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Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Red Sparrow (2018) in Movies
Jul 8, 2019
In Red Sparrow, Jennifer Lawrence (of Hunger Games fame) portrays Russian ballet dancer Dominika who is grievously injured at the peak of her career. Without the ability to continue dancing, she is at risk of losing not only her home, but the medical care that her sickly mother so desperately needs. In a final act of desperation, she reaches out to her uncle (masterfully portrayed by Matthias Schoenaerts), who is not only family, but also the deputy director of Russia’s intelligence agency, the SVR. He offers the means to not only keep them housed, but also to ensure that her mother continues to get the very best treatment and care from her private nurses. With no other option but to agree, she reluctantly takes an assignment to “entertain” a powerful Russian figure with the intent to swap out his cell phone, with another provided by her uncle. In an emotionally intense scene she witnesses a heinous act of murder and is forced to make a decision, join those who carried out the murder and become a Red Sparrow or die.
Dominika is then sent to the training school where all Red Sparrows learn their craft. They are taught manipulation by any means necessary, identifying what their target desires and utilizing this desire to get what they want. It’s brutal training that few succeed at, where each pupil uses their body and their minds to get information from their subjects. Dominika’s personal strength of both will and body are tested, until a call comes in from the SVR that they are in need of her newly acquired talents. She is given an opportunity to prove her worth to the state by traveling to Budapest, to get close to a C.I.A. agent, and convince him to give up the name of a mole who has been providing secrets to the Americans. This is where the dangerous game of cat and mouse starts between her and her C.I.A. target Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton).
Jennifer Lawrence in her portrayal of a strong, yet desperate Russian woman is both believable and saddening. She mastered her Russian accent and it comes across naturally. The audience sees the constant struggle between what she must do to protect her mother and the lengths that she must go to, to acquire the information the SVR needs to rout out the mole. Her character goes through numerous physical, emotional and psychological tortures as she grows closer to her end game. For a Red Sparrow failure is not an option, as failure means death.
As a spy movie, it regularly keeps you guessing up until the very end. You keep asking yourself whether Nate will be able to turn Dominika against her country and become an operative for the C.I.A., or is she simply playing the part as the sparrow and using his trust against him? As an audience member you never truly know who to trust or which side Dominika is on, and that’s what keeps the movie so intriguing throughout.
“Red Sparrow” is one of those rare films that keeps you on the edge of your seat through the entire film. As soon as you think you know where it’s going you are suddenly turned in another direction. You think you know the answers, only to be wrong the next minute…or are you? Red Sparrow is by far one of the best spy movies that I have seen in a long time. Even though there isn’t a lot of action it provides the intrigue of an intense chess game, planning multiple moves ahead to arrive at checkmate in the very end, and to that end it succeeds brilliantly.
Dominika is then sent to the training school where all Red Sparrows learn their craft. They are taught manipulation by any means necessary, identifying what their target desires and utilizing this desire to get what they want. It’s brutal training that few succeed at, where each pupil uses their body and their minds to get information from their subjects. Dominika’s personal strength of both will and body are tested, until a call comes in from the SVR that they are in need of her newly acquired talents. She is given an opportunity to prove her worth to the state by traveling to Budapest, to get close to a C.I.A. agent, and convince him to give up the name of a mole who has been providing secrets to the Americans. This is where the dangerous game of cat and mouse starts between her and her C.I.A. target Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton).
Jennifer Lawrence in her portrayal of a strong, yet desperate Russian woman is both believable and saddening. She mastered her Russian accent and it comes across naturally. The audience sees the constant struggle between what she must do to protect her mother and the lengths that she must go to, to acquire the information the SVR needs to rout out the mole. Her character goes through numerous physical, emotional and psychological tortures as she grows closer to her end game. For a Red Sparrow failure is not an option, as failure means death.
As a spy movie, it regularly keeps you guessing up until the very end. You keep asking yourself whether Nate will be able to turn Dominika against her country and become an operative for the C.I.A., or is she simply playing the part as the sparrow and using his trust against him? As an audience member you never truly know who to trust or which side Dominika is on, and that’s what keeps the movie so intriguing throughout.
“Red Sparrow” is one of those rare films that keeps you on the edge of your seat through the entire film. As soon as you think you know where it’s going you are suddenly turned in another direction. You think you know the answers, only to be wrong the next minute…or are you? Red Sparrow is by far one of the best spy movies that I have seen in a long time. Even though there isn’t a lot of action it provides the intrigue of an intense chess game, planning multiple moves ahead to arrive at checkmate in the very end, and to that end it succeeds brilliantly.
