IzzyMaeDoorite

One Point O is a pitch black, bleak, desolate experience. The paranoia is ever-present, and the protagonist, a reclusive programmer Simon, fears that someone keeps breaking into his apartment and leaving empty packages. It's Y2K, people are coping with the harrowing fact that their privacy has never been less secure, and they're desperately grasping for the thin slices of what's left of their personal life. The characters are always talking in hushed, rushed voices, always anxious to get rid of the companion and run away to their safe spaces. They're wary of each other, they're strangers, even when they try to politely smile. There's virtually no close-ups of the faces, only the objects: screens, telephones, clocks. It's a lifeless, inanimate, impersonal world, and people don't feel welcome in it.

It's not a horror movie in a traditional sense. There are no monsters or bloodthirsty robots, but the landscape One Point O depicts is horrifying nonetheless. Shot in a typical Romanian brutalist condominium, it's raw, scruffy, reflective and pessimistic in a true European fashion. The characters lack a tacky American "we'll go rogue and fight and inevitably prevail" attitude (I'm talking to you, The Matrix), they're painfully aware of their surroundings and they know there's no escape, no matter how much drugs you consume or how many sexual partners you encounter. Simon tries to understand technology, but the changes are out of his control: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, viruses infect his environment, and they're so confusing and uncanny. At any moment they could corrupt his work and his identity. There has to be somebody behind it, right? But even if you know, what could you possibly do about it? Wake up, you're not Neo.

One Point O is a thought-provoking movie that engages a lot of timely topics. Technophobia, consumerism, big city isolation, you name it. And there's no simple solution to any of them. This matrix actually has you, and you will not be given the privilege of choosing a pill. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences, indeed, have been a disaster for the human race.

Putin is a brilliantly bad "movie." Seriously, it takes a lot of talent to pull this off. I truly believe that the creators did a gargantuan job to make absolutely everything in this movie dumb, laughable and disconcerting. Like Scary Movie, but with the bonus of parasitizing on the tragedy of the Ukrainian people. As a cherry on top, the hard drive with the final cut was pissed on to give the film that artsy yellow filter. I won't dignify this incoherent garbage with analyzing any more of its features, because I've wasted enough time on it already.

In a distant future, we may live to see not only a handful of serious biopics about Putin, but also a new Armando Ianucci who will bring us the work similar to The Death of Stalin. But not now. Now, we only have Patryk Vega, the most hated filmmaker of Poland, and his abomination that will, God willing, shortly descend into obscurity. Make no mistake, it's not "so bad it's good" or a guilty pleasure, it's just guilty.

Soviet Russia, 1921. The country is under war communism: food is scarce and rationed, absolutely all businesses are under control of the government, obligatory labor duty is enforced. Don't expect to see any of this. Instead, you'll see Bolsheviks executing people right on the streets or in a hotel lobby because they weren't told they're not the Cheka.

Count Rostov has been living in a Metropol Hotel throughout the Revolution and Civil War without lifting a finger. Naturally, he's arrested and tried. The sentence is imprisonment for life. Not in a prison, as you or any other person in the world would expect. In a hotel. The same hotel where he lived for the last several years. The Bolsheviks, in their unadulterated hatred for freeloading, decided that the proper punishment for Rostov is to live as a freeloader for the rest of his life. Count's conditions are abysmal: he dines with wine and veal, he regularly visits a barber to trim his curled mustache, his clothes and bed are clean and slick. Those damned Red barbarians.

A Gentleman in Moscow is an outrageous comedy show, akin to Police Squad or Reno 911. To say it's frivolous in terms of historical accuracy would be wrong. No, it deliberately alters and twists as much as possible. Not in a quirky, self-aware way, like The Great, no. It's a deadpan comedy. Here, we have bizarre script involving characters who'd be dead before Lenin died, played by the infamous British "color-blind casting" actors, who are not even any good. It's all fun and games until there's a Minister of Culture depicted as a Black gay man.

Whatever the creators intended to do, they failed miserably. The show is not believable in the slightest. It's an atrocious, disrespectful and distasteful reflection of the time it was created in, not the time it depicts. It's a bastardizing of Russian history, as long and rich as Britain's. The only difference is that Russia would never think of wasting its time to make a big-budget show with Maori Churchill playing Fortnite with Asian Elizabeth II.