REVIEW: The Death of Stalin [2017]

I can’t remember who’s alive and who isn’t. The Russians may have taken umbrage with British director Armando Iannucci‘s The Death of Stalin—a tale of backstabbing governmental hilarity—but their successful quest to ban it domestically is a case of “doth protest too much.” The Soviet Union allied with Hitler’s Nazi regime before joining the winning side and Stalin was very much an enemy of my enemy type of compromise. So while some may have glossed over his many atrocities because he once posed for a photograph with Roosevelt and Churchill,…

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REVIEW: Brazil [1985]

“Care for a little necrophilia?” Although Terry Gilliam had already established the highly imaginative filmic style we now associate him with above his Monty Python animations, no one could have imagined the scale of what would become his unequivocal masterpiece, Brazil. There were shades of its escapism in Time Bandits and its bureaucratic satire in short film The Crimson Permanent Assurance, but nothing as grandiose as Sam Lowry’s (Jonathan Pryce) fantastical dreamscape juxtaposed against his Orwellian, nightmarish reality. In fact, Gilliam even sought to title the film 1984 1/2 before…

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REVIEW: Fierce Creatures [1997]

“Saddam Hussein presents” Fierce Creatures is the quasi-sequel to the great A Fish Called Wanda, a movie I need to revisit as well. More of an excuse for those stars to get back together and have some fun, the film brings out some big laughs with its farce, overacting, and Monty Pythonesque absurdity of events and wordplay. It may not be great comedy, but there is enough heart and enjoyment to have a good time. Really, whenever you can see John Cleese and Michael Palin onscreen together, take it as…

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