pun intended) and more on getting the story (and it is a long story) moving. I think it stands out slightly from the first two films as the best of the breed. Given the success of the first two films I would say that is a high compliment indeed.

For me, what got lost in the translation was the pace. This was a nice movie, and I liked a lot of it, but the slow languid pace kept me from loving it. I came away from it saying, "what's all the buzz about" Then I remembered. Hollywood treating Hollywood royalty. This film got an Oscar for best writing for the same reason that Nicholas Cage gets movies: Francis Ford Coppola and the movie mafia.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the writing, but it certainly was not Oscar worthy at nearly 2 hours running time for what was an 70 minute movie.

To see the reason why, one only has to watch the self-indulgent "featurette" in the supplemental material. Walking through a parking lot calling out the names of miscellaneous staffers glimpsed on handycam footage is irrelevant. So was the length of the movie.

I loved the "love story" that developed between the principals, and how it resolved on the idea that sometimes what you DON'T need to do is split up your marriage and run off with someone else you just met (no matter how tempting). Oh, by the way, if you leave your husband, call me in LA, and I'll leave my wife for you, he whispers in her ear before leaving in the limo. That was great.

I appreciated the sense of having lots of time to kill in a foreign city. The money shot of the Japanese photographer saying 150 words, which were translated into "more intensity please" could have been easily worn out, but while that was the focus of the trailer to get folks in the theater, that was not the "fish out of water" angle I really saw. What intrigued me was that the principals were both fed up with their own lives, in addition to being stranded in a very different space than they were used to. They were both adrift in their marriages, and professionally, his career over and hers never begun. So that played much more strongly to me than cheap shots of poor translations of words and ideas. This is good stuff.

Why did it take 102 minutes for this to happen?

The filming, especially the cameraman's use of light and the textures of the city (the dinosaurs walking across a glass fronted building) was brilliant, but how many reaction shots of slacker Scarlett Johanssen's somewhat curious face can we really use? Yeah, we see her walk through Tokyo, dressed just intentionally frumpily enough to stand out among the sharply dressed Tokyoans (sp?). That I got the first time. The tenth time, it was tedious. The second or third temple we saw was just the same as the first couple. They didn't advance the story, they just chewed up time.

In all, a good, modest film in search of some serious editing. Pare down the languid scenes, and get rid of the fluff (like the whole hospital scene, which was useless in its final form) and you could still express the exasperation and fruitlessness the characters felt.

If you want to show me how to be bored in Tokyo for a week, please don't shoot it in real time. I have other things to do.

RangeR "back in the saddle again" BoB

Ugh.

What a lame ass movie.

I knew Kevin Smith was going to depart from the format and characters made famous in the 5 movies of his "Jersey Trilogy". No biggie. It was fine to introduce a whole new set of characters, who have no connection to the old movies, and to jump in time (from the late 80s/early 90s of the Jersey Trilogy, to the mid 90s at the beginning of JG and then present day at the end).

Mr Smith brought in his usual cast of characters (to include his wife, movie #2 for her) to appear mugging for the cameras for scenes.

His choice of Ben Affleck makes sense in a View Askewniverse, since for some cosmic reason "Good Will Hunting" would not have been made if not for Ben being in Mallrats. He is also a big, bankable star with name recognition. He is also one of the worst "A list" (or any list for that matter) actors out there perpetrating a fraud on the American movie-going public. One step above Keanu, only because he has no obvious verbal affectation. He acts like he was carved out of a block of gypsum board, and has only successfully managed to play himself (cast as a bad actor) in any movie he has played in. How many lame versions of himself can we be subjected to?

J-Lo was only in the film for 10 minutes, and that is OK. She has acting ability, and I have no objection to her roles in "Out Of Sight" opposite George Clooney, she made a believable "Selena" and she was OK in "Money Train", for what that turkey was worth. Here her role was largely one dimensional, and she wasn't on screen long enough for us to develop any connection or feeling (good or bad) for her character.

