Netflix is about to make its Broadway producing debut, joining the team of Peter Morgan’s upcoming play Patriots.
The play from the creator of the Netflix signature series The Crown arrives on Broadway April 1 for a 12-week engagement following a record-breaking run at London’s Almeida Theatre and a sold-out 12-week West End transfer at the Noël Coward Theatre. Opening night at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre is April 22.
The play is set in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union and chronicles the rise of oligarchs like billionaire Boris Berezovsky (Michael Stuhlbarg) and a little-known deputy mayor of St. Petersburg named Vladimir Putin (Will Keen). When an eventual successor to President Boris Yeltsin is needed, Berezovsky turns to Putin, whose ruthless rise threatens Berezovsky’s reign and sets off a confrontation between the two powerful, fatally flawed men.
Netflix’s participation was announced in a press release today...
The play from the creator of the Netflix signature series The Crown arrives on Broadway April 1 for a 12-week engagement following a record-breaking run at London’s Almeida Theatre and a sold-out 12-week West End transfer at the Noël Coward Theatre. Opening night at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre is April 22.
The play is set in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union and chronicles the rise of oligarchs like billionaire Boris Berezovsky (Michael Stuhlbarg) and a little-known deputy mayor of St. Petersburg named Vladimir Putin (Will Keen). When an eventual successor to President Boris Yeltsin is needed, Berezovsky turns to Putin, whose ruthless rise threatens Berezovsky’s reign and sets off a confrontation between the two powerful, fatally flawed men.
Netflix’s participation was announced in a press release today...
- 2/27/2024
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
"Air Force One" is my favorite "Die Hard" knock-off. Directed by the late Wolfgang Petersen and released in 1997 (when the Cold War was newly over and America was an unrivaled superpower), the film features terrorists hijacking — what else — Air Force One. President James Marshall (Harrison Ford), a Vietnam War veteran, personally defeats them.
Making the President of the United States into John McClane, the quintessential "in the wrong place" everyman? That's some ridiculous high-concept moviemaking I can get on board with.
Now as for the villains, Gary Oldman does his best Hans Gruber as Egor Korshunov. We know what he wants: a restored Soviet Union. When he's called about his demands, he waxes poetic about seeing "The capitalists dragged from the Kremlin," and he throws in Marshall's face about how America has "given [Russia] to gangsters and prostitutes."
While Korshunov is the villain everyone remembers (how could he not be...
Making the President of the United States into John McClane, the quintessential "in the wrong place" everyman? That's some ridiculous high-concept moviemaking I can get on board with.
Now as for the villains, Gary Oldman does his best Hans Gruber as Egor Korshunov. We know what he wants: a restored Soviet Union. When he's called about his demands, he waxes poetic about seeing "The capitalists dragged from the Kremlin," and he throws in Marshall's face about how America has "given [Russia] to gangsters and prostitutes."
While Korshunov is the villain everyone remembers (how could he not be...
- 2/11/2024
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
Peter Morgan’s play Patriots, the drama about the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s fall, will transfer from a celebrated London run to Broadway this spring, with previews beginning April 1 at the Barrymore Theatre ahead of a reported April 22 opening.
The limited engagement will run through June 23.
The play, produced by Sonia Friedman with Rupert Goold directing, will star Will Keen, reprising his Olivier-winning performance as Vladimir Putin, with Luke Thallon, also a West End cast member, playing Roman Abramovich. Michael Stuhlbarg will portray Boris Berezovsky, with additional casting to be announced.
Official synopsis: In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the new Russia belongs to its oligarchs – and no one is more powerful than billionaire Boris Berezovsky. When an eventual successor to President Boris Yeltsin is needed, Berezovsky turns to the little-known deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin. But soon Putin’s ruthless rise threatens Berezovsky’s reign,...
The limited engagement will run through June 23.
The play, produced by Sonia Friedman with Rupert Goold directing, will star Will Keen, reprising his Olivier-winning performance as Vladimir Putin, with Luke Thallon, also a West End cast member, playing Roman Abramovich. Michael Stuhlbarg will portray Boris Berezovsky, with additional casting to be announced.
Official synopsis: In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the new Russia belongs to its oligarchs – and no one is more powerful than billionaire Boris Berezovsky. When an eventual successor to President Boris Yeltsin is needed, Berezovsky turns to the little-known deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin. But soon Putin’s ruthless rise threatens Berezovsky’s reign,...
- 1/22/2024
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
There was actually a time when we didn’t need social media to drum up mass hysteria, and the new HBO documentary Time Bomb Y2K is ready and raring to take us back there. This superbly edited dash through pre-millennial anxieties is a time capsule of archive footage — no narrator, no talking heads, no new interviews — from the years and days leading up the year 2000 that had millions worrying a computer glitch could lead to government takeover, nuclear catastrophe, cats and dogs playing together, and any other kind of mayhem you might imagine.
- 12/30/2023
- by Chris Vognar
- Rollingstone.com
Kinostar has dropped its first trailer for Putin, the first international production from Polish box office king Patryk Vega, who now goes by the name Besaleel. Pitched as a political thriller and psychological portrait of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the film, judging by the trailer, is unlikely to have many fans in Moscow.
Besaleel, who says he conceived the project as an artistic protest against the “Russian dictator and the war in Ukraine,” shows Putin alternatively a doddering old man shivering in soiled diapers, as a gangster-style mob boss blackmailing his predecessor Boris Yeltsin and as a cold-hearted killer ordering bombings and assassinations.
The director recreates several real-life events, including the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis, in which Russian security forces pumped toxic gas into the crowded Dubrovka Theater to rescue hostages from Chechen terrorists, an action that resulted in the death of up to 130 hostages. The carpet bombing of Chechnya under Putin’s watch,...
Besaleel, who says he conceived the project as an artistic protest against the “Russian dictator and the war in Ukraine,” shows Putin alternatively a doddering old man shivering in soiled diapers, as a gangster-style mob boss blackmailing his predecessor Boris Yeltsin and as a cold-hearted killer ordering bombings and assassinations.
The director recreates several real-life events, including the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis, in which Russian security forces pumped toxic gas into the crowded Dubrovka Theater to rescue hostages from Chechen terrorists, an action that resulted in the death of up to 130 hostages. The carpet bombing of Chechnya under Putin’s watch,...
- 11/3/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It’s hard to believe that it’s now over 60 years since Roman Polanski teamed with Jerzy Skolimowski for the landmark 1962 Polish thriller Knife in the Water. But it’s even harder to believe that these two giants of international cinema reunited more recently to pool their braincells and come up with The Palace, the most terrible, joyless farce since the heyday of the ’70s British sex comedy. Forget for a moment, if you can, the furor surrounding Polanski’s controversial status as a fugitive from justice and concentrate instead on the fact that the Venice Film Festival, in its infinite wisdom, went ahead and booked this entirely dreadful offering anyway, deeming it somehow worthy of a prestigious Out of Competition slot.
The setting is The Palace, a plush Alpine hideaway where the jet set of Europe are gathering to see in the year 2000. There are fears that the Y2K...
The setting is The Palace, a plush Alpine hideaway where the jet set of Europe are gathering to see in the year 2000. There are fears that the Y2K...
- 9/3/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
In The Palace, guests of a luxury hotel prepare to celebrate the turn of the millennium. The caviar is tasted. The fireworks are readied. Soon (you guessed it) indulgence shifts to debauchery. The director, if you haven’t heard, is Roman Polanski, a filmmaker whose marketability in Europe seems to endure almost in spite of its continued non-existence in Britain and the United States. The Palace was made on a budget of €17,000,000, boasts an Alexandre Desplat score and a starry cast, and was shot in the Gstaad Palace of Switzerland, where a basic single room will set you back a grand a night. The Palace premiered this week at the Venice Film Festival, where Polanski’s last film, An Officer and A Spy, opened to cautiously positive reviews in 2019, ultimately winning him the Silver Lion for Best Director. At the time you could almost feel the critical consensus straining against its better judgment.
