MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: THE INNER CIRCLE (1991)

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(Hint: most of the posters will enlarge if you click on them.)

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT - sort of like those EAT THIS, NOT THAT diet books only with film instead of food as the topic. Sometimes, the substitute pick isn't the obvious 'better' choice, but one of those 'flawed-but-interesting' films that often get left behind.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID - some easy to miss element worth noting.

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Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

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Friday, June 26, 2026

THE INNER CIRCLE (1991)

Pushing 90 and still active, few filmmakers of Andrei Konchalovsky’s stature have a C.V. as uneven as this Russian exile. Showing good form in pulpy Stateside action/suspense like RUNAWAY TRAIN/’85, brilliantly sharp as recently as 2020 in his bureaucratic ‘Party Line’ takedown DEAR COMRADES!* (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/03/dear-comrades-dorogie-tovarishchi-2020.html), then serving up five embarrassments for each winner. But he’s rarely been so evenly divided between his best & worst instincts within a single film as in this fascinating, fact-based life of Ivan Sanshin, personal projectionist to movie fan (and deadly critic) Comrade Josef Stalin. Tom Hulce does a great job as the star-struck projectionist (watch him load film without looking) who can’t believe his luck, or notice how his good fortune is ruining his life with fragile wife Lolita Davidovich. He becomes entangled with Stalin’s Inner Circle; she becomes emotionally entangled with the child of arrested neighbors. Konchalovsky oversells everything in typical Russian fashion (the heartier the acting the better), whether scooping out caviar or baring your soul. But while Hulce has the acting chops to cope with extremes, Davidovich is all at sea, unable to regulate. Her tragedy seems less preordained fate than poor life choices. And Konchalovsky never noticing the wheels are coming off his conception. Still, fine scene setting (Moscow 1939 - 1953) and great supporting players almost get the project back on track. Coarse & powerful/banal & thought-provoking; it’s the Konchalovsky dilemma.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Konchalovsky was at his very best in early collaborations with Andrei Tarkovsky on two stunning masterpieces, IVAN’S CHILDHOOD/’62 and ANDREI RUBLEV/’66. A stabilizing influence who kept Tarkovsky grounded in narrative soil. (And there are rumors of a third film: planned, shot, never released. MosFilm!, please check your archive!)

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Armando Iannucci’s mordant/alarming THE DEATH OF STALIN/’17. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-death-of-stalin-2017.html

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ERNST LUBITSCH

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Now over 6000 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Friday, June 26, 2026

THE INNER CIRCLE (1991)

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