The story has a basic element that has been tread many times before: Boy meets girl, gets married, has a baby. This time the "twist" is supposed to be that girl dies, and man is left holding the baby. This premise (which is squarely in the center of one of my personal greatest fears) could have been handled with grace, wit and good writing. It is instead treated to none of these things. What could be sensitive moments leavened with sharp repartee in the dialog instead becomes morose, maudlin and moribund. The plot turns were predictable, and not very believable. The pacing was slow, and reduced the watcher's attention span.

There was no consistent comedic tone. There were definitely funny moments, but the jokes (which often were raucously funny as standalone jokes) were spaced unevenly throughout the film. Smith also has a tendency to believe that child nudity is somehow endearing. I am not sure I want a film so realistic as to see a 7 year old pull down her panties no less than twice in a film.

Smith atempts 4 major plotlines (He raises the baby alone, he laments his tanked career, his reuniting with his dad, and his resistance to falling in love again) in a swirling pastiche that does justice to none of them. Any one of these lines when competently handled would make a watchable movie, but I was so unimpressed with EACH of them that the whole movie fell apart like a house of cards.

Smith is known for his sharp insight, acerbic wit, and snappy dialog. This film has none of those characteristics. Combine this with lousy acting and no real scenery (is any part of run down Jersey/NYC suburbia really scenic?) and the film is practically unwatchable.

I believe his own marriage and the birth to his child have made Mr. Smith soft in the head and unable to focus any degree of intellect on the matters at hand. His attempts to make a serious, sensitive film on the effects of raising children have just led to a boring and useless movie. In short, Kevin Smith has become Robert Rodriguez, and Hollywood has taken away any soul his movies have had and replaced them with big name talent (which flatly is not talented) and he now has free reign over a big budget to replace grainy hand held film with schlock.

It was a paycheck.

Anything Mr. Smith tried to say in this film got lost in the considerable noise as the film groaned under its own weight.

This film will assuredly NOT be added to my collection, an obvious blemish on anotherwise fine career.

Terrible, terrible.

The first movie was a reasonably funny "fish out of water" comedy. This has no such redeeming values. Predictable, unfunny, and the fight scenes just got old after a while. The swordfight near the end is well done, as was the streetmarket fight, but so what?

The film is a pastiche of bad jokes. A few are funny, but they generally were holdovers from the first movie, like the horse. Owen Wilson's touchy-feelie-hippie-cowboy with a huge ego just is not entertaining thru 90 minutes of screen time. The plot is threadbare and full of holes, and the story isn't interesting.

No where near the first movie, and the first wasn't that great to begin with.

I have read this book and was wondering how well Hollywood could translate it to the screen. The book is VERY well written and is one of the better documented and researched books on modern warfare. Rather than just a historical summary, Mark Bowden went out and talked to many of the soldiers who took part in these raids in Mogadishu in '93.

I had some fears because this was a Jerry Bruckheimer production, and with films like Con Air and the remake of "Gone in 60 seconds" to his credit, he is a bit spotty at best.

The movie was directed by Ridley Scott, who occasionally misses (1492) he mostly hits with his many gritty portrayals of people in tough places. He shot the film in Morocco, but one could easily believe that you were in "The Mog". The utter depravity and destruction of years of civil war were shown out in the rusted hulks of cars and the debris from destroyed buildings throughout the streets.

Some fast facts: Somalia had no government any longer, and 300,000 people died of hunger while rival warlords fought over the port of Mogadishu. One leader, Mohammed Farrah Aidid took control of the port area and stole all of the UN food shipments. In a starving nation, food is power and hunger is a weapon. The US and the UN sent in forces in late 92 to try and restore order and the flow of food. When the Marines drove onto the beach in their amphibious assault vehicles, CNN was there with bright floodlights to capture the action. The Marines eventually left, and the gangs started preying on the UN troops, with the slaughter of 24 Pakistani peacekeepers being the final straw. The US sent back in Delta Force and Ranger units, with the aim to capture as many Somali warlords and their lieutenants as they could.