- 9/2/2023
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Setting aside all the necessary caveats about art and artists, Roman Polanski’s “The Palace” throws a greater fact into stark relief. For all the digital ink we spill, journalists and critics are more often than not responsive to wider industry forces, and in Polanski’s case – as in the wider European industry — something has definitely shifted.
Heck, you could even the place the specific date to Feb. 28, 2020 – the night Polanski’s Venice Grand Jury Prize winner “An Officer and a Spy” won best director at France’s Cesar awards, prompting boos, a few notable walkouts, and a clash between protesters and police out in the streets. Two weeks prior, the French academy’s board of directors resigned in scandal.
So the fact that Polanski’s 2019 film has yet to find U.S. distribution is not a particular surprise; the fact that his follow-up, “The Palace,” has had similar tough...
Heck, you could even the place the specific date to Feb. 28, 2020 – the night Polanski’s Venice Grand Jury Prize winner “An Officer and a Spy” won best director at France’s Cesar awards, prompting boos, a few notable walkouts, and a clash between protesters and police out in the streets. Two weeks prior, the French academy’s board of directors resigned in scandal.
So the fact that Polanski’s 2019 film has yet to find U.S. distribution is not a particular surprise; the fact that his follow-up, “The Palace,” has had similar tough...
- 9/2/2023
- by Ben Croll
- The Wrap
As any critic will tell you, when you’re watching a comedy with an audience, it doesn’t matter how bad the movie is — even the jokes that are making you groan are going to provoke laughter. (That’s why comedies are always screened with a crowd; the studios want the audience giggles to rub off on you.) But at the Venice Film Festival, when I saw “The Palace,” Roman Polanski’s garish debacle of an ensemble comedy, I was sitting in the Sala Darsena, which seats 1400 (and was full), and on the rare occasion when a line in the movie got laughs, it was literally coming from about six people. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard a giant theater this deadly silent for a movie that’s working this strenuously to amuse you.
Polanski, if you look back over his credits, has an astoundingly consistent track...
Polanski, if you look back over his credits, has an astoundingly consistent track...
- 9/2/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
For an admirer of his work, writing about a new movie by Roman Polanski is like facing a minefield of unsolvable questions: Can this film be judged like the others given the director’s criminal record and tarnished reputation? Is it possible to praise a work of art if certain parts of an artist’s life are reprehensible, or should the two be separated? Should Polanski still be allowed to make movies? Should this movie even be written about?
Those questions would be harder to answer if Polanski, who’s now 90, made something on the level of say, Chinatown or Rosemary’s Baby. Or even something like The Tenant or Frantic or Repulsion or his debut feature, Knife in the Water, which came out over 60 years ago and earned him his first Oscar nomination.
But the director’s latest, The Palace, leaves little room for ambiguity. It’s the worst thing...
Those questions would be harder to answer if Polanski, who’s now 90, made something on the level of say, Chinatown or Rosemary’s Baby. Or even something like The Tenant or Frantic or Repulsion or his debut feature, Knife in the Water, which came out over 60 years ago and earned him his first Oscar nomination.
But the director’s latest, The Palace, leaves little room for ambiguity. It’s the worst thing...
- 9/2/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Exclusive: Deadline can reveal the international trailer for Roman Polanski’s ensemble dark comedy The Palace ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September.
Shot against the backdrop of Switzerland’s luxury Gstaad Palace hotel, the film unfolds in the lead-up to a lavish New Year Party on the eve of 2000.
Mickey Rourke is unveiled as a demanding client with a Trump-style blond wig; Fanny Ardant as a wealthy marquise fretting over her constipated chihuahua, and John Cleese as a business magnate, who pitches up with his much-younger, new bride (Bronwyn James) and a live penguin.
The motley assortment of guests seeing in the new millennium also features a party of wealthy Russians (who tune into Vladimir Putin’s real-life News Year’s Eve Speech declaring he had been made interim president following Boris Yeltsin’s resignation), and a former porn star.
In the backdrop, the...
Shot against the backdrop of Switzerland’s luxury Gstaad Palace hotel, the film unfolds in the lead-up to a lavish New Year Party on the eve of 2000.
Mickey Rourke is unveiled as a demanding client with a Trump-style blond wig; Fanny Ardant as a wealthy marquise fretting over her constipated chihuahua, and John Cleese as a business magnate, who pitches up with his much-younger, new bride (Bronwyn James) and a live penguin.
The motley assortment of guests seeing in the new millennium also features a party of wealthy Russians (who tune into Vladimir Putin’s real-life News Year’s Eve Speech declaring he had been made interim president following Boris Yeltsin’s resignation), and a former porn star.
In the backdrop, the...
- 8/23/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Updated: Networks scrambled to cover the rebellion in Russia by initially drawing heavily on social media images, foreign policy analysts and correspondents in other countries, while media presence in Moscow has been limited.
Russian President Vladimir Putin faced an uprising from mercenary chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin, with reports that he has taken control of the city of Rostov-on-Don and that the insurrection was on its way to Moscow. Hours later, Prigozhin said that his forces were stopping and turning back from the city and headed to field camps. Kremlin’s spokesman later told reporters that Prigozhin would go to Belarus and a criminal case against him would be dropped.
The apparent end of the revolt followed a tumultuous and often confusing 24 hours.
Viewers on Saturday woke up to images of Putin declaring that he would crush the rebellion and that Prigozhin was guilty of treason. He said that those who prepared...
Russian President Vladimir Putin faced an uprising from mercenary chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin, with reports that he has taken control of the city of Rostov-on-Don and that the insurrection was on its way to Moscow. Hours later, Prigozhin said that his forces were stopping and turning back from the city and headed to field camps. Kremlin’s spokesman later told reporters that Prigozhin would go to Belarus and a criminal case against him would be dropped.
The apparent end of the revolt followed a tumultuous and often confusing 24 hours.
Viewers on Saturday woke up to images of Putin declaring that he would crush the rebellion and that Prigozhin was guilty of treason. He said that those who prepared...
- 6/24/2023
- by Ted Johnson
- Deadline Film + TV
Steven Seagal has declared himself “one million per cent” Russian after receiving an award from president Vladimir Putin.
The former Hollywood star was given an Order of Friendship medal after supporting the country following its invasion of Ukraine.
Seagal pledged his allegiance to Russia during an event held by International Movement of Russians in Moscow on Monday (13 March).
The group consists of non-Russian supporters of the country who want to shine a positive light on Russia in an attempt to have EU sanctions against the country lifted.
During the event, he also accused the US of spending “billions of dollars on disinformation, lies”, which he said was an attempt to “try to discredit, demoralise and destroy the emerging morale of Russia”.
He said: “Over half of the people in America actually love Russia and love Russians and know that they’re being lied to.”
Seagal, who was born in Michigan,...
The former Hollywood star was given an Order of Friendship medal after supporting the country following its invasion of Ukraine.
Seagal pledged his allegiance to Russia during an event held by International Movement of Russians in Moscow on Monday (13 March).
The group consists of non-Russian supporters of the country who want to shine a positive light on Russia in an attempt to have EU sanctions against the country lifted.
During the event, he also accused the US of spending “billions of dollars on disinformation, lies”, which he said was an attempt to “try to discredit, demoralise and destroy the emerging morale of Russia”.
He said: “Over half of the people in America actually love Russia and love Russians and know that they’re being lied to.”
Seagal, who was born in Michigan,...
- 3/16/2023
- by Jacob Stolworthy
- The Independent - Film
Exclusive: On February 24, 2022 Sean Penn and his documentary filmmaking team got up before dawn in Kyiv in anticipation of a planned interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Suddenly, explosions shattered the quiet and missile fire turned the darkened sky to malevolent orange. Russia’s full-scale attack on its neighbor had begun — what President Vladimir Putin later that day euphemistically dubbed a “special military operation.”
