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The Crown season 5, episode 6, "Ipatiev House", is another Philip-centric episode in the series, though Queen Elizabeth has plenty to contend with regarding her family's past and her own troubles in the present. The Crown season 5 sees a new actress as Queen Elizabeth as the timeline moves into the 1990s. This is a slightly different Queen Elizabeth than viewers were used to seeing. She's wiser and stronger, but at the same time, increasingly nostalgic and perhaps more human as she looks back on her life and the history of her family, warts and all.

As season 5 progresses, The Crown's question of where the Monarchy fits in the modern world becomes even more urgent. In the previous episode, The Crown season 5, episode 5, "The Way Ahead", Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton) has just finished the unpleasant business of formalizing Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Charles' separation. In the next episode, it's Elizabeth and Prince Philip...

Dmitriy Kiselev’s overlooked Russian thriller is an exciting and inspirational true account of the first walk in space by a Soviet cosmonaut — a mission that nearly became a tragedy. It’s almost as emotional an experience as Apollo 13 — the worthy cosmonauts demonstrate ‘the right stuff’ under much more trying conditions. The beautifully produced and splendidly acted show makes it seem a crime that foreign movies this good are routinely denied theatrical exhibition here. The Blu-ray comes with an excellent pair of featurettes, with the participation of the original spacewalker Alexey Leonov.

Spacewalker

Blu-ray

Capelight

2017 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 137 min. / Vremya pervykh (The First Time); Spacewalker / Street Date January 19, 2021 / Available from Amazon / (pretty cheap)

Starring: Evgeniy Mironov, Konstantin Khabenskiy, Vladimir Ilin, Anatoliy Kotenyov, Aleksandra Ursulyak, Elena Panova, Aleksandr Novin, Gennadiy Smirnov, Yuriy Nifontov, Sergey Batalov.

Cinematography: Vladimir Bashta

Visuyal Effects supervisors: Kirill Kulakov, Sergei Nevshupov, Pavel Perepyolkin

Film Editors: Anton Anisimov,...

Screenwriter Michael Idov makes an impressive directing debut with the super-smart, confidently lensed “The Humorist.” Set in the waning days of the Soviet Union when decadence and repression went hand-in-hand, the film is a portrait of a comedian whose intellect becomes a burden when he can’t adapt himself to the increasingly heavy chains of expectation and censorship. Idov’s exceptionally clever dialogue is matched with a sharp understanding of structure, culminating in a terrific bathhouse scene with more than casual nods not just to “Julius Caesar” but to the whole fall of the Roman Empire. Released earlier this year in the territories of its its production companies, “The Humorist” is oddly only now finding festival berths.

Boris Arkadiev didn’t set out to be a comedian, but his novel flopped and he found a lucrative career doing stand-up throughout the Ussr. Success hasn’t brought him happiness, as a...