Movie Review: The Death of Stalin

 

I can't be the only person out there with a list of movies we know we SHOULD be watching instead of streaming Avatar: The Last Airbender again, right? I mean, rewatching Community a fifth time feels a lot easier than slogging through an "important" movie made for grown-ass adults.

Well, I finally tackled two in my to-watch list this past week, and I'm happy to report that the experience was not altogether unpleasant and I will certainly consider watching non-super hero, non-Star Wars, non-animated-or-made-for-tweens  motion pictures again in the near future.

The first was "The Death of Stalin" from 2017, available to steam on Netflix. The movie presents a truncated version on the events of March 1953, leading up to the titular death of Joseph Stalin and the subsequent power struggle among the Soviet Central Committee. But there is much more packed into what would otherwise be a by-the-numbers drama. The movie is directed by Armando Iannucci, Scottish satirist best known in the States as the creator of “Veep,” but who has worked in British television for decades. This movie, though, looks anything but televisual. There's a quality to the film's set-dressing and photography that really evokes a mid-century aesthetic in the colors on the screen. I found it quite visually arresting. 

In any case, the movie balances more than bold color. The tone of the movie is expertly managed, chiefly in its central conceit; the script uses current vernacular speech in lieu of employing the typical Hollywood trope of making people in period movies set in Russia sound either like very posh Brits or like borsht-belt hacks. (Or in the case of “The Hunt for Red October,” literally both.) The effect this has in the framework of the movie is revelatory; it shows starkly that this power struggle was, at day’s end, nothing more than a venal pissing-match between powerful but petty men, regardless of the pageantry of the dictator’s funeral or the real stakes for world-ending catastrophe.

This contrast between high and low comes to brutal ends as Nikita Khrushchev, played as a put-upon cynic by Steve Buscemi, consolidates power in the political equivalent of a back ally mugging. The event puts punctuation to a film that is at turns hilarious and truly frightening.

It's fitting then that the second movie we watched this week is also a visually intriguing study in contrasting tones... but I'll need a few more days to get it all together in my brain. In the mean time, comment below if you've seen "The Death of Stalin." How did it strike you as a work of history? Were you put off by the shenanigans? I didn't even try to make contemporary comparisons, but there is a certain rats-from-sinking-ships quality that maybe begs the question RE: certain current occupants of the White House. Is that a stretch?

The Many Many Fast and Furiouses…Furioi…whatever...

Movie review? Movie review.

Edward here. I've been away from my family for a bit now and that means I'm not actively engaged in the roughly 17 billion distinct tasks lumped under the category of 'parenting.'

What am I doing with my spare time? Am I investigating the rings of Saturn with a telescope? Have I composed a new sonnet? Am I reading the latest in East Coast literary fiction, or even keeping abreast of current events?

Nope. I'm watching [The?] [Fast and] Furious 6. (Are they using articles anymore? Is it "A Fast and Furious?") I'm not sure what the ACTUAL title of the film is, but it turns out it's the SIXTH one of these. Can you even believe that?

I mean seriously, they didn't even get around to making "Casablanca 2: The Road to Berlin." Sad.

Vin Diesel, man.

Vin.

Diesel.

Remember when people made movies with Vin Diesel in them? (I mean other than these.) Those were innocent times, man.

Before we launch into a plot synopsis, a word about spoilers. I'm going to basically assume that, if you're reading this, then you have basic brain functions, like you're not a brain-in-a-jar, or in a vegetative state or Encino Man. Did you see the trailer to FF6? Then the conclusion of the climax is basically spoilt anyway.

And in case you didn't, [SPOILER ALERT!] the good-guys are NOT in that plane!

And since you, dear reader, are a person of distinguishing tastes, or refinement and rare intellect, I know (and you do too) that you will guess every beat of the plot. This is a spoiler-proof movie.

The plot: Vin is a noble and now retired automotive based thief with a gang of wealthy peers who live in exotic and beautiful locations with apparent great wealth. The Rock shows up one day and says that the actress who was written out of the series two movies ago wanted back in so...

…apparently all roads led to this.

It's of interest to The Rock because Michelle Rodriguez (who I could never get behind on Lost) is running with a NEW gang of automotive based thieves! But we know that they're badguys because…well at first we're just told that they're bad'uns, but later we see that there's no loyalty in their gang, no sense of family.