The film opens up with scenes of the horror of the place, and how the deprivations of the people by the warlords gangs were being delegated to the UN to solve. Our Rangers were ordered to stand by and watch as civilians are slaughtered by Aidid's henchmen. The Rangers were only allowed to perform their operations. Meanwhile our leadership there was planning a raid to capture many of Aidid's top men.

The raid begins, and things quickly go to hell. It was believed that the helicopters were relatively safe because any weapon large enough to bring one down would be spotted, and the most common large weapon, the Soviet Rocket Propelled Grenade, or RPG, couldn't be fired up at the choppers, because the rocket blast from firing would severly burn the firer. The Somalis were able to adapt a sheet of tin to re-aim the back blast so that the firer would not immolate himself in his attempt to shoot the chopper, and the Somalis RPG teams hid the weapon, rockets, and blast chute under their clothes until ready to fire. The result is choppers down, and a thirty minute raid becomes a very long affair.

The film is a very good adaptation of what that kind of combat was like, as seen through the interviews of Mark Bowden. You see the confusion of the men trying to navigate through the narrow and confusing streets of Mogadishu. You see the horror of close urban fighting (the very fighting we avoided by stopping when we did in Iraq). There is heroism and loss. Somehow, this film brings off the big budget stars and high value explosions without succumbing the the typical Hollywood tearjerking emotionalism. There are a couple monologues, but they are expressed from both sides, Somali and American on why they were there and what they hoped to achieve.

Its my opinion, shared by many, that the US went too far in trying to be "kinder and gentler" in this affair. President Clinton would not allow us to send any armor or heavy equipment over there, so the most we had to use against the Somalis were Kevlar reinforced hard top HMMWVs (Hum-vees) and 2 1/2 ton trucks, which were unarmored. The consequences of those thin skinned vehicles going up against trucks equipped with heavy machine-guns and small cannon were disastrous. Clinton also vetoed the use of powerful suppressive fire weapons such as the AC-130 Spectre gunship. We had to rely on the UN for supporting armor or heavy vehicles, and with that came politicking and endless delays, which were only solved when we threatened to take the vehicles and put American crews in them. The fact that the Italian peacekeeping soldiers were openly passing information to the Somalis before each American raid didn't help their success.

It is no small irony that the very president who fled our country rather than serve it in Vietnam repeated the very same mistakes by trying to win the "hearts and minds" of the Somali while hamstringing the military who's job it was to make this happen.

This was a brutal, awful place that the UN tried to restore a bit of order to so they could try and keep millions of people from starving. I don't know what kind of real solution you can achieve when life is cheap, power comes from the barrel of a gun, and the leaders could care less how many of their own people starve. In the end, those with the guns and food are still the ones running the country. What a terrible waste.

RangeR "I mourn the dead and wounded from that day" BoB

Excellent movie. Not the best of the year, but well written, tightly edited and well paced. The setup is 1991 with Redford talking in well paced and edited flashbacks about events from 1975 to 1991 involving the recruitment and training of CIA agents. Worth seeing.

Especially notable is the depiction of the US deference to Mainland China. China has some very successful and bright, talented people, along with huge numbers of working poor who suffer under the yoke of a nominally communist (unless capitalism suits their bottom line) government. America's utter dependenace on low priced goods from China has colored our foreign and domestic policy. In order to keep the goods flowing, we ignore China's many human rights violations, an abusive labor climate that we made illegal at the turn of the LAST century, their border incursions, their contest of the Spratly Islands, their communism, their repressive laws, their shocking justice system, their nuclear weapons and their avowed interest to have enough ships and planes to move a MILLION man army anywhere in the world it wants by 2005. We treat them with kid gloves, give them "most favored nation" status for trade and ram them into the WTO, all for the sake of cheap goods to keep our discount stores and electronics firms rolling in profit.

