tidmille

I just saw this film for the first time. While Goldie Hawn's Russian accent left a lot to be desired, I found this an entertaining story. Hal Holbrook was great, of course. I thought the Soviet background was fairly well presented of it's 1970's time period. While this was the "Cold War" period, one should not mistake this film for some spy vs. spy story. It is a love story set against the background of the Soviet Union. Some of Goldie's character motivation seem a bit odd at times, I will say. Perhaps another film where if one read the book, some of the character development details would be filled in and better understood. While one recommendation here for a similar story was, "Reds," I would say the 1980's film, "White Nights," with Gregory Hines would be a much better comparison.

While the new film and Burton's first two have many good points to them, the Animated Series was a superb telling of the Batman story. I am not a big fan of animation, so first was suspicious. I was drawn in, pardon the pun, by the "film noir"/art deco look of it all. I still wondered if it was merely a cartoon version of Burton's vision. It went beyond that though and had a life of it's own. The look, the characters, the vocal acting, the writing make it stand above the rest. However, after Robin joined in, it started Jumping the Shark, subsequent budget cuts in the animation quality and re-makes into super teen Batman made it barely watchable. The original Animated Series is the one to watch.