Change Your Image
susanbeach11
Reviews
How to Fix a Drug Scandal (2020)
Very biased toward drug dealers
Documentary constantly wants to paint the poor imprisoned drug dealers as fine upstanding (usually family) men who have been unfairly sent to prison. Two separate chemists in different parts of the state present different issues. The western Massachusetts chemist was a drug addict and dipped into the samples. If it wasn't good dope she wouldn't have used it. It was after-testing action so felons shouldn't be released. The other chemist was just a mental case who didn't do her job. Again, the felons are portrayed as pillars of the community and state officials as the bad guys.
Elena (2011)
Don't give up on this film
Yes, this is slow-moving but it is such an accurate portrayal of post-Soviet life in today's Russia that you overlook the lack of a lot of action to focus on the characters and the milieu in which they live. We have it all here -- an oligarch, an indulged son due to an indulgent mother, the haves and the have-nots. Maybe I appreciated it more than the average viewer because I have lived in Eastern Europe and am familiar with post-Soviet Russian culture. While the oligarch lives in a beautiful flat and drives a luxury car to his trendy gym, the worker bees (or should I say non-worker bees) live in a prototypical dilapidated housing block and walk miles to the train. A ne'er do well adolescent takes out his sense of hopelessness on those below even him on the socio-economic ladder. Raskolnikov lives!!