Experts widely predicted Kyiv would fall within days and Zelenskyy would perish or flee his country (he was offered passage out by the Biden administration). Neither happened. On the one-year anniversary of the invasion, Penn and Aaron Kaufman, directors of the documentary Superpower, are reflecting on Ukraine’s response to a war of annihilation and Pres. Zelenskyy’s stunning leadership.
‘Superpower’ co-director Sean Penn meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on February 24, 2022
“Well, obviously, I share the broad view that his is a historic profile in courage,...
Experts widely predicted Kyiv would fall within days and Zelenskyy would perish or flee his country (he was offered passage out by the Biden administration). Neither happened. On the one-year anniversary of the invasion, Penn and Aaron Kaufman, directors of the documentary Superpower, are reflecting on Ukraine’s response to a war of annihilation and Pres. Zelenskyy’s stunning leadership.
‘Superpower’ co-director Sean Penn meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on February 24, 2022
“Well, obviously, I share the broad view that his is a historic profile in courage,...
- 2/24/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Barbara Walters, the pioneering news broadcaster who became a force in a male-dominated industry and whose relentless journalism inspired generations of women, has died at the age of 93.
“Barbara Walters passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones. She lived her life with no regrets,” a rep for Walters said in a statement to Rolling Stone on Friday. “She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women.”
Walter’s career spanned five decades, during which she won 12 Emmy awards, and whose television interviews with...
“Barbara Walters passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones. She lived her life with no regrets,” a rep for Walters said in a statement to Rolling Stone on Friday. “She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women.”
Walter’s career spanned five decades, during which she won 12 Emmy awards, and whose television interviews with...
- 12/31/2022
- by Charisma Madarang
- Rollingstone.com
The storylines in the fifth season of The Crown have provoked much backlash, from scenes showing the former Prince Charles trying to force the Queen’s abdication to others suggesting Prince Philip was unfaithful to the late monarch.
Prominent figures, including Judi Dench, have demanded that the drama carry a disclaimer to make clear that the events of the series aren’t entirely factual. While The Crown actor Jonathan Pryce, has called these reactions to the show “hugely disappointing”, claiming that viewers know it’s a drama, not a documentary.
Some of the storylines in season five are pretty close to the truth. Others, not so much.
Here’s a full rundown of what is covered in each episode of The Crown season five, and links to our articles about what’s fact versus what’s fiction in the series.
Episode one: Queen Victoria Syndrome
In the first instalment of the new series,...
Prominent figures, including Judi Dench, have demanded that the drama carry a disclaimer to make clear that the events of the series aren’t entirely factual. While The Crown actor Jonathan Pryce, has called these reactions to the show “hugely disappointing”, claiming that viewers know it’s a drama, not a documentary.
Some of the storylines in season five are pretty close to the truth. Others, not so much.
Here’s a full rundown of what is covered in each episode of The Crown season five, and links to our articles about what’s fact versus what’s fiction in the series.
Episode one: Queen Victoria Syndrome
In the first instalment of the new series,...
- 11/12/2022
- by Ellie Harrison
- The Independent - TV
“The Crown” is back — and so is the Netflix series’ accompanying drama about what is and is not factually accurate. This season feels particularly explosive, as the first batch of episodes to take place in the oh-so-well-documented 1990s. Among the many topics tackled are the dissolution of marriages, the discovery of the remains of the Tsar of Russia and his family, the election of Tony Blair — and Prince Philip’s obsession with carriage driving.
In order to sift through what is historically accurate and what is merely conjecture (if not outright dramatic fiction), we turn to the Internet’s favorite arbiter of fact versus fantasy: Jonathan Frakes, the host of late ’90s meme-fave “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.” Are these “um, what?!?” moments true? Or is Peter Morgan just pulling the crown over our eyes?
Did Prince Charles really cut short his second honeymoon with Diana and their children?
Although...
In order to sift through what is historically accurate and what is merely conjecture (if not outright dramatic fiction), we turn to the Internet’s favorite arbiter of fact versus fantasy: Jonathan Frakes, the host of late ’90s meme-fave “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.” Are these “um, what?!?” moments true? Or is Peter Morgan just pulling the crown over our eyes?
Did Prince Charles really cut short his second honeymoon with Diana and their children?
Although...
- 11/12/2022
- by Mark Peikert
- Indiewire
Warning: contains spoilers for The Crown season 5.
The Crown and historical accuracy enjoy a fleeting rather than steadfast acquaintance. Peter Morgan’s Netflix drama concertinas history and jumps between time periods to follow emotional and symbolic through-lines rather than sticking to the recorded facts and timelines. “Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatization…” goes the proviso at the top of Season Five. School pupils shouldn’t rely on it to do their history homework, is the general consensus.
That established, below is the timeline of the 1991 – 1997 period depicted in Season Five according to the TV drama, with the odd note on where episodes diverge from what we know to be the real-life sequence of events.
As a reminder, Season four covered ‘The Thatcher Years’, running from Margaret Thatcher’s election as prime minister of Great Britain in May 1979 to her resignation as leader of the Conservative Party in November 1990, after...
The Crown and historical accuracy enjoy a fleeting rather than steadfast acquaintance. Peter Morgan’s Netflix drama concertinas history and jumps between time periods to follow emotional and symbolic through-lines rather than sticking to the recorded facts and timelines. “Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatization…” goes the proviso at the top of Season Five. School pupils shouldn’t rely on it to do their history homework, is the general consensus.
That established, below is the timeline of the 1991 – 1997 period depicted in Season Five according to the TV drama, with the odd note on where episodes diverge from what we know to be the real-life sequence of events.
As a reminder, Season four covered ‘The Thatcher Years’, running from Margaret Thatcher’s election as prime minister of Great Britain in May 1979 to her resignation as leader of the Conservative Party in November 1990, after...
- 11/11/2022
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
The storylines in the fifth season of The Crown have provoked much backlash, from scenes showing the former Prince Charles trying to force the Queen’s abdication to others suggesting Prince Philip was unfaithful to the late monarch.
Prominent figures, including Judi Dench, have demanded that the drama carry a disclaimer to make clear that the events of the series aren’t entirely factual. While The Crown actor Jonathan Pryce, has called these reactions to the show “hugely disappointing”, claiming that viewers know it’s a drama, not a documentary.
Some of the storylines in season five are pretty close to the truth. Others, not so much.
Here’s a full rundown of what is covered in each episode of The Crown season five, and links to our articles about what’s fact versus what’s fiction in the series.
Episode one: Queen Victoria Syndrome
In the first instalment of the new series,...
Prominent figures, including Judi Dench, have demanded that the drama carry a disclaimer to make clear that the events of the series aren’t entirely factual. While The Crown actor Jonathan Pryce, has called these reactions to the show “hugely disappointing”, claiming that viewers know it’s a drama, not a documentary.
Some of the storylines in season five are pretty close to the truth. Others, not so much.
Here’s a full rundown of what is covered in each episode of The Crown season five, and links to our articles about what’s fact versus what’s fiction in the series.
Episode one: Queen Victoria Syndrome
In the first instalment of the new series,...
- 11/9/2022
- by Ellie Harrison
- The Independent - TV
The storylines in the fifth season of The Crown have provoked much backlash, from scenes showing the former Prince Charles trying to force the Queen’s abdication to others suggesting Prince Philip was unfaithful to the late monarch.
Prominent figures, including Judi Dench, have demanded that the drama carry a disclaimer to make clear that the events of the series aren’t entirely factual. The Crown actor Jonathan Pryce, meanwhile, has called these reactions to the show “hugely disappointing”, claiming that viewers know it’s a drama, not a documentary.
Some of the storylines in season five are pretty close to the truth. Others, not so much.
