Movies I Watched in March, Part 3

The month of April is over, so I might as well stop screwing around and finish the movie recap for March...


Allie’s latest rewatch of the Harry Potter movies (which managed to skip my personal favorite, “Prisoner of Azkaban”) somehow ended on the initial film in the series as she showed it to her grandma (my mom) for the first time. Mom enjoyed it a lot (probably more than most of the movies I showed her at Allie’s age), and though I’m still not wild about it, I have to admire how most of the pieces are put in place right from the start, with little hint at how dark things will eventually get. This one (and the follow-up, covered here) are really kids movies, with lighter action, sillier comedy and more kid-oriented subject matter, like school, sports and making friends. I’m still not crazy about how the scenes with the Dursleys are played. (They’re so cartoonishly mean to Harry, which works, I guess, as the backstory in a children’s book but doesn’t fit into the larger picture – I mean, Harry should have them trembling in fear by episode three or four. And why doesn’t he just stay at Hogwarts over the summers? I realize this is all probably explained in the books, but I’m reviewing the movies here, Potter-nerds.) And I definitely prefer Michael Gambon as Dumbledore over (the late) Richard Harris, who plays the role in the first two films. But otherwise, though "Sorcerer's Stone" is the least of the series, it’s still not half bad. I’m sure I’ll wind up seeing it again during Allie’s next rewatch, and honestly, I’m not completely dreading it.

I went into this one with high expectations, considering it's the second movie from Armando Iannucci, the guy behind "Veep," "The Thick of It" (the brilliant, British precursor to "Veep") and "In the Loop (the big-screen spin-off of "Veep"), all masterful political comedies. How high were my expectations? I've been looking forward to "The Death of Stalin" ever since I heard he left "Veep" to work on it, and I ordered a Blu-ray from Amazon's British branch because I had no idea when the film would finally arrive in the states.

So, how was it? Pretty damned great, I'm happy to say -- very funny, very (very) dark and one of the smartest movies I've seen in a long time. The whole thing (as you may have guessed from the title) focuses on the myriad power struggles that took place after Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died suddenly in 1953. Matters were so  tense that his various underlings spent a startling amount of time figuring out how to proceed politically while the dying Stalin lay on the floor of his bedroom before anyone called for medical professionals. That grim comic energy fuels the entire film, with razor sharp dialogue expertly delivered as nightmarish action takes place in the background. This is the sort of movie where we're expected to laugh at the arguments between Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) and KGB chief Lavrentiy Berea (Simon Russell Beale) while innocent Russians are rounded up to be shot -- or worse. And, thanks to the skill of Iannucci and his collaborators, we do. Or at least I did. This is the sort of comedy you either find funny or don't. If you don't, there's nothing I can say to convince you. It's like "Dr. Strangelove," which dares the audience to laugh at the death of nearly everyone on early. The stakes in "The Death of Stalin" aren't quite as high, but they're a lot more personal. That's partly thanks to the excellent cast Iannucci assembled: Buscemi and Beale are nothing short of amazing, speaking in their natural accents, which might strain credibility for a few seconds but quickly reveals itself as a way to connect more directly with the audience. They get strong support from Jeffrey Tambor, Michael Palin (who co-starred in "Brazil," another nightmare comedy) and Paddy Considine. Special credit goes to Jason Isaacs, probably best known as Lucius Malfoy in the aforementioned Harry Potter movies. Here he plays tough-as-nails General Georgy Zhukov, and he's a comedic revelation, hilarious in ways I never expected him to be. Everyone is good -- great, even -- but he steals the show.