Chicago – It does not take even a high school history class to understand the liberty used in “Stalingrad’s” presentation of its title siege. Boasted as the highest-grossing Russian movie ever, this IMAX 3D event is the country’s own adaptation of the hero glorification seen in “300”.
..complete with copious slow motion and overflowing testosterone. Made with great pride but also a somewhat goofy sense of war, “Stalingrad” is as irreverent with its filmmaking style as it is reverent to the country’s glory.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
Framed as a bedtime story passed on from a Russian humanitarian worker to a German woman trapped after a Japanese tsunami, “Stalingrad” focuses its title event around the lives of a few World War II Russian soldiers, and the woman whose crumbling apartment building they are living in. The year is 1942, and the Germans are ready to take over the city of Stalingrad to begin...
..complete with copious slow motion and overflowing testosterone. Made with great pride but also a somewhat goofy sense of war, “Stalingrad” is as irreverent with its filmmaking style as it is reverent to the country’s glory.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
Framed as a bedtime story passed on from a Russian humanitarian worker to a German woman trapped after a Japanese tsunami, “Stalingrad” focuses its title event around the lives of a few World War II Russian soldiers, and the woman whose crumbling apartment building they are living in. The year is 1942, and the Germans are ready to take over the city of Stalingrad to begin...
- 3/1/2014
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Stalingrad Columbia Pictures Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes Grade: B Director: Fedor Boncarchuk Screenplay: Sergey Snezhkin, Ilya Tilkin Cast: Thomas Kretschmann, Yanina Studilina, Philippe Reinhardt, Mariya Smoknikova, Heiner Lauterbach Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 2/12/14 Opens: February 28, 2014 Since the movie begins around the current year, which serves as a framing device, the narrator might have noted one of the great ironies of the Battle of Stalingrad 1942-1943. Some decades after the brave Russian soldiers fought to defend their motherland as represented by Stalin against German occupation, the Soviet regime itself dismantled statues of Stalin and renamed the site of one [ Read More ]
The post Stalingrad Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Stalingrad Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 2/28/2014
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
In Soviet Russia, movie review You – but since we’re here in the good ol’ Us of A, I’ll be the one determining if Stalingrad is Russia’s spiritual equivalent to Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. Credit director Fedor Bondarchuk with creating the first Russian film to be shot in 3D and IMAX 3D, as his efforts translated into the highest grossing box-office numbers in Russian history, but leave it to an American film critic to determine if Fedor actually did right by the Motherland. Come comrades, grab your sickle and your finest bottle of Popov – we’ve got a two hour Russian war epic to discuss that’s full of explosions, emotions, gunfire and heartbreak. Love and war are synonymous, no?
The battle of Stalingrad – a bloody, sacrificial battle during World War II that pitted a stubborn Adolf Hilter against a heroic Russian army refusing to budge.
The battle of Stalingrad – a bloody, sacrificial battle during World War II that pitted a stubborn Adolf Hilter against a heroic Russian army refusing to budge.
- 2/27/2014
- by Matt Donato
- We Got This Covered
Russia’s first 3D IMAX spectacle is visually intense — it’s set during “bloodiest battle in human history,” after all — but I never warmed to a story meant to be about human resilience. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
It was Russia’s entry to the Oscars in the Foreign Language category (it wasn’t nominated). It’s the first Russian film shot in 3D IMAX. And it’s the highest-grossing Russian film ever at the Russian box office. I guess the Russians saw something in Stalingrad that eludes me.
Certainly, this is a visually intense film, from horrific combat sequences featuring things you won’t be able to unsee — in 3D IMAX! — to dismal vistas of a city ravaged by the “bloodiest battle in human history”; I was struck by one poignant moment when...
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
It was Russia’s entry to the Oscars in the Foreign Language category (it wasn’t nominated). It’s the first Russian film shot in 3D IMAX. And it’s the highest-grossing Russian film ever at the Russian box office. I guess the Russians saw something in Stalingrad that eludes me.
Certainly, this is a visually intense film, from horrific combat sequences featuring things you won’t be able to unsee — in 3D IMAX! — to dismal vistas of a city ravaged by the “bloodiest battle in human history”; I was struck by one poignant moment when...