In 1927, US Marines invaded Guatemala in order to protect the interests of United Fruit. Foreign policy was bent to the will of the industrial rich to ensure a flow of goods so they could keep making money. I believe that with China, it will not be US invading THEM, but rather the reverse.

Along with the exploration of this bit of politics, Spy Games is also notable for its characters underhanded dealings with one another. Who watches the watchmen? I thought the script was well written, and well thought out.

The sets and locations, Viet Nam, Berlin, Beirut, etc were excellently put together and well filmed. There was a senes of realism and the chaos of an embattled city like Beirut was well shown. I thought the editing of the film between the flashbacks and the present were strikingly well handled, and showed that American viewers really CAN handle non linear plot lines if they are handled correctly.

Like several recent films, at two hours plus, this one went a bit long, but not too long. I was keyed up for most of the film, and it never seemed to drag. The film just consumed a lot of time with the detail, which works for this film. With a lesser script, the film could well have dragged.

Its a go see. Not a must see, but if you need a good spy thriller about now, and were as let down as I was by "Tailor of Panama" (what a dud) then go catch this one before it exfiltrates.

Lord of the Rings: Just the name of it conjures up memories for those of us who read the books voraciously in our youth. Several attempts have been made to try an make a visual presentation out of this mountain of words, but none captured the full flavor. Clocking in at 400 pages of small type per book, the three books of JRR Tolkien's masterpiece are a daunting task for any film maker. The slavish attention to detail among the readers of the series is something to reckon with as well. They will be very unforgiving of any glaring errors, and no doubt will still sharpshoot even the small ones.

I believe that Peter Jackson's monumental task of filming all 3 movies together, and then staging them a year apart will go down in history as a pivotal film making event in the 2000s. The audacity of tying up several noted and hundreds of lesser actors for a year and a half(ling) of principal photography took a lot of pull. The expenditure of money (approaching $300 million), the scope of the material and scale of the production and sets are all grand.

Now enough back story, what about the movie?

Several points of the story have been cut and rearranged to make the narrative flow to the point. Tolkien was nothing if not verbose, so to eliminate Tom Bombadil, or compress several of the events of the hobbits leaving the Shire was not too distracting. I took exception to the scene famous from the trailer of Arwen (Liv Tyler), dubbed "Xenarwen" by some 'net wag (because of her transformation from a shy elf daughter of Elrond to a sword swinging "if you want him, come and claim him" vixen on screen) because she was such a minor character in the first book. I suppose it was to "punch up" her character a bit and make her presence more known, and to have a strong female character in an otherwise male dominated cast. Still, the changes wrought in the narrative were but little distraction. The majority of the narrative strings together and follows the book closely, even using much of the dialog, where appropriate. I can't really complain about what was left behind given the movie's gargantuan 178 minute running time. Trust me, get snacks at the concessions stand, you will be in it for the long haul. Step out for a quick break, and you could well miss something important.

The scope and scale of the film is grand. The whole of principal photography was shot in New Zealand, and they were able to replicate Middle Earth quite well. The scenes of the various towns and the townsfolk were well done and believable. The out of doors, the woods, mountains, meadows and forests had a lifelike look to them, well lit without being too bright.

Forced perspective as well as CGI tricks were used to differentiate between the sizes of the different races, with hobbits coming in at waist high to Men, with Dwarves and Elves filling the gaps. I thought Gimli was quite small, being, um, dwarfed by Legolas.

Much scenery was filled in with CGI in order to create the huge stonework and the terrible landscapes of some of the settings. The underground scenes of the Mines of Moria had a bit of flat CGI hangover that comes from inventing the whole of the scenery from the heart of a computer. Still, the CGI scenery had less sheen and artifacts to it than Star Wars' CGI, so the state of the artform is improving, even if the pace of the change has slowed.

There was an unholy host of horrors animated with CGI, and they appear to best the Lucas creations by showing thousand strong armies gathering and working and forging weapons in the dark of their underground lairs. The animated characters were well done, without many cheap effects.