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Triple 9 (2016) in Movies
Aug 6, 2019
A crew of bank robbers is strong-armed by the Russian mob to pull off a near impossible heist due the response time of the police. In order to create a larger window, the dirty cops of this crew suggest creating a 999 (police code for “officer down.”) on the other side of town. That is the basic plot of Triple 9. Yet, the tagline for this film is, “The Code on the street is never black and white.” Seems like a different movie which is part of the letdown of Triple 9. It doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a heist movie like Heat or The Town? Or is it trying to be a movie about the cops and the rules of the streets like Training Day?
In the beginning, the film sets its self-up to be a smart and stylistic heist film. However shortly after it begins to feel disjointed as it attempts to develop everyone in its ensemble cast to the point where it hurts the story and some excellent performances become forgettable. It’s a shame because somewhere in this film is potentially two excellent separate films. One film about a crew having to complete a heist for the mob to save their lives and loved ones, and another about dirty cops, their partners and the moral ambiguity of the code on the streets. In Triple 9, these two premises never really get developed on one side or the other and thus everything is just left there.
On the heist side, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays ex-mercenary Michael Atwood. Michael is the careful and calculating leader of the crew, but is tied to the Russian mafia through the mother of his son. Michael is constantly being coerced by the Russian Mob Boss, played by Kate Winslet. The two give stellar performances, most notably Winslet who is cold and ruthless in wielding her power, speaking her mind and not caring how the job gets done as long as it gets done.
On the cop side, Anthony Mackie plays dirty police detective Marcus Belmont who becomes partnered with the ex-marine turned rookie detective Chris Allen (Casey Affleck). Belmont feels that the rookie doesn’t respect the streets and his “Do-gooder” “make a difference” attitude is going to get him killed. When Belmont’s heist crewmate Jorge Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jr.) learns Chris is also the nephew of the Sergeant Detective (Woody Harrelson) investigating the heist crew, Chris becomes the clear candidate to be set up for the Triple 9. (Convenient huh)
Ultimately, as the story plays out it feels we are always arriving at the end of the meeting to plan the coming events. From the planning of the heist, to the set up murder, and to the exit plan, we are just carried through the motions without much motivation of how or why things have to play out the way they do. As a result, I didn’t really care for any of the characters good or bad, unlike other films of this nature. Even Ejiofor’s character Michael, who has his child involved, doesn’t get the opportunity to really show why the rest of the crew respects him and follows him, or why he needs to stay alive for his son, who basically seems better off being taken care of by the Russian mob.
In the end Triple 9 is not a bad movie, it just isn’t really a great one either. It has strong performances by the entire cast and has the makings of something great, but fails to deliver on that opportunity with a disjointed story trying to focus on too many characters. This makes it ultimately forgettable compared to other heist films of similar nature.
In the beginning, the film sets its self-up to be a smart and stylistic heist film. However shortly after it begins to feel disjointed as it attempts to develop everyone in its ensemble cast to the point where it hurts the story and some excellent performances become forgettable. It’s a shame because somewhere in this film is potentially two excellent separate films. One film about a crew having to complete a heist for the mob to save their lives and loved ones, and another about dirty cops, their partners and the moral ambiguity of the code on the streets. In Triple 9, these two premises never really get developed on one side or the other and thus everything is just left there.
On the heist side, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays ex-mercenary Michael Atwood. Michael is the careful and calculating leader of the crew, but is tied to the Russian mafia through the mother of his son. Michael is constantly being coerced by the Russian Mob Boss, played by Kate Winslet. The two give stellar performances, most notably Winslet who is cold and ruthless in wielding her power, speaking her mind and not caring how the job gets done as long as it gets done.
On the cop side, Anthony Mackie plays dirty police detective Marcus Belmont who becomes partnered with the ex-marine turned rookie detective Chris Allen (Casey Affleck). Belmont feels that the rookie doesn’t respect the streets and his “Do-gooder” “make a difference” attitude is going to get him killed. When Belmont’s heist crewmate Jorge Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jr.) learns Chris is also the nephew of the Sergeant Detective (Woody Harrelson) investigating the heist crew, Chris becomes the clear candidate to be set up for the Triple 9. (Convenient huh)
Ultimately, as the story plays out it feels we are always arriving at the end of the meeting to plan the coming events. From the planning of the heist, to the set up murder, and to the exit plan, we are just carried through the motions without much motivation of how or why things have to play out the way they do. As a result, I didn’t really care for any of the characters good or bad, unlike other films of this nature. Even Ejiofor’s character Michael, who has his child involved, doesn’t get the opportunity to really show why the rest of the crew respects him and follows him, or why he needs to stay alive for his son, who basically seems better off being taken care of by the Russian mob.
