Soviet Military and Hollywood

[deValcourt]

Thank you gents.

Esteban, I think I will try to watch The Thief on youtube.

Jeffrey - Come and See - Thank you! That was the one I was trying to remember that I had seen the trailer for and either the Sundance Channel or IFC had it on one morning before I had to go to work and only got to watch about 20-30 minutes of it (and of course I haven't been able to catch it since). If I can find it for sale, I get it in my order (and I'm sure it will be available).

ph3s - "Elusive Avengers"? I'm sure there's a better translation than that. As for the other "Kin-Dza-Dza", it got a very respectable rating from the IMDB and they are not known for generosity. It is also categorized as a "Russian cult classic" which is fine by me. I doubt the humor translates well. It never does in the Russian films with subtitles I've seen. I can watch a film in Russian without the subtitles, but it is a lot of work for me these days and when dialog is quick I always lose something because I can no longer "think" in Russian and have to do a translation into English in my head and that takes too much time because I've forgotten so much and always end up questioning what I think it means... One day I shall return to Russia and stay long enough to get it all back. If it weren't so incredibly expensive, I'd say "one day I'll retire to Moscow."

Thanks again. Until these movies come in, I'll just have to watch the 7-hour film version of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita again. For those who have read the phenomenal novel and want to watch the only film adaptation that even comes close to doing the book justice, you are in for a few brief sardonically funny scenes with bumbling NKVD officers in their brightly colored uniforms running about as well as actual footage of some horrors of Stalin's "Great Terror." The director puts actual NKVD personnel into the story when Bulgakov could only imply their tactics with great lines that are part of Russian vocabulary like, "No papers, no man."

Phillip