The acting in general was well done, without some of the leadenness that often pervades costume dramas. I am not a fan of Elijah Wood as Frodo, but he plays the role with the right gravity and reluctance. Viggo Mortensen was spot on for Aragon, once you got used to the haunted look that he brings to his character. Sean Bean as Boromir was perfectly cast, and there were no real glaring errors or standouts in the remainder of the cast. Little scenery was chewed, and events were articulated and feelings shown with honesty.

The pace of the film is not always even, but tends to build as the film progresses. If you are not familiar with the narrative, the long walks across the meadows or hills appear agonizingly slow, but when you realize they are covering for months of travel, they can be excused their slowness. I felt the balance of voiceover vs live action to carry the narrative was very well done, with much of what was spoken about at Rivendell in the book as stories are instead shown as live action events in a more or less time line sequence, rather than just as flashbacks.

The combat scenes are fast paced and excellently choreographed, without any Matrix-like camera chicanery, just good classic swashbuckiling. The portrayal of archery is well shot, as I am a former archer myself, and could feel the expectation of the shots, and the rain of the arrows as they fell. Headbutting is a worthless exercise unless you have no other choice, it invariably hurts both combatants equally, yet it crops up again and again in the combat sequences here as well as many many other recent Hollywood films. Anyone who has actually headbutted another person in anger will soon realize that action movie's over reliance on this trick is just eyecandy. Still the rest of the swordwork and so on were well done. The orcs were appropriately scary in kind of a Predator sort of way.

I believe that this is the first film to truly live up to such an expansive book as The Fellowship of the Ring. You will not want to miss this portrayal if you are a fan of the LOTR book series, and you will probably want to see it anyway just because it is so well staged. It is a masterwork, and while not the best movie of the year, it is one of the most ambitious and one that lands closest to the mark it aimed for. The tenor of the film, the acting, the pace and the story are all compelling and well played considering the gargantuan task they undertook to film. Definitely worth a look.

This film was shot in 1962, which saw Kruschev face off with Kennedy over the placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba. It is considered part of the "New Wave" of Soviet cinema because at this time the arts community felt a reprieve from the absurd, very often brutal (the list of artists perished under Stalin is countless). and totalitarian treatment of their work under Stalin. They once again felt like they had a certain amount of freedom to explore the human condition rather than simply crank out bland polemics about the glory of communism.

Because of extensive reworks by the censors, the film was shortened from nearly 3 hours down to barely an hour and a half when it was not finally exhibited until 1964.

The film deals with three school chums, Sergei, Slava and Nikolai. Sergei is returning to Moscow from his hitch in the Army to find that "you can't go home again" Slava is married and has a toddler. Nikolai is doing research at a scientific institute. Nikolai offers to find Sergei a job at the Institute, but Sergei decides to follow in his deceased father's (killed in battle at age 21 in 1943 during the Great patriotic War, aka WWII) footsteps and work at the local power plant.

Sergei finds that his relationships to people have changed. Slava is distanced from them by his marriage and family commitments, but still tries to be "one of the boys" Nikolai works hard, and flirts shamelessly in exchange. Sergei feels alone and uncomfortable, never really sure what he should be doing. He still lives in the same flat with his mother and younger sister, he goes to work each day and studies to be an engineer at night.

Sergei spies a lovely woman on the street car, and begins a long chase across Moscow, where he follows her from place to place, in the markets, on the Metro, always catching, then avoiding her eye, but never working up the courage to speak to her. Eventually he finds himself at the door to her building, watching her ride away in the glass elevator, kicking himself for not having more courage.

Sergei meets the same woman, months later, at the May Day parade. He is able to lure her away from her friends with some assistance from Nikolai and Slava. The two gradually fall in love, but Anya turns out not to be a very stable character. The romance builds, and Sergei is introduced in turns to her estranged spouse, who she is divorcing, and to her father, who expects that she will never settle down and will remain forever in the family apartment. Both consider her flighty and reckless.