- 2/20/2014
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Director: Fyodor Bondarchuk; Screenwriters Sergey Snezhkin, Ilya Tilkin; Starring: Pyotr Fyodorov, Thomas Kretschmann, Mariya Smolnikova, Yanina Studilina; Running time: 131 mins; Certificate: 15
War. What is it good for? IMAX 3D movies that wallow in the spectacle of horrific real-life battles, judging by Stalingrad. A lavish Russian production based on the devastating World War II battle in 1942, Fyodor Bondarchuk's effort is watchable and sporadically gripping, but fails to convincingly depict the human drama lurking amidst the twisted metal and ruins.
Stalingrad follows a small group of Soviet reconnaissance soldiers who manage to take control of a building in a German occupied square in the derelict Russian city. The narrative seamlessly shifts between the opposing forces, seeking to focus on the humanising effects of women on Nazi officer Khan (Thomas Kretschmann) and rival Russian commander Gromov (Pyotr Fyodorov) as their men struggle for territorial superiority. Alas, the movie fails to resist the...
War. What is it good for? IMAX 3D movies that wallow in the spectacle of horrific real-life battles, judging by Stalingrad. A lavish Russian production based on the devastating World War II battle in 1942, Fyodor Bondarchuk's effort is watchable and sporadically gripping, but fails to convincingly depict the human drama lurking amidst the twisted metal and ruins.
Stalingrad follows a small group of Soviet reconnaissance soldiers who manage to take control of a building in a German occupied square in the derelict Russian city. The narrative seamlessly shifts between the opposing forces, seeking to focus on the humanising effects of women on Nazi officer Khan (Thomas Kretschmann) and rival Russian commander Gromov (Pyotr Fyodorov) as their men struggle for territorial superiority. Alas, the movie fails to resist the...
- 2/20/2014
- Digital Spy
Stalingrad was Russia’s hope for the Academy Award Nomination this year but did not make it to the shortlist. It is still worth mentioning here because it is Russia's first IMAX 3D feature and will be released here in the U.S. by Sony this February. Its grand scale is epic and indeed it is intended to be today’s epic of Russia in the classic sense of the term. An epic is something that all nations need in order to reconcile with wars which inevitably tear the fabric of society apart so drastically that it takes generations to recover.
The episodes, even though they may be fictional, provide an explanation for some of the circumstances or events in the history of a nation or people, an the action, often in battle, consists of courageous and heroic deeds, often revealing the superhuman strength of the heroes.
The Greek epics of The Iliad and The Odyssey, the Spanish Song of Roland and others attempted to bring together all the diverse aspects of a society at war and create a work to reconcile the people and forge a new unity. The U.S.’s main war was Vietnam. U.S. has continued to be at war ever since and never has it reconciled the crimes with a national forgiveness and cohesiveness. Director Fedor Bondarchuk and producers Alexander Rodnyansky, Dmitriy Rudovsky, Sergey Melkumov and Natalia Gorina consciously attempt to create a national epic based on this most devastating battle of all time and they deserve recognition for their bravery in doing that.
Directed by Fedor Bondarchuk, produced by Alexander Rodnyansky, Dmitriy Rudovsky, Sergey Melkumov and Natalia Gorina, written by Ilya Tllkin and Sergey Snezhkin, it runs 135 minutes. Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Pictures Releasing International hold all rights with IMAX who has 767 theaters (634 commercial ones in multiplexes, 19 commercial stand alones, and 114 in educational establishments in 54 countries. The first Russian IMAX 3D theater opened in 2003 in Moscow and today, after U.S. and China, it ranks third with 38 theaters that have been opened in Russia and the Cis with 20 more being designed. An interesting side note: IMAX in China is owned by Wanda, the owner of the U.S AMC theater chain, the largest owner of theater chains in the world, perhaps the largest real estate owner, now building a 10,000 square foot studio in China, advised in the U.S. By Koch Hawk, former president of AMPAS who has brought in former New York Film Society Director Rose Kuo to formulate a film festival strategy.
Before the end of 2013 the following IMAX films will be released in Russia; Gravity, Thor: The Dark World, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and others. Stalingrad opened in October 2013 in Russia and the Cis and had blockbuster success. It was the first Russian motion picture released in IMAX format.
