vlagal

I have to agree with zwirnm's comments. I was very excited about the possibility of learning something about this little known spot on the planet and it's infamous history. But this film makes itself more difficult to watch than is seemingly worth it, I'm sad to say. Most of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Nils Kenaston, the cinematographer (if he can be called that) who is either afflicted with a severe case of palsy or is simply the pseudonym of an escaped monkey. Why is it that there are no shots outdoors except for a those filmed through car or train windows which make one sea-sick? Again, in full agreement with the zwirnm's comments - who are these people? I think it's sad that the filmmakers went to the trouble of finding all of these interesting people, but then they don't bother to tell us who they are, how they are connected or anything but a few details of time spent in Birobidzhan. While the archival footage from the Soviet Union is interesting it is presented here completely without context - in the middle of a discussion on Stalin's plans for 'evacuating' the Jews of Russia to Birobidzhan we're suddenly presented with footage of thousands of Russians celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Union. Huh? I hope someone is able to revisit this subject with a little more skill.

There's some really funny stuff in this fake documentary about a bunch of misfit stand-up comics. I caught this at a festival in Park City, UT that was happening at the same time as Sundance. While some of the stuff in the film is hilarious, some of it is just in poor taste. The biggest problem with this movie is that it's about half an hour too long. You can cut all the boring slow stuff out of it and have a really funny hour long film. Worth catching if you can see it with some college freshmen while drunk.

I thought of Dead Calm in space when I saw this film, but just not done as well. There's no atmosphere, the way the film is shot seems like a camera was just thrown up and had people acting in front of it. Roger Corman is famous for cheap movies and crappy looking films so it's not much of a surprise. I can't say there's any really redeeming aspect to the film.