Sergei's despondency eventually leads him to a dream where he meets his father, who died in battle never knowing that he had a daughter. He asks his father for guidance, and is told simply "live" because his father was cut down so young.

As the film progresses, it asks the usual passel existential questions common to "youth angst" films like "why am I here, where am I going, what is it all for?" The film never seems to approach any answers to these questions. Slava's discontent at losing his freedom to marriage, Nikolai's being asked to become an informer at work, which would make Nikolai into a collaborator with the Communist regime that he thinks he is slowly gaining freedom from, Sergei's inability to fit in, are all exposed, but never concluded. It is an open question for me whether this lack of resolution came about because the director chose not to answer these questions (in order to make the viewer think, rather than pour pabulum down the his throat), or because Khutsiev felt that his answers would never get past the censors.

Despite its dark and troubled subject matter, this film is filmed in a very bright and artistic style. The camera work for the film is most impressive. During the long chase scene across Moscow, the camera often took the point of view of the actors, catching glimpses of each other through someone's crooked elbow on the streetcar or over a stack of books at a street vendor. In other scenes the scope is large and there are many beauty shots of central Moscow, Lenin's Tomb, the Kremlin, parks and so on to show the inherent loveliness of Moscow. The distinctive flared shape of the cooling towers of a nuclear reactor is worked seamlessly into the background, rather than as a jarring set piece demonstrating the progress of the great Soviet Society. The director's choice of camera angles and the setup of the shots is definitely arty without feeling forced or over the top.

The director clearly is in love with Moscow and its people. The tenor of the film is very Hollywoodesque: The streets are always clean. Newly fallen snow is always pure and white, not covered in soot and ash. The streets have no potholes. There are no drunks lolling in the street. People go to parties, drink and talk without making asses out of themselves from too much vodka and bad singing. Communal apartments are quiet, brightly lit and inviting rather than the dank and noisy holes that most people equate with Soviet planned communities. The actors are all tall, strong and handsome, the actresses are all slender and model beautiful. All are impeccably dressed in the latest (for 1962) fashions: coats and ties for the men, skirts and heels for the women. The contrast between the actors and reality is never stronger than the scene where the lovely leads watch a Comsomol choir singing. The true faces of the proletariat contrast with the scrubbed and primped actors in a most striking way.

The film is shot in gorgeous black and white, with terrific contrast and depth. I have often asserted that to film THINGS , use color. To film PEOPLE use black and white, and the subtlety and shading of the lighting and camera work in this film back that assertion up quite nicely.

Some of the scenes are very touching and speak to feelings that most of us have had at one time or another. We ache for Sergei and Anya to get together and be happy. We feel the tension and hurt feelings between the young men as they realize they are growing apart as they grow up.

For all of its beauty the film has some distractions. The actors themselves are convincing enough but much of the dialog, especially in scenes such as where Sergei meets Anya's father, and later his own father in the dream, or when Sergei offers a toast to the humble potato for saving their lives from hunger during the war, fall flat because of ineffective dialog. Granted, I was watching the translation via the subtitles, but it seemed to me that if the subtitles were even 1/2 accurate, that the dialog could have been more incisive and illuminating. Sergei is portrayed as a deeply thoughtful character who can't quite get his ideas together, with an internal monologue which mixes Puskin, Mayakovski and his own misgivings throughout the film, and yet when he gets a chance to really explore those thoughts with Anya's father, he says virtually nothing, and when he has a crisis of friendship with Nikolai, Nikolai and Slava can't help but think Sergei's droll truisms about humanity are simply jokes in poor taste. Both scenes could have been masterstrokes of exploration of the angst that has so clearly taken hold of the three boys, and yet the dialog again lets us down.

I truly enjoyed the film for its portrayal of 1962 vintage Moscow, if only the glitzy side of it. It truly is a tribute to the director's view of Moscow. Like many Soviet films, it is overlong and almost painfully slow in places. Still, I consider it a good experience to have seen it, and recommend it as an example of the Soviet New Wave.