Category

Nikita Mikhalkov

• 12.31.09
  Feathers
  1612: Khroniki smutnogo vremeni, Nikita Mikhalkov (3)

  This is posted here so I can ask a Polish cyberfriend what he knows about the use of this kind of cavalry dress in the early 1600s. I'm also curious as to what birds provided those feathers, and on what occasions those things might have been worn. Presumably they wouldn't be good in high winds when one needed to be agile. (I still don't think this is a good movie, but it may not be Mikhalkov's worst.)
  
  
• 12.19.09
  Pyat vecherov
  Lyudmila Gurchenko, Nikita Mikhalkov, Pyat vecherov, Stanislav Lyubshin (0)

  It was at this point in Five Evenings, before I got a good look at his face, that I suspected I had seen this guy before. It was the way he stood with his back straight, hands in his pockets, weight not quite balanced on both legs. It's a younger version of the same guy who had played Uncle Vova in Kin-Dza-Dza! I had to look up his name again. It's Stanislav Lyubshin. I didn't recognize Lyudmila Gurchenko from her posture, though. It was not until she showed this facial expression that I recognized her. I do try to ...
  
  
• 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 ...
  
  
• 10.06.09
  Voditel dlya Very
  Nikita Mikhalkov, Pavel Chukhraj, Utomlyonnye solntsem, Voditel dlya Very, Vor (0)

  So far I've watched up through part 5, and so far it's great--one of the best I've seen. I wouldn't have known how good it is based on the Wikipedia article about it, though: The film received mixed reviews from critics. The entertainment magazine Variety referred to the film as "more off-putting than enthralling" and noted that while the film has been compared to the Academy Award–winning Burnt by the Sun, it lacked a main character that a viewer could identify with. Variety commented that Viktor's personal struggles "[seemed] irrelevant" and criticized Petrenko's "limited emotional repertoire", as well ...
  
  
• 03.10.09
  Their voices give them away
  Aleksandr Belyavsky, Andrei Myagkov, Nikita Mikhalkov, Serye Volki, Zhestokiy romans (0)

  Andrei Myagkov's voice gives him away the moment he opens his mouth in this movie. I recognized him not by the way he looks, but by the way he talks. Same for Nikita Mikhalkov, though in his case I was expecting his appearance from what I read in the YouTube description. It wouldn't have mattered. His voice gives him away. It reminds me of how remarkable it was that Aleksandr Belyavsky could put on a such a different voice to play Leonid Brezhnev in Serye Volki.
  
  
• 02.04.09
  Twelve, Twisted
  12, Moy drug Ivan Lapshin, Nikita Mikhalkov (1)

  Tonight we started watching, Moi drug, Ivan Lapshin (My friend, Ivan Lapshin). We haven't yet seen enough to learn why so many Russian critics have called it the best film in Russian history, but like I said, we've just started. I've also gone back to watch Nikita Mikhalkov's 2007 film, Twelve, for a 2nd time. It's a take-off on Twelve Angry Men. Here is juror #8 (at least he has that number in the play) explaining his "not guilty" vote by saying that the jury members should at least talk about it, first. But although it starts by extolling the courageous ...
  
  
• 01.19.08
  Nikita Mikhalkov in Siberiade
  Lyudmila Gurchenko, Nikita Mikhalkov, Siberiade (0)

  We've been watching the 1979 movie Siberiade, this week. We just started the 2nd DVD of it last night. Unfortunately, this is one Russian movie that doesn't have much winter. There is a winter scene at the very beginning, I suppose to set the stage in Siberia, but that's been all so far. None of the casual, pointless, everyday snow scenes that I've enjoyed in so many other Russian movies. So far I'm irritated by actor Nikita Mikhalkov's arrival in the 1960s segment. I was really enjoying the movie until now. Mikhalkov is supposed to ...
  
  
• 11.25.07
  Utomlyonnye solntsem
  Nikita Mikhalkov, Utomlyonnye solntsem (2)

  We finished watching Burnt by the Sun last night -- did it in two sittings. It wasn't as good as I had expected it to be, given the awards it received and that I've seen what Russians filmmakers can do to portray the Stalin showtrial era. On the one hand it's good to show the humanity of the NKVD -- that they were real people who could have a talented, artistic side and didn't come out of the womb determined to do evil. And it takes some guts to portray it that way. Whenever anyone attempts to do ...
  
  

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