Here’s a full rundown of what will be covered in each episode of The Crown season five, and links to our articles about what’s fact versus what’s fiction in the series.
Episode one: Queen Victoria Syndrome
In the first instalment of the new series,...
Prominent figures, including Judi Dench, have demanded that the drama carry a disclaimer to make clear that the events of the series aren’t entirely factual. The Crown actor Jonathan Pryce, meanwhile, has called these reactions to the show “hugely disappointing”, claiming that viewers know it’s a drama, not a documentary.
Some of the storylines in season five are pretty close to the truth. Others, not so much.
Here’s a full rundown of what will be covered in each episode of The Crown season five, and links to our articles about what’s fact versus what’s fiction in the series.
Episode one: Queen Victoria Syndrome
In the first instalment of the new series,...
- 11/9/2022
- by Ellie Harrison
- The Independent - TV
Click here to read the full article.
When Prime Minister John Major (Jonny Lee Miller) carefully suggests in the fifth season premiere of Netflix’s The Crown that the British royal family might consider paying for repairs to their aging yacht out of their own coffers, rather than asking taxpayers to foot the bill, Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) pushes back with a personal appeal. “When I came to the throne, all my palaces were inherited. Windsor, Balmoral, Sandringham — they all bear the stamp of my predecessors,” she tells him. “Only Britannia have I truly been able to make my own.”
It’s a striking statement, in a number of ways. For one, the very phrase “all my palaces” invokes levels of privilege unthinkable to most. For another, it suggests the Queen herself struggles within a system designed to protect her role at the cost of her individuality. And if...
When Prime Minister John Major (Jonny Lee Miller) carefully suggests in the fifth season premiere of Netflix’s The Crown that the British royal family might consider paying for repairs to their aging yacht out of their own coffers, rather than asking taxpayers to foot the bill, Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) pushes back with a personal appeal. “When I came to the throne, all my palaces were inherited. Windsor, Balmoral, Sandringham — they all bear the stamp of my predecessors,” she tells him. “Only Britannia have I truly been able to make my own.”
It’s a striking statement, in a number of ways. For one, the very phrase “all my palaces” invokes levels of privilege unthinkable to most. For another, it suggests the Queen herself struggles within a system designed to protect her role at the cost of her individuality. And if...
- 11/5/2022
- by Angie Han
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It’s been eight years since Italy’s key film and TV market Mia kicked off in Rome and each year its popular co-production market and pitching forum seems to go from strength to strength.
This year the strand, which is already established in drama, documentary and feature film sections, has spread its tentacles to include animation and will see local producers looking for high-profile financial partners and co-production deals get the opportunity to showcase their projects before an audience of industry professionals and top international players from global studios, Ott platforms, broadcasters, production and distribution companies as well as agents and financiers.
This year, Deadline can reveal that there are already some standout pitches across all segments that are sure to drum up interest starting with Crimson Crown, the first series exec produced by Italian master of horror Dario Argento. Being pitched in the Mia drama section, Argento will...
This year the strand, which is already established in drama, documentary and feature film sections, has spread its tentacles to include animation and will see local producers looking for high-profile financial partners and co-production deals get the opportunity to showcase their projects before an audience of industry professionals and top international players from global studios, Ott platforms, broadcasters, production and distribution companies as well as agents and financiers.
This year, Deadline can reveal that there are already some standout pitches across all segments that are sure to drum up interest starting with Crimson Crown, the first series exec produced by Italian master of horror Dario Argento. Being pitched in the Mia drama section, Argento will...
- 9/15/2022
- by Diana Lodderhose
- Deadline Film + TV
Pizza Hut, luxury luggage and Spitting Image: How Mikhail Gorbachev became an unlikely cultural icon
Mikhail Gorbachev walks into a Pizza Hut. The year is 1997, six years after the end of the Soviet Union, and the leader who oversaw its dissolution is in Moscow’s Red Square to star in one of the strangest television adverts ever produced. After taking a seat alongside his granddaughter Anastasia Virganskaya, Gorbachev is spotted by two men at a nearby table and a debate over his legacy ensues. “Because of him we have economic confusion!” claims a dour, middle-aged man. “Because of him we have opportunity!” fires back the younger of the pair, perhaps his son. Certainly the two are intended to represent a generational gap. While the elder complains about political instability and chaos, the younger talks of freedom and hope. It’s left to an older woman to settle the debate. “Because of him, we have many things…” she says, “…like Pizza Hut!” On that, they can all agree.
- 8/31/2022
- by Kevin E G Perry
- The Independent - TV
‘You really hope they don’t have sex’: meet the man behind the Finnish answer to Lost in Translation
Juho Kuosmanen’s new film Compartment No 6 won the Cannes Grand Prix last year. He talks of how it was received in Russia, his underdog status and whether he is a romantic
I am speaking to the Finnish film-maker Juho Kuosmanen, director of the prize-winning new film Compartment No 6, under conditions very different from our previous encounter at last autumn’s London film festival. That was a garrulous face-to-face chat about this film in the amiably chaotic surroundings of his central London distribution company. Now it’s our two subdued faces side-by-side on a computer screen, as we dwell on the fact that the phrase “third world war” used to be an essentially comic phrase, or category error, or a piece of intentionally ironic numerical wrongness like “sixth sense” or “fifth horseman of the apocalypse”.
Compartment No 6 is set in the spring of 1998, the era that Kuosmanen...
I am speaking to the Finnish film-maker Juho Kuosmanen, director of the prize-winning new film Compartment No 6, under conditions very different from our previous encounter at last autumn’s London film festival. That was a garrulous face-to-face chat about this film in the amiably chaotic surroundings of his central London distribution company. Now it’s our two subdued faces side-by-side on a computer screen, as we dwell on the fact that the phrase “third world war” used to be an essentially comic phrase, or category error, or a piece of intentionally ironic numerical wrongness like “sixth sense” or “fifth horseman of the apocalypse”.
Compartment No 6 is set in the spring of 1998, the era that Kuosmanen...
- 4/1/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Roger Waters condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in an open letter to 19-year-old Ukrainian woman named Alina Mitrofanova. “I am disgusted by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” he wrote Wednesday.
“It is a criminal mistake in my opinion, the act of a gangster. There must be an immediate ceasefire. I regret that Western governments are fueling the fire that will destroy your beautiful country by pouring arms into Ukraine, instead of engaging in the diplomacy that will be necessary to stop the slaughter.”
The former Pink Floyd singer-songwriter also...
“It is a criminal mistake in my opinion, the act of a gangster. There must be an immediate ceasefire. I regret that Western governments are fueling the fire that will destroy your beautiful country by pouring arms into Ukraine, instead of engaging in the diplomacy that will be necessary to stop the slaughter.”
The former Pink Floyd singer-songwriter also...
- 3/9/2022
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
Dmitry “Dima” Bosov seemed relaxed at his compound in the Mexican resort town of Cabo San Lucas. The Russian billionaire was clad in Rainbow sandals and a RipnDip T-shirt as he greeted executives from his latest venture, a cannabis company called Genius Fund. Heavy security patrolled the property’s perimeter, belying the Russian oligarch’s laid-back demeanor. “There were ten dudes with assault rifles around an Olympic-sized infinity pool,” recalls one employee who was there to give a presentation to Bosov and other Genius execs. “Like a mini militia.”
It...
It...
- 8/23/2021
- by Mary Jane Gibson
- Rollingstone.com
She keeps a list of men who’ve walked out on her. She’s Ok with that. She also keeps a list of men who’ve aced her out of gigs.
Lesley Stahl this week starts her 30th year as a top 60 Minutes correspondent, a role model for women who’ve not only survived but thrived in important sectors of the media business.
With non-scripted television now springing back to life, it’s worth noting that that there’s still a show that dates back to 1968 – a lively variant from Pooch Perfect, Whac-a-Mole, Love Island or the other heavy artillery of Reality Week.