In the end Triple 9 is not a bad movie, it just isn’t really a great one either. It has strong performances by the entire cast and has the makings of something great, but fails to deliver on that opportunity with a disjointed story trying to focus on too many characters. This makes it ultimately forgettable compared to other heist films of similar nature.
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Red Joan (2018) in Movies
Apr 21, 2019 (Updated Apr 21, 2019)
Good-looking but turgid romantic melodrama. Sweet old granny (Dench, not in it much) is hauled in by special branch when her history as a Russian mole on the A-bomb project nearly sixty years earlier comes to light. Most of the film is made up of flashbacks of her as a young woman, dealing with the reasons why she spilled the radioactive beans.
The problem is that the film is so preoccupied with the protagonist's romantic life - she's in love with the dashing mysterious foreign guy! she's in love with her colleague! etc - that the nub of the issue never really comes into focus. Crucial character choices aren't properly explained and some potentially interesting historical material recedes into the background, eclipsed by hackneyed and corny melodramatic scenes that even performers like Dench and Sophie Cookson can't elevate much. Decent production values can't save such a sub-standard script.
The problem is that the film is so preoccupied with the protagonist's romantic life - she's in love with the dashing mysterious foreign guy! she's in love with her colleague! etc - that the nub of the issue never really comes into focus. Crucial character choices aren't properly explained and some potentially interesting historical material recedes into the background, eclipsed by hackneyed and corny melodramatic scenes that even performers like Dench and Sophie Cookson can't elevate much. Decent production values can't save such a sub-standard script.
A masterpiece of a TV show
I didn't really know much about the whole Chernobyl incident (I was 6 years old when it happened) except what I read but this show was a real eye opener.
Its a heartbreaking story on how the disaster affected the lives of the residents and those further afield and shows how the highest authorities in the russian government tried to cover everything up.A few upsetting scenes in depicting the illnesses that occurred after the incident but for me the most heartbreaking part was showing the emotional difficulty one man had in being given the job of going round and having to shoot all the dogs and cats that were left behind and then watch them being buried in the ground and covered in concrete.
A real triumph of a show that everyone really should watch.
Its a heartbreaking story on how the disaster affected the lives of the residents and those further afield and shows how the highest authorities in the russian government tried to cover everything up.A few upsetting scenes in depicting the illnesses that occurred after the incident but for me the most heartbreaking part was showing the emotional difficulty one man had in being given the job of going round and having to shoot all the dogs and cats that were left behind and then watch them being buried in the ground and covered in concrete.
A real triumph of a show that everyone really should watch.
I didn't know what I would think about this book when I picked it up. I had found out about it through people recommending it online through my tumblr when I asked for a new fairy tale book to read. I was not disappointed.
This was interesting because it was not really happy. It hearkened back to the Grimm brother's fairy tales in that respect. There were some Russian fairy tale influences I could feel throughout here when I was reading.
I loved how dark the characters were. They felt very fleshed out and very well written. Great job.
The plot was really nice and, again, well written. Not too many slow parts, though there were a few. I still enjoyed it.
I love the fact that it's a standalone so I can have it all wrapped up. I think I may look up her other books.
This was interesting because it was not really happy. It hearkened back to the Grimm brother's fairy tales in that respect. There were some Russian fairy tale influences I could feel throughout here when I was reading.
I loved how dark the characters were. They felt very fleshed out and very well written. Great job.
The plot was really nice and, again, well written. Not too many slow parts, though there were a few. I still enjoyed it.
I love the fact that it's a standalone so I can have it all wrapped up. I think I may look up her other books.
Joelene Marie (28 KP) rated Vassa in the Night in Books
Oct 1, 2018
I enjoyed this book, more than I expected in the beginning. it's been on my tbr list for a while and I was excited to finally read it but it didn't hook me from the start like I'd hoped. I stuck with it and as the action picked up I couldn't put it down. I would have liked a little more backstory on bea and babs and vassa's mom and I think vassa herself could have used a little more development but overall I was pleased with the story. Even tho it's based on a Russian folk story I think it stands alone for those, like myself, who aren't familiar with the original. the characters are unique and beautiful prose is scattered throughout. the ending was nicely done, tying things up but also leaving it open for a sequel should the author choose to write one.