During the summer of 2012, Rosskino invited 25 or so U.S. distributors (we helped organize the invitation list and were included in this unforgettable trip to Russia.). There we screened films, met producers and visited St. . On St. Petersburg’s outskirts, in Sapyorniy village, we stopped to visit an unprecedented large scale set of Stalingrad. An amazing recreation of the war-torn city on a dizzly gray day, with German soldiers and Russian soldiers in the doorways of the ruin of an apartment building stunned us. Emily Russo of Zeitgeist and I got our shoes so muddy that Bondcharchuk invited us to wash them in his trailer’s shower.
Here are some pictures we took on the set:
Stalingrad sets the viewers right in the middle of the hardest won battle in World War II, one that turned the tables on the Germans. This movie is based on chapters from the novel by Vasiliy Grossman Life and Fate. The grandeur of the photography is a major accomplishment. The scene of burning Russians charging the Germans is incredibly affecting. The production designer Sergey Ivanov, deserves an Oscar. Arman Yakhin who supervised the visual effects, the first time they shot in stereo and 3D says “it took us about three months to develop and polish fire simulation with Houdini software. In addition to the pyrotechnicians’ work on location, the final version of the film also features a lot of digital fire sequences. Digital models of people were used in the sequences where the burning Red Army soldiers fall down the cliff. They were designed and animated in a 3D editing program, based on actors’ photos.
This extravagant feature brings the audience from the broad, beautiful and frightful battle of Stalingrad to the personal fates of five Russian soldiers, one Russian 19 year old girl surviving in the shell of what once was her home, a German soldier played by Kretschmann and his Russian victimized sexual partner.
It is a striking coincidence that director Fyodor Bondarchuk and the German lead, Thomas Kretschmann have been involved in three Stalingrads. The German Stalingrad was Kretschman’s first role in a film after having fled from the Gdr (East Germany). The German Stalingrad was about a group of Germans who froze to death not far from Stalingrad. In 1989, the same year that Kreschmann took part in it, I played a role in a Stalingrad film directed by Yuriy Ozerov, my teacher, as the sniper Zaitsev, “ said Bondarchuk.
This film had a crew of 250 people and 1,000 extras, all approved by Director Bondarchuk himself. The script was original but much documentary material was gathered including many interviews with the few surviving eyewitnesses which might become a separate project. “Stalingrad in 1942 was a place where the average life span was about one day long and the people who managed to survive for a week were considered to be veterans”, said Alexander Rodnyansky, one of the producers.
The episodes, even though they may be fictional, provide an explanation for some of the circumstances or events in the history of a nation or people, an the action, often in battle, consists of courageous and heroic deeds, often revealing the superhuman strength of the heroes.
The Greek epics of The Iliad and The Odyssey, the Spanish Song of Roland and others attempted to bring together all the diverse aspects of a society at war and create a work to reconcile the people and forge a new unity. The U.S.’s main war was Vietnam. U.S. has continued to be at war ever since and never has it reconciled the crimes with a national forgiveness and cohesiveness. Director Fedor Bondarchuk and producers Alexander Rodnyansky, Dmitriy Rudovsky, Sergey Melkumov and Natalia Gorina consciously attempt to create a national epic based on this most devastating battle of all time and they deserve recognition for their bravery in doing that.
Directed by Fedor Bondarchuk, produced by Alexander Rodnyansky, Dmitriy Rudovsky, Sergey Melkumov and Natalia Gorina, written by Ilya Tllkin and Sergey Snezhkin, it runs 135 minutes. Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Pictures Releasing International hold all rights with IMAX who has 767 theaters (634 commercial ones in multiplexes, 19 commercial stand alones, and 114 in educational establishments in 54 countries. The first Russian IMAX 3D theater opened in 2003 in Moscow and today, after U.S. and China, it ranks third with 38 theaters that have been opened in Russia and the Cis with 20 more being designed. An interesting side note: IMAX in China is owned by Wanda, the owner of the U.S AMC theater chain, the largest owner of theater chains in the world, perhaps the largest real estate owner, now building a 10,000 square foot studio in China, advised in the U.S. By Koch Hawk, former president of AMPAS who has brought in former New York Film Society Director Rose Kuo to formulate a film festival strategy.
