james-gall

This is a good documentary, but not of the creation of a Russian version of an American sitcom. It's a good documentary of a boorish (if not racist) New Yorker wondering why Russia is not like the world he knows. At around the time this film was made, I (an American) spent four months teaching at a university in Ukraine. I hope I was a better guest than Phil Rosenthal, but I was just as baffled by things I thought were "universal," but were really not. Throughout this documentary, Rosenthal constantly critiques things that are different about Russia, but he really doesn't attempt to understand anyone's point of view. He's only interested in what in their cultural makes him so hard to understand. He does all the Soviet schtick (Russia had been post-Soviet for 20 years when this film was made) and is just plain rude. When he finds out his driver is a veteran who served in Afghanistan, his immediate question is "did you kill anybody?" Imagine if a Russian tourist in the U.S. asked this upon meeting a Vietnam veteran. Rosenthal's sitcom is amusing, but this film definitely is not.

I just watched this film on the Internet hoping for some insight on the Balkan conflict. I remember the debate in the U.S. when the talk of NATO intervention began and didn't understand the complexity of the conflict then (despite trying to follow the major news coverage). I still don't. I hoped watching this non-U.S. film would be informative. It is a low budget film. The early section does seem like propaganda. Serbs are portrayed only as villains and never victims - often in very melodramatic scenes. War crimes were committed, but they occurred on all sides with victims of all ethnic groups. This is not addressed. The movie does get better in showing the post-war aftermath. I think this is because the character of Ema is sympathetic and her countrymen are shown in a more realistic way. Some are helpful despite their own suffering; some are openly antagonistic; some are corrupt and opportunistic in the post-war chaos. I think this would be true of any nation in a similar situation. This is not the objective film I wanted, but it did give me some insight into the feelings of one side of the conflict. I don't think it deserves a 10, but neither does it lack any merit as a commentary on the war and it's aftermath.

My brother recommended this film because it was reminiscent of our teen years in a small town in Pennsylvania.

You can analyze this film all you want or not, but it's basically a collage of actual and fictionalized experiences of the writers and actors and very funny. It's sometimes anachronistic - moon boots, trapper-keepers, and Internet chat rooms - but that's part of it's charm - especially in small towns that have a "trickle down" sense of pop culture.

It made me want to find my brother's VHS-camcorder-produced English project of All Quiet on the Western Front, that mainly consisted of someone reading from the book to images of little green army men being melted and tortured with various fireworks and flammables. Definitely, the best video of all time.

This is not a great film, but I enjoyed watching it. It was made in 1994, but it was "discovered" by Roger Corman in 2002, resulting in some makeshift English dubbing (of very poor quality) and a DVD release. It's not a masterpiece of film technique and the small budget shows, but its value is in showing a common soldier's view of the "Soviet Vietnam" in Afghanistan.