The news business today arguably is run by women, both in front of the camera and behind — prime examples of the not-so-quiet revolution in the media world. A Covid survivor, Stahl, 80, got her first job thanks to the 1970s version of affirmative action. That meant apprentice-level opportunities...
Lesley Stahl this week starts her 30th year as a top 60 Minutes correspondent, a role model for women who’ve not only survived but thrived in important sectors of the media business.
With non-scripted television now springing back to life, it’s worth noting that that there’s still a show that dates back to 1968 – a lively variant from Pooch Perfect, Whac-a-Mole, Love Island or the other heavy artillery of Reality Week.
The news business today arguably is run by women, both in front of the camera and behind — prime examples of the not-so-quiet revolution in the media world. A Covid survivor, Stahl, 80, got her first job thanks to the 1970s version of affirmative action. That meant apprentice-level opportunities...
- 4/8/2021
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
Even in his dotage, stooped and tissue-skinned and walker-dependent, the former (and final) Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev is an imposing, even intimidating figure — formidable enough to have stymied the venerable Werner Herzog two years ago. The German auteur’s oddly cautious 2018 doc “Meeting Gorbachev” was a missed opportunity, colored by the filmmaker’s obvious admiration for his subject but never getting under his skin in any sense. In “Gorbachev. Heaven,” Russian docmaker Vitaly Mansky has another go at cracking this particularly tough nut, with richer, more resonant results — making a virtue of Gorbachev’s enigmatic, evasive manner in what turns out to be more poetic character study than exacting political profile.
Alternating between head-on rhetorical confrontation and melancholic everyday observation, this weighty IDFA premiere should match the festival and arthouse profile of Mansky’s recent films “Under the Sun” and “Putin’s Witnesses,” sealing his reputation as one of...
Alternating between head-on rhetorical confrontation and melancholic everyday observation, this weighty IDFA premiere should match the festival and arthouse profile of Mansky’s recent films “Under the Sun” and “Putin’s Witnesses,” sealing his reputation as one of...
- 11/21/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
When the collective republics of the Soviet Union began their conscious uncoupling in the early 1990s, many Russians saw the collapse as a bold new step toward freedom and democracy. Mikhail Khodorkovsky saw cash. The future billionaire had grown up with dreams of being an engineer — he lived on the corner of Cosmonaut Street and Rocket Boulevard, and confessed that “all my life, I’ve been interested in things that explode” — and was a card-carrying member of the Communist youth league Komsomol. Then, in the Perestroika era, he found a...
- 1/15/2020
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
“I am far from an ideal person,” Russian oligarch-turned-political-prisoner-turned-political-activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky says in “Citizen K.” “But I am a person with ideals.”
It’s the second half of that statement about which documentarian Alex Gibney is most concerned. The Oscar-winning director of “Taxi to the Dark Side” and “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” has pointed his camera at Khodorkovsky not to paint a nuanced picture of an impossibly rich and complicated man (as the allusion to “Citizen Kane” suggests) but to tell the bizarre story of how the rise of Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly turned Khodorkovsky into a heroic arch-nemesis.
And like many stories of heroes and villains, the good guy isn’t questioned very much, while the bad guy steals the show.
Also Read: Steven Spielberg and Alex Gibney's Docuseries 'Why We Hate' Gets Premiere Date From Discovery (Exclusive)
“Citizen K” spends its first half...
It’s the second half of that statement about which documentarian Alex Gibney is most concerned. The Oscar-winning director of “Taxi to the Dark Side” and “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” has pointed his camera at Khodorkovsky not to paint a nuanced picture of an impossibly rich and complicated man (as the allusion to “Citizen Kane” suggests) but to tell the bizarre story of how the rise of Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly turned Khodorkovsky into a heroic arch-nemesis.
And like many stories of heroes and villains, the good guy isn’t questioned very much, while the bad guy steals the show.
Also Read: Steven Spielberg and Alex Gibney's Docuseries 'Why We Hate' Gets Premiere Date From Discovery (Exclusive)
“Citizen K” spends its first half...
- 11/22/2019
- by William Bibbiani
- The Wrap
This year has brought more evidence to cement Alex Gibney’s reputation as the hardest working man in documentary film.
His six-part documentary series Why We Hate, executive-produced with Steven Spielberg, debuted on Discovery Channel last month. Earlier this year his documentary The Inventor: Out For Blood in Silicon Valley—about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes—hit HBO. And his latest documentary, Citizen K, opens in theaters this Friday. All in all, an active 2019.
Citizen K tells the story of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a “Russian oligarch-turned dissident,” who built a vast fortune in the years of “Wild West capitalism” that flourished after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Some estimates put his net worth at its height at $15 billion.
“He became Russia’s richest man,” Gibney notes, “one of the richest men in the world.” Khodorkovsky collected his first pile of rubles in the banking business, then leveraged that wealth to acquire ever more valuable enterprises.
His six-part documentary series Why We Hate, executive-produced with Steven Spielberg, debuted on Discovery Channel last month. Earlier this year his documentary The Inventor: Out For Blood in Silicon Valley—about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes—hit HBO. And his latest documentary, Citizen K, opens in theaters this Friday. All in all, an active 2019.
Citizen K tells the story of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a “Russian oligarch-turned dissident,” who built a vast fortune in the years of “Wild West capitalism” that flourished after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Some estimates put his net worth at its height at $15 billion.
“He became Russia’s richest man,” Gibney notes, “one of the richest men in the world.” Khodorkovsky collected his first pile of rubles in the banking business, then leveraged that wealth to acquire ever more valuable enterprises.
- 11/18/2019
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Nent Group’s Nordic streaming service Viaplay has boarded “With One Eye Open,” partnering Twelve Town and Nice Drama on the Swedish drama series which brings a fresh look to Swedish and Russian ties.
The eight-part series is based on Martin Österdahl’s “Ask No Mercy,” the first of three books in the Max Anger suspense trilogy.
First pitched at Lille’s Series Mania in May, the project is set in 1996 Saint Petersburg on the run-up to Boris Yeltsin’s election. Max Anger, a former attack diver for the Swedish navy now works for think tank Vektor, set up to help Swedish companies open up shop in Russia. When his Russian/Swedish girlfriend suddenly goes missing, while investigating a neo-Stalinist plot against Sweden, he goes on a mission to rescue her and at the same time, uncovers secrets about his own past.
In the lead-up to TV Drama Vision on Jan.
The eight-part series is based on Martin Österdahl’s “Ask No Mercy,” the first of three books in the Max Anger suspense trilogy.
First pitched at Lille’s Series Mania in May, the project is set in 1996 Saint Petersburg on the run-up to Boris Yeltsin’s election. Max Anger, a former attack diver for the Swedish navy now works for think tank Vektor, set up to help Swedish companies open up shop in Russia. When his Russian/Swedish girlfriend suddenly goes missing, while investigating a neo-Stalinist plot against Sweden, he goes on a mission to rescue her and at the same time, uncovers secrets about his own past.
In the lead-up to TV Drama Vision on Jan.
- 1/30/2019
- by Annika Pham
- Variety Film + TV
“This is the price I had to pay for naively assuming I was merely a witness,” says filmmaker Vitaly Mansky toward the close of “Putin’s Witnesses,” his riveting, incensed documentary chronicling the early stages of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s tyrannical rule. Years after spending considerable time filming Putin at close quarters, in his capacity as head of documentaries for Russian national television, Mansky has evidently spent much time pondering his degree of complicity in the president’s toxic power — making “Putin’s Witnesses” not just a major, access-rich overview of recent history, but a compelling work of personal self-reckoning, one that should resonate with a broad swath of audiences at a time of international political questioning and activism.
One audience that probably won’t get to see the film, of course, is the one that needs it most. It’s hard to imagine “Putin’s Witnesses” seeing the light of day in Russia,...
