fourputt Reviews

Master i Margarita (2005)

Great adaptation of a great novel

[10/10 · 19 October 2007]

For English speaking viewers: If you can get past the subtitle problems, you're in for a real treat.

The subtitles are 2 or 3 seconds late-synched for the first 65 or so minutes of Disc 1 making it very difficult to watch. After that they come back into synch and are merely bad, a problem with many foreign titles.

Even with the subtitle problems, you'll be thoroughly entertained by a great adaptation of a most engaging novel. The 8-hour length allows Bortko to remain faithful to Bulgakov, and it's amazing to see how the novel works cinematically; decapitations, flying naked witches and crucifixions to name just some of the striking imagery. One can quibble with less-than-optimal special effects, but I'd rather see second-rate CGI in service of a good story than the tens of millions of dollars wasted on overblown blockbuster drivel. And if you see complaints about this or that actor, take it with a grain of salt and realize that Russians especially take characters from their literary heritage as seriously as anyone on earth.

Kronos (1957)

One of the better low-budget 50s SciFiers

[7/10 · 25 July 2006]

Above-average content, with some unintentionally interesting ideas, make this one of the few SciFis from my youth I've gone back and watched again, though it would probably look better on an old black and white TV.

Some musings: - Perhaps the spaceship, mistaken by the scientist for an asteroid, first arrived in the ocean off Mexico 63 million years ago, crashed a little hard (as far as the dinosaurs were concerned) and had to come back later. - Nuclear detonations were standard in the Southwest of the 50's. Nobody seems too concerned and Kronos does us a favor by absorbing the fallout. - It's very silly "harvesting" energy when the amount needed for interstellar travel would greatly exceed what it could obtain here ... but that problem hasn't stopped hundreds of other SciFi movies.

Cross-trivia: Writer/director Brad Bird's "The Incredibles" uses "KRONOS" for his villain Syndrome's password.