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Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino

• 12.22.09
  Pounding the table
  Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino (0)

  Usually when someone loses his/her temper in a movie role I just roll my eyes. It often adds a false note to an otherwise good movie. It's cheap acting that anybody can do. I'll bet that even I, the worst actor who ever had a minor part in a school play, could do it. I must confess to liking this scene, though. And the way Platanov nurses his hand as he rants is a nice touch. You can hurt yourself pounding your fist on a table. (This scene is at about 4:40 in the YouTube clip.)
  
  
• 12.18.09
  Oleg Tabakov
  Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino (0)

  I've seen discussions on other topics that go like this one in Neokonchennaya pyesa: Shcherbuk: All the best that humanity possesses, it owes to the representatives of the blue blood. ... Where are the representatives of our high-class aristocracy? Where are the Pushkins, the Lermontovs, the Gogols, Goncharovs, Turgenevs? Platanov: Gonchorov was a merchant. Shcherbuk: Yes, that's right. What? Platanov: Gonchorov was a merchant. Shcherbuk: Exceptions only prove the rule. So there, young man. Besides, it's a debatable issue whether your Goncharov was a genius. (I'm not sure these subtitles are a ...
  
  
• 12.17.09
  Bad Mikhalkov and Good Mikhalkov
  1612: Khroniki smutnogo vremeni, Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino, Nikita Mikhalkov (0)

  I didn't care for 1612 Chronicles of the Dark Times (2007). It doesn't help that it's a Nikita Mikhalkov film. I'm not a fan of Mikhalkov, in part because he defends the state of artistic freedom under a national leader who has an uncanny knack for not being able to find the murderers of outspoken journalists. This behavior affects us as well as Russia. It is not helpful for journalistic and artistic freedom in the U.S. or anywhere else, especially at a time when it is under attack around the world, perhaps like it hasn't been since the 1930s. But I also ...
  
  

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