One audience that probably won’t get to see the film, of course, is the one that needs it most. It’s hard to imagine “Putin’s Witnesses” seeing the light of day in Russia,...
- 7/6/2018
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
His new film, Lek and the Dogs, is about a boy who lived with a pack of wild animals in Moscow, and was inspired by Hattie Naylor’s haunting play. The film-maker and playwright talk about archetypal stories and abandoned children
On the desolate streets of Boris Yeltsin’s Moscow in the mid-90s, a four-year-old boy named Ivan Mishukov walked out of the home he shared with his mother and his alcoholic stepfather and began living with a pack of wild dogs. For two years, he ran with the mutts, begging for food that he distributed among them and curling up with them at night to protect himself from the harsh climate. The police tried several times to apprehend him, only to be thwarted in their attempts by his snarling posse. Eventually, he was packed off to a children’s shelter. He stopped growling and went back to speaking.
On the desolate streets of Boris Yeltsin’s Moscow in the mid-90s, a four-year-old boy named Ivan Mishukov walked out of the home he shared with his mother and his alcoholic stepfather and began living with a pack of wild dogs. For two years, he ran with the mutts, begging for food that he distributed among them and curling up with them at night to protect himself from the harsh climate. The police tried several times to apprehend him, only to be thwarted in their attempts by his snarling posse. Eventually, he was packed off to a children’s shelter. He stopped growling and went back to speaking.
- 6/8/2018
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
Lille, France — Sweden’s Nice Drama and the U.K.’s Twelve Town, formerly Pinewood Television, have purchased the rights to Martin Österdahl’s bestselling Max Anger novels, and optioned them as a high-end multi-season drama series, which the companies presented at the Series Mania Co-Pro Pitching Sessions in Lille.
Executive producers Stefan Baron of Nice Drama and Christian Wikander of Twelve Town were at the Series Mania Forum on behalf of the series, looking to secure European partners to aid in making “With One Eye Open” a high-end series, intended for the international market.
A development deal has already been signed with Swedish pubcaster Svt for two scripts, written by TV veterans Lars Lundström (“Real Humans”) and Anders Sparring (“Farang”), and an outline based on th3 first of Österdahl’s books, “Ask No Mercy,” with shooting planned for spring 2019.
The series, adapted from the first of Österdahl’s two...
Executive producers Stefan Baron of Nice Drama and Christian Wikander of Twelve Town were at the Series Mania Forum on behalf of the series, looking to secure European partners to aid in making “With One Eye Open” a high-end series, intended for the international market.
A development deal has already been signed with Swedish pubcaster Svt for two scripts, written by TV veterans Lars Lundström (“Real Humans”) and Anders Sparring (“Farang”), and an outline based on th3 first of Österdahl’s books, “Ask No Mercy,” with shooting planned for spring 2019.
The series, adapted from the first of Österdahl’s two...
- 5/3/2018
- by Jamie Lang and John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
If the constant onslaught of revelations about the Trump administration’s relationship with various foreign nationals doesn’t already give you grey hairs on a daily basis, try watching “Active Measures,” a damning concentration of allegations that will undoubtedly leave liberals pulling those hairs out in frustration.
A methodical look at Vladimir Putin’s rise to power and the latticework of criminality that has enveloped governments worldwide, Jack Bryan’s documentary enlists a who’s-who of high-profile experts and insiders — including Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and more — for a brutal dressing-down of worldwide, metastasized corruption that falls short in laying out straight its particularly slippery bag of snakes only by suggesting the solution is to cut off their tails, not their heads.
Opening with a brief but potent biography of Putin and winding through an abridged but detailed list of transgressions to which his administration is connected, Bryan’s film explores the often intangible but wildly destructive tactics hostile governments employ as “active measures,” including propaganda, cyberattacks and agents of influence. Murdering journalists, opponents and in some likely cases, allies and even innocent civilians, Putin consolidated power under Boris Yeltsin before claiming the mantle of leadership over post-Soviet Union Russia, developing strategies (that would later be used to undermine the U.S. election) against newly-liberated countries like Georgia.
Also Read: Trump Ignores Advisers' Subtle Message About Putin: 'Do Not Congratulate'
Bryan and his co-writer Marley Clements connect the dots with methodical precision, and minimal sensationalism, although they hardly need to overdramatize connections between Putin and notorious Russian mobster Semion Mogilevich, especially given the numerous flunkies (and their various criminal acts) who overlapped the pair’s Venn diagram of manipulation and malfeasance.
Putin and Mogilevich’s relationship to Trump’s mysteriously indefatigable gift for failing upward is easy to track, though the filmmakers possibly overemphasize the current president’s ability to foresee the many ways he was being manipulated, or maybe just the distance at which Putin and co. recognized he even could be a potential leader. Certainly, and with the added benefit of recent comments made by Forbes reporters about Trump’s obsession with their annual list of power players, the film makes an effective case for the abject corruption of Trump’s dealings in the 1980s, when Trump Towers served — in several cases, according to successful criminal prosecution — as “a money-laundering paradise” for shell companies to buy and sell condominiums without identifying themselves. Later, Deutsche Bank, a company with significant ties to Russia, supported many of Trump’s endeavors long after they imploded or otherwise failed.
Watch Video: Stephen Colbert Congratulates Putin for His Win 'by the Most Made-up Votes'
Most damning, though, is the sophisticated way that Bryan and Clements lay flat the history of technological attacks launched against oppositional regimes, and how brutally impactful they were because of attackers’ profound understanding of the psychologies of the sociocultural ecosystems into which they were released. Footage from a Cambridge Analytica presentation, paired with interviews from experts on Russia’s history of cyberattacks, elucidates the depths of attackers’ knowledge about the way that various cultures work, and in particular, how the unrelenting onslaught of fake sites and phony Facebook posts (among other disseminated stories) preyed upon our specific vulnerabilities as Americans to disseminate materials that would fundamentally undermine our trust in particular candidates, our government and the system as a whole.
(The extra chill comes when an interviewee points out that literally nothing has been done to slow the spread of this attack since Trump took office.)
Also Read: Joe Scarborough: Republicans 'Doing the Bidding of Vladimir Putin and His Intelligence Agencies'
At 110 minutes, the film’s laserlike focus keeps its talking heads from droning on too long, but also from relaying some of the anecdotal details that are probably juicier than they are relevant. (One that makes the cut is Clinton’s observation that Putin likes to manspread, one of the very few instances where she digresses in any way from essential information.) But like with many other documentaries attempting to chronicle our turbulent recent history, we seem to have moved beyond an era when such thing as a clean or definitive ending exists; at the very least, we’re not yet at anything that resembles one.
Not that the film doesn’t try: Citing semi-successful examples in Georgia and Russia, the filmmakers end with a call to arms that suggests the divided electorate, the citizenry of the U.S., rise up and demand change, for our officials to hold themselves and their colleagues accountable and to do something to secure free and fair elections. If there’s anything that “Active Measures” does most effectively, it’s to demonstrate the depths and the breadth of the corruption, the criminality, the immorality operating in contemporary politics — and after seeing what we’re up against, the last thing people may want to do is to get more involved.
Read original story ‘Active Measures’ Film Review: How Putin’s Tactics Stole Russia, and How They’re Corrupting the USA At TheWrap...
A methodical look at Vladimir Putin’s rise to power and the latticework of criminality that has enveloped governments worldwide, Jack Bryan’s documentary enlists a who’s-who of high-profile experts and insiders — including Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and more — for a brutal dressing-down of worldwide, metastasized corruption that falls short in laying out straight its particularly slippery bag of snakes only by suggesting the solution is to cut off their tails, not their heads.
