{"id":12648,"date":"2018-05-19T20:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T01:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=12648"},"modified":"2018-05-18T08:56:10","modified_gmt":"2018-05-18T13:56:10","slug":"the-death-of-stalin-2017-armando-iannucci","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/12648","title":{"rendered":"The Death of Stalin (2017, Armando Iannucci)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I’m exhausted, I can’t remember who’s alive and who isn’t.”<\/p>\n

Following The Road Movie<\/a><\/em>, here’s another Russian dark comedy with segments that went over my head (because I didn’t try very hard to keep track who was who). The first thing I noticed is that this is a real movie, with a proper script and professional-looking camerawork and editing. I point this out because In The Loop<\/a><\/em> felt like a big-screen version of a Thick of It<\/em> (or Parks & Rec<\/em>, etc.) episode, loose mobile cameras, cutting only for laughs and covering (sometimes badly) for dubbed lines and alt takes. Now that we get what I’ve been craving, an Iannucci movie with proper lighting and fancy sets, I guess I’ll take the In The Loop<\/em> version after all. Great performances in both, but if that fake-documentary style is what’s needed to keep the comedy sharp and constant, then so be it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This still might end up being the funniest movie of the year, with ringers Michael Palin, Steve Buscemi and Jeffrey Tambor as members of Stalin’s inner circle who start jockeying for position the moment their feared leader has fallen, having choked while laughing at hate mail sent by musician Olga Kurylenko (To The Wonder<\/a><\/em>). The ringers are joined by Paul Whitehouse of The Fast Show<\/em>, army leader Zhokov (Jason Isaacs of the first Resident Evil<\/a><\/em>), Simon Beale (Rachel Weisz’s older husband in The Deep Blue Sea<\/a><\/em>) and some others, and eventually Stalin’s idiot son Rupert Friend (Homeland<\/em>) and daughter Andrea Riseborough (who also costarred with Olga K. in Oblivion<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n

Stalin’s children:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

I’m not gonna recount every humiliation and double-cross (though Beale does end up dead and on fire) because that’ll take some of the fun out of watching this again in a few years. The blatant criminal behavior by weak-minded, disloyal men in high government offices didn’t remind me of anything in particular, no sir, just a bit of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I’m exhausted, I can’t remember who’s alive and who isn’t.” Following The Road Movie, here’s another Russian dark comedy with segments that went over my head (because I didn’t try very hard to keep track who was who). The first thing I noticed is that this is a real movie, with a proper script and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1049,920,1725,45,883],"class_list":["post-12648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-2010s","tag-armando-iannucci","tag-monty-python","tag-russia","tag-steve-buscemi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12648"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12663,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12648\/revisions\/12663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}