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Reviews
Deja vu (1990)
Awesome gangster-soviet-farce
Let me try to explain why Deja vu is one of my favorite movies ever. In the opening shots, while the credits still run across the screen, most movies will show some boring landscape. Or a hero traveling and thinking (or rather pretending to think). Deja vu starts with a scene with 4 nested meanings! As you might know, in the opera "Carmen" the soldiers shoot Carmen's lover. But all opera-goers know this is entertainment, so they don't really kill him. (SPOILER START) But in Deja Vu, the assassin is hired to kill the singer, so at the moment when the actors playing soldiers shoot him on the scene, the assassin shoots from a real gun, so the singer is killed for real!(SPOILER END) But you know it's all happening within a movie, so he's not really dead! A modern philosopher could write several thick volumes on this phenomena of nested meanings alone, but what does the director do? Throws it away, as this whole scene is just there to introduce us to the main character's profession. This is the way the whole movie is done - there is a plot, but it's full of twists, laughs and jokes on everybody and everything. You don't care much for the assassin or his target, but how can you forget the Hitler-lookalike German bike coach? Or the heroes answer to the question about his interests ("jazz, box and sex")? A scene that spoofs the famous Eisenstein's "Bronenosets Potyomkin"? It's a farce for farce's sake, and it makes you literally roll on the floor laughing.
Nastya (1994)
Very sweet romantic fairy-tale
"Nastya" is a very sweet romantic fairy-tale. The early 1990s in post-Soviet Russia were not easy - this was the time between the GKChP Communist plot of 1991 (which led to the ousting of Gorbachev, Yeltsin ascending to the top. dismantling of USSR) and the Yeltsin-Communist fights of the fall of 1993 (where the Russian army was shooting on the streets of Moscow). These were tough times, the economy was in disarray, crime was on the rise everywhere. People were struggling for survival every day. In these times, watching "Nastya" was like drinking a cup of nice jasmine tea while being in the gutter. It's a very nice movie, sweet and romantic. I recommend it to everybody.
Little Children (2006)
bad acting, writing, directing
- the usage of narrator's voice was so stupid. pretty much every time the movie will get to showing real emotions, instead of trying to get the actors to play it, the director would choose to substitute the cold narrator's voice instead;
- most supporting characters were very one-dimensional;
- lots of goofs: a guy goes with his kid to another woman's house and the kid doesn't tell his mom for several months? a guy falls off a skateboard face down and all he gets is a few cuts? a 3-year old girl gets off a bucket swing? a guy with a snorkel goes way under water (try it and you will get a lungful of water)?
Overall, I'd give this movie a 5 - only for Kate Winslet's performance. Without her, it would be a 2.
Okkupatsiya. Misterii (2004)
Belarusian tragedies
Soviet propaganda made Belarusian history of WWII very simple - bad Germans, good Belarusian partisans under the guidance of Russian leadership; some rotten apples went to serve as policemen under the German occupation, but the good people of Belarus dealt with them.
Mysterium. Occupation paints a very different picture. The Russian partisans are not so much into fighting Germans, but into taking food, alcohol and goods from the local peasants. The Germans are not evil monsters, but carry intelligent conversations about cinema (though they do seem to care about Germans only). And Belarusians are victimized by both sides - some are fighting against Germans, some are serving in police under them, and all of them suffering. The movie shows simple characters - lovers, mothers, but their affairs are not simple at all. It's hard to carry on your life when death is always near.
The plot dispels some Soviet myths, sometimes trying to create new ones and becomes a bit predictable towards the end - that's why I give it 9 and not 10. But the shooting, the actors' performances and the overall quality of this low-budget movie are highly recommended.
For those who understands both Russian and Belarusian - pay attention to what is and isn't translated. Russian translation is not one-to-one and sometimes the omissions are telling a lot.
Six-String Samurai (1998)
One of the best movies ever
This movie is one of the most original and fun movies ever made. There are so many good parts to it, I would fail trying to list all of them. The acting is great, the jokes are funny, the music is awesome, the shoots are eye candy. Get it on DVD for never-ending fun! Too bad this seems to be the only movie Lance Mungia ever made'
We saw Red Elvises at a concert and we would yell "Nice shoes!" to them between songs :)
Here's a (poor quality) video for Red Elvises' song "Lovepipe" that consists of outtakes from this movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyHc0ysKy4s
Click (2006)
Good idea... ruined
The idea of the movie was good; the message (that we all waste our life at meaningless jobs rather than doing something we'd really like) made a lot of sense to me. However, the movie ruined it on so many levels. First of all, Adam Sandler can't act at all. And the part when he becomes fat is not believable at all.
Second, most of the jokes in the movie are obvious and are not that funny. Why did they have to include that stupid fart joke? The jokes about Sandler's sex life did not add anything to the plot either.
I give it 3, and not 1, just for the jokes with the neighborhood boy, which were really funny. Too bad all but one of them were in the very beginning of the movie.