Opening with a brief but potent biography of Putin and winding through an abridged but detailed list of transgressions to which his administration is connected, Bryan’s film explores the often intangible but wildly destructive tactics hostile governments employ as “active measures,” including propaganda, cyberattacks and agents of influence. Murdering journalists, opponents and in some likely cases, allies and even innocent civilians, Putin consolidated power under Boris Yeltsin before claiming the mantle of leadership over post-Soviet Union Russia, developing strategies (that would later be used to undermine the U.S. election) against newly-liberated countries like Georgia.
Also Read: Trump Ignores Advisers' Subtle Message About Putin: 'Do Not Congratulate'
Bryan and his co-writer Marley Clements connect the dots with methodical precision, and minimal sensationalism, although they hardly need to overdramatize connections between Putin and notorious Russian mobster Semion Mogilevich, especially given the numerous flunkies (and their various criminal acts) who overlapped the pair’s Venn diagram of manipulation and malfeasance.
Putin and Mogilevich’s relationship to Trump’s mysteriously indefatigable gift for failing upward is easy to track, though the filmmakers possibly overemphasize the current president’s ability to foresee the many ways he was being manipulated, or maybe just the distance at which Putin and co. recognized he even could be a potential leader. Certainly, and with the added benefit of recent comments made by Forbes reporters about Trump’s obsession with their annual list of power players, the film makes an effective case for the abject corruption of Trump’s dealings in the 1980s, when Trump Towers served — in several cases, according to successful criminal prosecution — as “a money-laundering paradise” for shell companies to buy and sell condominiums without identifying themselves. Later, Deutsche Bank, a company with significant ties to Russia, supported many of Trump’s endeavors long after they imploded or otherwise failed.
Watch Video: Stephen Colbert Congratulates Putin for His Win 'by the Most Made-up Votes'
Most damning, though, is the sophisticated way that Bryan and Clements lay flat the history of technological attacks launched against oppositional regimes, and how brutally impactful they were because of attackers’ profound understanding of the psychologies of the sociocultural ecosystems into which they were released. Footage from a Cambridge Analytica presentation, paired with interviews from experts on Russia’s history of cyberattacks, elucidates the depths of attackers’ knowledge about the way that various cultures work, and in particular, how the unrelenting onslaught of fake sites and phony Facebook posts (among other disseminated stories) preyed upon our specific vulnerabilities as Americans to disseminate materials that would fundamentally undermine our trust in particular candidates, our government and the system as a whole.
(The extra chill comes when an interviewee points out that literally nothing has been done to slow the spread of this attack since Trump took office.)
Also Read: Joe Scarborough: Republicans 'Doing the Bidding of Vladimir Putin and His Intelligence Agencies'
At 110 minutes, the film’s laserlike focus keeps its talking heads from droning on too long, but also from relaying some of the anecdotal details that are probably juicier than they are relevant. (One that makes the cut is Clinton’s observation that Putin likes to manspread, one of the very few instances where she digresses in any way from essential information.) But like with many other documentaries attempting to chronicle our turbulent recent history, we seem to have moved beyond an era when such thing as a clean or definitive ending exists; at the very least, we’re not yet at anything that resembles one.
Not that the film doesn’t try: Citing semi-successful examples in Georgia and Russia, the filmmakers end with a call to arms that suggests the divided electorate, the citizenry of the U.S., rise up and demand change, for our officials to hold themselves and their colleagues accountable and to do something to secure free and fair elections. If there’s anything that “Active Measures” does most effectively, it’s to demonstrate the depths and the breadth of the corruption, the criminality, the immorality operating in contemporary politics — and after seeing what we’re up against, the last thing people may want to do is to get more involved.
Read original story ‘Active Measures’ Film Review: How Putin’s Tactics Stole Russia, and How They’re Corrupting the USA At TheWrap...
- 5/1/2018
- by Todd Gilchrist
- The Wrap
Sergei Loznitsa's The Event (2015), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from August 4 - September 3, 2017 as a Special Discovery. “Questions are only dangerous when you answer them.”—Toby Esterhase, Smiley’s People“Resign! Resign! Resign!”—St. Petersburg crowd, 19 August 199119 August 1991. Sergei Loznitsa is packing his bags in Kiev: having recently left his job at the city’s Institute of Cybernetics, he is about to enroll at Moscow Film School. The phone rings; it’s a friend. Loznitsa, at his pal’s suggestion, turns on the television. All four state channels, interspersed with news flashes, are broadcasting the same thing: Swan Lake—on repeat. Updates come through haphazardly. In Moscow, there are tanks in the streets. By noon, there is something resembling a clearer picture: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, on vacation in the Crimea, has taken ill. A state of emergency is declared. Loznitsa walks...
- 8/4/2017
- MUBI
[[tmz:video id="0_ie0kc3o5"]] Russian boxing star Sergey "The Krusher" Kovalev loves him some Vladimir Putin and he's not ashamed of it ... telling TMZ Sports he thinks Putin is the greatest Russian prez Ever. We got Kovalev out in L.A. and asked him his thoughts on Putin ... who's a pretty polarizing figure these days, with some saying he's a great leader, and others saying he's a threat. Kovalev definitely is the former ... telling our guy not only does...
- 4/17/2017
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
I enjoyed Andrew Niccol‘s Lord of War when it came out in 2005. It was a fast-paced, enjoyable ride down the rabbit hole of the illegal arms trade, but I had no idea Nicolas Cage‘s character Yuri Orlov was based on a real life “Merchant of Death”. His name is Viktor Bout and he wasn’t even arrested until three years after Hollywood sensationalized the myth of his businessman seen as an international criminal throughout the media. As directors Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin sought to tell a tale within this sector of gun smuggling, he of course would prove the logical subject to focus on. The fact he was an amateur filmmaker who documented his travels via home video only made the prospect more intriguing.
Their documentary The Notorious Mr. Bout begins with the 2008 sting operation that brought the titular Russian down. There he sits in grainy black...
Their documentary The Notorious Mr. Bout begins with the 2008 sting operation that brought the titular Russian down. There he sits in grainy black...
- 11/3/2015
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
The story of espionage and duplicity that financial adviser Martin Armstrong relates in Marcus Vetter's documentary The Forecaster is as serpentine and fascinating as a John le Carré novel. Its narrative thread convincingly weaves multiple financial collapses, the ouster of Boris Yeltsin, and the rise of the Putin oligarchy around Armstrong's life's work — a mathematical model that predicts market peaks and collapses and, allegedly, the wars that accompany both. Martin's Economic Confidence Model tracks 26 market panics over 224 years, applies some arithmetic, and extrudes a market cycle based on pi. Apparently! His published work from the 1980s to the present is uncanny in its accurate predictions of the market crash of 1987, the Soviet collapse, the...
- 4/1/2015
- Village Voice
Vladimir Putin has been top dog in the Russian Federation since the turn of the millennium, despite the fact that for four of those years he was not even the President.
Having assumed office as Acting President on December 31, 1999, following Boris Yeltsin’s resignation, Putin was then elected to two four-year terms before he stepped down to allow his protege Dmitry Medvedev to take over. However, despite Putin having stepped down as President, Medvedev installed him as Prime Minister – only for the roles to reverse once again in 2012, with the former re-elected to the top office.
Such has been Putin’s dominance over the nation that he has been accused of moving Russia from the liberal democracy established following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 back towards an autocratic state.
Accusations of vote-rigging at elections, the passing of anti-liberal laws and the invasion of neighbouring territories in Ukraine and...
Having assumed office as Acting President on December 31, 1999, following Boris Yeltsin’s resignation, Putin was then elected to two four-year terms before he stepped down to allow his protege Dmitry Medvedev to take over. However, despite Putin having stepped down as President, Medvedev installed him as Prime Minister – only for the roles to reverse once again in 2012, with the former re-elected to the top office.
Such has been Putin’s dominance over the nation that he has been accused of moving Russia from the liberal democracy established following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 back towards an autocratic state.