And that's the ethos of this film. Whenever a character needs to do something, well family man.

Family?

Yeah man, family.

Well alright, if you say so.

Why would Paul Walker risk life in prison to return to Los Angeles so that he could get very non-essential information for the Plot? Why does Michelle Rodriguez not shoot Vin Diesel to death when they first meet again? Why does her amnesia (!!!) finally start to wear off? Why does The Rock's character (the epitome of law and order) risk his job and countless American lives in the face of a plot twist projected so far in advance that it was legally obligated to change its mailing address? Family.

Or something.

Anyway, there was so much 'honor among theves' that there was no room in the script for physics, which is fine I suppose. I was also left wondering when Professor Charves Xavier was going to show up, because, aside from being attractive enough, this team of super-thieves are clearly mutants with extraordinary powers. They fly, flinch-off  GSWs, some to the chest, are involved in numerous high-speed roll-over automobile accidents unscathed and use cars to shoot down a plane. [See above.]

A character actually says the following: "How did you know there'd be a car there to break our fall?"

You saw the trailer, right? They are not soaring above a marshmallow factory.

She literally characterizes a car as something that will break your fall (as opposed to "your back" or "every bone in your body.") If fact, it's something you want to break your fall, what with all of its shattery glass, sharp edges and the general metal-ness of its body.

To say nothing of the runway in the climactic end scene, which the BBC has addressed "at length." (See what I did there?)

This is not to say I didn't enjoy the film on its own merits. I actually haven't seen a whole Fast / Furious before (Most of one, bits of two, almost all of three, none of four or five, for the record.) and it's silly and inert, but not odious. I enjoyed speculating whether the Vin Diesel's team paid the congestion charge while they were speeding through London's mysteriously semi-abandoned streets, (Picadilly Circus appears at one points and for some reason, the foot traffic is just absent.) and wondering why the McGuffin was conveniently being transported in a tank in the back of a semi. Wasn't the semi enough?

Oh, and Gina Carano is fun to watch, because you're being clumsily pressed to believe somehow that she wouldn't just take Michelle Rodriguez apart in a fight. I mean she's got thirty pounds of muscle on her. And she is literally a professional, and the movie's all like "No no, this is TOTALLY an even match, bro!"

Uh…sorry movie. No

Anyway, I had a quantifiable-unit's worth of fun. You might too.

So...how was it?

In a word...kinda. In three words...yeah, I guess.

In some more words...I grew up with the Indiana Jones movies as these epic ideals of hyper-manhood, adventure and reverence for ancient cultures. They were amazing movies that blended humor and action and Nazi-fighting into this crisp package, tastier than tempura sushi. In short, I have a pretty high opinion of the Indiana Jones franchise.

How can 2008's Crystal Skull really live up? In 1985's flawed Temple had come out after the rest of the series had percolated into the legendary status it holds, would I be as ready as I currently am to gloss over the apparent flaws? Is it time that makes Skull so hard to love?

This is not to say that there aren't moments. There are instances where I almost lost myself, where I thought that I was in classic Indy territory once again. And then a gopher joke, a pack of swinging monkeys or a crotch gag would remind me that I'm still firmly in George Lucas' world where the beloved icons of my youth lose their teeth and their chutzpah in the name of tying up narrative loose ends and getting cheap laughs. (Remember the poop joke in 1999's Phantom Menace?)

Let's not be hyperbolic. It's a better movie than most. Typically a movie this good would easily make my year's top three. The problem is I was not sufficiently blown away. It was not sufficiently superlative. I was not as dazzled as I ought to have been. Is this an unfair standard? Perhaps, but when you place the "Indiana Jones" name on what otherwise would have been "just" a decent adventure movie, you expose yourself to the exacting standards of the past incarnations. It's just the nature of the beast.

After you've seen the movie, read this online discussion of it. It touches all the relevant bits and contains some thoughtful musings about nostalgia and fair critiquing. Honestly, any real fan of the series will have mixed feelings about the movie, but I can't imagine the reinvention of a beloved icon after 19 years off-screen having any less drastic an effect.

In the end I'm just grateful that it wasn't as bad as it might have otherwise been. Remember the Prequel Trilogy? Yeah, me neither.