Word: stalinist
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Part II, his eyes are a sight to behold: they no longer dart from side to side, but stare resolutely straight on, offering us evil personified. To quell the boyar conspiracy, Ivan creates his secret police force, the "Oprichnina." The parallels between this medieval Russian epoque and the Stalinist Terror are obvious. It's not clear whether Eisenstein intended it to be this way or whether we are looking back with twentieth century hindsight at the parallels...
...gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "military tour." "Visit Shibam, famous for its exquisite Yemenite architecture." Oops, forgot to mention the bands of armed tribesmen who routinely kidnap Westerners. "Revel in the spectacular scenery of Vietnam's China Beach." Regret that most hotels are Stalinist-style tenements built by the Soviets...
...North Korea may have temporized to forestall U.N. economic sanctions that loomed if it became the first member to quit the treaty. But most observers are pessimistic that Kim will really cave in to political or economic pressure. "We're not dealing with rational people but with an unreconstructedly Stalinist regime," says a top British diplomat. "They don't believe in compromise but in maximum advantage...
...PROBLEM WITH FEEL-GOOD MOVIES is that they browbeat the viewer with their strident optimism; like a Stalinist nanny, they shout, "Feel good!" Such a one is STRICTLY BALLROOM, an audience hit at several festivals. In this Australian musical comedy, West Side Story meets Saturday Night Fever, and everyone -- especially the thoughtful moviegoer -- ends up exhausted. On a ballroom dance floor, director Baz Luhrmann sets in motion all manner of human and cinematic gargoyles. You've never seen so many fisheye close-ups of goofy faces caked with bad makeup. Watching the film is like being condemned to perform...
...Leontevich Maksudov feel effectively threatening or looming or tragic. The play, in fact, ultimately derives its strength not from the drama of its history but in spite of it. What is most engaging about the play is not the main plot but the subplot, not the tragic sequences tracing Stalinist repression but the comic theatrical sequences woven into the interstices. The comic representation of life at the Moscow Art Theatre and of the rise of Stanislavsky is hysterically funny and unremittingly enjoyable...