Accusations of vote-rigging at elections, the passing of anti-liberal laws and the invasion of neighbouring territories in Ukraine and...
- 3/2/2015
- by Chris Waugh
- Obsessed with Film
He's been called a master of hip cinematic heartbreak who deals in worlds as shiny and perfect as a Christmas ornament — or, put more charitably, a virtuoso at making pathos both wrenching and witty in a idiosyncratic, individual style. You always know when you're watching a Wes Anderson film; the symmetrical compositions and deep-cut soundtracks are a dead giveaway. His latest movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel, has members of his repertory-players cast (including Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Owen Wilson) zipping through a never-quite-was 20th-century Europe, one...
- 3/11/2014
- Rollingstone.com
★★★☆☆ Despite Putin's 'gay propaganda' law banning the promotion of "non-standard sexual relations", Liubov Lvova and Sergei Taramaev's Winter Path (2013) somehow managed to gain a distribution licence from the Ministry of Culture - though its inconspicuous release and limited festival run tells a different story. Whilst by no means Russia's first gay-themed feature (that honour belongs to Yuriy Pavlov's 1994 effort The Creation of Adam, released just after former leader Boris Yeltsin decriminalised homosexuality), Winter Path does illustrate cinema's instrumental role in challenging contentious sociopolitical statutes.
- 11/17/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The 90s is now distant enough that we can look back on it and say ‘y’know what, that was a pretty decent decade’. It was the decade that brought us the Internet, Pogs and Salem the Cat. There were some great bands (Massive Attack, Nirvana, Whigfield), some great movies – the Ernest series really hit its stride here – and at least one great haircut in the ‘Gunther’. If ten years could be summed up in one image, it might be Boris Yeltsin grabbing some brunch at the Seinfeld diner with the paperclip from Microsoft Word.
Or just as easily, it might be an eight feet tall demonbeast screaming into an old lady’s face.
Or a much loved British chat show host possessed by a poltergeist.
Or a maniacal talking orange.
As much as it was a veritable carnival of Le Coq Sportif poppers and confused talking pigs, the 90s...
Or just as easily, it might be an eight feet tall demonbeast screaming into an old lady’s face.
Or a much loved British chat show host possessed by a poltergeist.
Or a maniacal talking orange.
As much as it was a veritable carnival of Le Coq Sportif poppers and confused talking pigs, the 90s...
- 10/31/2013
- by Allan Johnstone
- Obsessed with Film
Loose Caboose: Uchitel’s Latest Clings to Convention
Russian director Alexey Uchitel returns with Break Loose, a romantically tinged period piece crime drama that’s nicely packaged, but for a film about breaking free from ties that bind, it ironically adheres to formula. Set during the anxiety ridden days leading up to the new millennium, a close knit group of police officers are oblivious to anything outside a current conflict with a local mob boss. While all elements are seemingly in place for a boisterous good vs. bad guys actioner laced with peculiar political shifts taking place in the background, Uchitel’s exercise is akin to the watered down stakes of Gangster Squad sans the hysterically overwrought performances.
It’s 1999, right on the cusp of a new millennium, and a group of four friends that served a tour together in the army all currently work together for Omon, a Russian...
Russian director Alexey Uchitel returns with Break Loose, a romantically tinged period piece crime drama that’s nicely packaged, but for a film about breaking free from ties that bind, it ironically adheres to formula. Set during the anxiety ridden days leading up to the new millennium, a close knit group of police officers are oblivious to anything outside a current conflict with a local mob boss. While all elements are seemingly in place for a boisterous good vs. bad guys actioner laced with peculiar political shifts taking place in the background, Uchitel’s exercise is akin to the watered down stakes of Gangster Squad sans the hysterically overwrought performances.
It’s 1999, right on the cusp of a new millennium, and a group of four friends that served a tour together in the army all currently work together for Omon, a Russian...
- 9/8/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Raised in a military family and schooled in the ways of movie making under the wing of Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian director Alexander Sokurov’s career started in the 1970s working in television, but soon delved headlong into visual experimentalism. Most of his work from the 80s was legally banned in the Soviet Union, and with this lovingly assembled set by Cinema Guild, comes the first time any of these films have found a home release within the Us. Often said to be enigmatic, undefinable films, the early work of the auteur is a collection of ruminating death obsessed stories pulled from the Soviet and European classical canon and the war torn history of his mother country. With the three features bound within this set, Sokurov gleans material from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ for Whispering Pages, the ghost of Anton Chekhov for Stone, and Save and Protect retells Gustave Flaubert...
- 1/8/2013
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Miniature Tigers are no strangers to kitsch; in fact, they're the kind of band that writes songs about Vikings and vampires and films music videos in the mansion from Ghostbusters. Still, there was a certain dreamy quality to their debut EPs that made them seem more naive (think a young Ben Kweller) than camp, and their earnest indie-pop was akin to Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin with better vocals.
- 3/12/2012
- Pastemagazine.com
German filmmaker Cyril Tuschi will be in New York this evening to present Khodorkovsky at Film Forum, where the doc sees a run through December 13. As Vladimir Kozlov reports for the Moscow News, audiences in Russia will have a harder time catching this "portrait of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ex-owner of the Yukos oil empire and a Kremlin opponent, who is serving a 13-year sentence for tax evasion, embezzlement and money laundering. Just over a week before the scheduled release date, December 1, the films distributor, Kinoklub, said six Moscow theaters that originally agreed to screen the movie had pulled it under various pretexts. As a result, the film is to open only at one cinema, Eldar, and some screenings are also to be held at the gallery Fotoloft in the Winzavod arts center."
At Russia Profile, Dan Peleschuk notes that this is hardly the first time the film's met with suspicious attempts...
At Russia Profile, Dan Peleschuk notes that this is hardly the first time the film's met with suspicious attempts...
- 12/1/2011
- MUBI
He is the great Russian director who once shot a whole film in a single take. Aleksandr Sokurov talks to Steve Rose about Soviet spies, fallen dictators – and how he got Putin to fund his latest work
At the end of a challenging conversation that, conducted via a translator, strains my intellectual faculties to their limit but barely flexes his, Aleksandr Sokurov makes an astounding statement. "I'm a very literary person, not so much a cinematographic person. I don't really like cinema very much."
Pardon? He doesn't like cinema very much? That's like hearing David Attenborough say he's never really liked animals. Here is a man who was persecuted by the communists for his films; the man who gave us a miraculous feature conducted in one single, unbroken shot, 2002's Russian Ark; the man who is the custodian of Russia's great cinematic heritage. What would he have done if he did like cinema?...
At the end of a challenging conversation that, conducted via a translator, strains my intellectual faculties to their limit but barely flexes his, Aleksandr Sokurov makes an astounding statement. "I'm a very literary person, not so much a cinematographic person. I don't really like cinema very much."
Pardon? He doesn't like cinema very much? That's like hearing David Attenborough say he's never really liked animals. Here is a man who was persecuted by the communists for his films; the man who gave us a miraculous feature conducted in one single, unbroken shot, 2002's Russian Ark; the man who is the custodian of Russia's great cinematic heritage. What would he have done if he did like cinema?...
- 11/15/2011
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Dear Young Girls, If this news report is to be believed, you are dipping tampons into vodka and then putting tampons in their intended locale to get drunk. Yes, apparently the vodka absorbs into the bloodstream this way. Now while I have a feeling one girl once did this back in the 90s and yet it is still a news story, part of me is still limp with shock after listening to this report. I mean, the only way a vodka soaked tampon inside a human being is Ok is if Boris Yeltsin started getting his period in Heaven. Sure, you might not get hangovers, but you are putting Fermented Potato Juice in an area where your Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Afflicted Child Will One Day Come Out Of. You are deviling your own eggs before they even had a chance to give you a child out of wedlock!! This is not a smart move.
- 11/14/2011
- by Michelle Collins
- BestWeekEver
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