Before the end of 2013 the following IMAX films will be released in Russia; Gravity, Thor: The Dark World, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and others. Stalingrad opened in October 2013 in Russia and the Cis and had blockbuster success. It was the first Russian motion picture released in IMAX format.
During the summer of 2012, Rosskino invited 25 or so U.S. distributors (we helped organize the invitation list and were included in this unforgettable trip to Russia.). There we screened films, met producers and visited St. . On St. Petersburg’s outskirts, in Sapyorniy village, we stopped to visit an unprecedented large scale set of Stalingrad. An amazing recreation of the war-torn city on a dizzly gray day, with German soldiers and Russian soldiers in the doorways of the ruin of an apartment building stunned us. Emily Russo of Zeitgeist and I got our shoes so muddy that Bondcharchuk invited us to wash them in his trailer’s shower.
Here are some pictures we took on the set:
Stalingrad sets the viewers right in the middle of the hardest won battle in World War II, one that turned the tables on the Germans. This movie is based on chapters from the novel by Vasiliy Grossman Life and Fate. The grandeur of the photography is a major accomplishment. The scene of burning Russians charging the Germans is incredibly affecting. The production designer Sergey Ivanov, deserves an Oscar. Arman Yakhin who supervised the visual effects, the first time they shot in stereo and 3D says “it took us about three months to develop and polish fire simulation with Houdini software. In addition to the pyrotechnicians’ work on location, the final version of the film also features a lot of digital fire sequences. Digital models of people were used in the sequences where the burning Red Army soldiers fall down the cliff. They were designed and animated in a 3D editing program, based on actors’ photos.
This extravagant feature brings the audience from the broad, beautiful and frightful battle of Stalingrad to the personal fates of five Russian soldiers, one Russian 19 year old girl surviving in the shell of what once was her home, a German soldier played by Kretschmann and his Russian victimized sexual partner.
It is a striking coincidence that director Fyodor Bondarchuk and the German lead, Thomas Kretschmann have been involved in three Stalingrads. The German Stalingrad was Kretschman’s first role in a film after having fled from the Gdr (East Germany). The German Stalingrad was about a group of Germans who froze to death not far from Stalingrad. In 1989, the same year that Kreschmann took part in it, I played a role in a Stalingrad film directed by Yuriy Ozerov, my teacher, as the sniper Zaitsev, “ said Bondarchuk.
This film had a crew of 250 people and 1,000 extras, all approved by Director Bondarchuk himself. The script was original but much documentary material was gathered including many interviews with the few surviving eyewitnesses which might become a separate project. “Stalingrad in 1942 was a place where the average life span was about one day long and the people who managed to survive for a week were considered to be veterans”, said Alexander Rodnyansky, one of the producers.
- 2/16/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Colombia Pictures is bringing Fedor Bondarchuk’s Russian smash to the Us and has struck a deal with IMAX for a one-week nationwide engagement starting on February 28.
The 3D WWII drama is Russia’s foreign-language Oscar submission and became the highest grossing Russian film ever on $66.1m in six weeks.
The producers also claim it is the first Russian film made completely in 3D and the first Russian film to be released in the IMAX format.
Ilya Tilkin and Sergey Snezhkin wrote the screenplay from the novel Life And Fate by Vasiliy Grossman. Thomas Kretschmann, Petr Fedorov, Sergey Bondarchuk, Mariya Smolnikova and Yanina Studilina star.
Alexander Rodnyansky, Sergey Melkumov, Dmitriy Rudovskiy and Anton Zlatopolskiy produced. The executive producer is Nataliya Gorina.
The 3D WWII drama is Russia’s foreign-language Oscar submission and became the highest grossing Russian film ever on $66.1m in six weeks.
The producers also claim it is the first Russian film made completely in 3D and the first Russian film to be released in the IMAX format.
Ilya Tilkin and Sergey Snezhkin wrote the screenplay from the novel Life And Fate by Vasiliy Grossman. Thomas Kretschmann, Petr Fedorov, Sergey Bondarchuk, Mariya Smolnikova and Yanina Studilina star.
Alexander Rodnyansky, Sergey Melkumov, Dmitriy Rudovskiy and Anton Zlatopolskiy produced. The executive producer is Nataliya Gorina.
- 1/9/2014
- ScreenDaily
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