zoshchenko Reviews

Night and Day (1946)

Miss Otis Regrets

[7/10 · 13 September 2023]

Whenever this comes on I always look for the scene in the theatrical producers office where Monty Wooley sings "Miss Otis Regrets." It comes on at about the 49 minute mark and runs for about five minutes. The highlight of the movie! The rest of it is rather bland and not terribly interesting, and I am a big Cary Grant fan. But be sure to catch this scene, and the bit of dialog afterwards where the producers discuss how they decide if a song is going to be a hit. I wish we could have seen the play where Monty Wooley plays a Russian general with his natural whiskers! You can find the song on YouTube but not the whole scene.

Sliced (2010– )

Dirty Jobs meets How Its Made

[6/10 · 28 June 2022]

I just came across this on Story TV which seems to be 100% recycled History Channel type stuff. I do not remember it all from when it first came on. Anyway I do not find it as awful as the other reviewers, but it is pretty clear why they only made 11 episodes. I do like watching the guy use different tools to cut things up but in the end I am not sure why he had to destroy these items to find out what he did... especially when he cut up a bar with a chainsaw to get at a couple of beer taps.

Special Agent (1935)

Ricardo Cortez is wonderfully evil

[8/10 · 22 July 2020]

I like Ricardo Cortez, catch him whenever one of his movies comes on... which isn't very often sad to say. This is a pretty good film with plenty of suspense. Yeah a lot of cliches and Hollywood stuff but still it was very good. Also got to see a little different side of Joe Sawyer who has a supporting role as one of Carston's thugs.

If you like these old 30's gangster movies then I highly recommend it.

And of course seeing Bette Davis from very early in her career is quite a treat!

The Embezzlers (2011– )

Great Review of the Soviet Inner Circles

[8/10 · 17 November 2017]

I watched this on Amazon Prime where it is listed as "Red Mafia." I have not watched all the episodes yet but so far it is all about corruption and the fight against it in the Soviet period, which provides a useful background to corruption in today's Russia. Very well done with "reenactments" featuring actors playing the key roles interspersed with archival footage of the actual figures. These reenactments are in Russian with English subtitles; the background in between the reenacted 'vignettes" are in English. There are also some brief interviews with surviving Soviet officials.

All fascinating stuff for those of us who grew up in the Cold War era and should be very interesting for anyone interested in the Soviet period and learning about the formation of today's Russian state. No mention of Putin (at least not yet) but he was a young protégé of Yuri Andropov who features prominently.

Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird (1970)

Sakartvelo Gaumarjos

[13 August 2006]

This movie really seemed to sum up many Western (and maybe Russian?) stereotypes of Georgia. I especially liked all the greetings and the car accidents where a hundred people appear out of nowhere to gawk.

What is interesting is that, other than the main character, the other characters in the movie appear to be serious and dedicated workers. Gia upholds the quintessential Georgian (once again, according to stereotypes).

Incidentally, I was able to rent this movie from Netflix. It comes on the same DVD with another Ioseliani film, Pastorali. There is another DVD with two more Ioseliani movies.

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