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The Last Station: Thank Heavens for Euro film mkers . . .

70.144.194.144

Who else would take a seemingly forgotten or uninteresting topic and make a major motion picture? Not America...no red ink here! Who cares about the Tolstoyan Movement? Somebody across 3500 miles of ocean, apparently.

This is a delightful movie in every way. Shot with the highest standards, the best actors all on-key, and a compelling script this film dramatizes the last days of Tolstoy as he tries to make sure his new found belief in love (not God) and passive resistance is his legacy. In this process his movement advisors (Giamatti) steer and guide him away from his family's historical ideals (he was a Count) at all costs. His wife (Mirren) is nearly hysterical of what she fears is the loss of the family fortune as she constantly bickers and collides with Leo and his movements top echelon.

James McAvoy plays a young idealist who is hired to be Tolstoy's personal secretary and is sent down with instructions by Giamatti to write everything in a diary. When he arrives, Mirren befriends McAvoy and instructs him to write everything in another diary. He soons finds himself in the jaws of a vice pressing on his loyalties between the two.

There is humor, delight, and high drama all done exquisitely. This should not be missed.

(PS. This is a German-Russian production.)

Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.

Follow Ups:

Euro financed. Written, produced & directed by American Michael Hoffman . . . - Harmonia 18:38:51 03/05/10 (0)
..born in Hawaii, graduated new Payette High, Payette, ID, and graduated from exotic Boise State University. The boy had early pretensions, however - he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he did help found the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. Plus John Schlesinger was one of his early mentors.
So the person who cared enough to adapt Jay Parini's novel into a film was not a German or Russian auteur living 3500 miles across the big pond but an American from right here in the good ol' USA. Parini was born and raised in that exotic enclave of continental culture, Scranton, PA.
The Last Station did have German and Russian financing - you're right about that.
And Mirren is marvelous in it.
Hoffman is director of two of my favorite underrated movies of all time, 1995's Restoration, a gorgeous film starring an excellent Robert Downey & David Thewlis (and a very miscast Meg Ryan) and Soapdish, an hilarious ensemble send up that was one of the funniest comedies of the last 20 years.

Edits: 03/05/10
Do we get to see Helen's tits? nt - tinear 19:20:00 03/03/10 (5)
asf
- No, and be glad. She gave Tolstoy 13 children! * - mr grits 19:36:45 03/03/10 (4)
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  Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
  - How'd she make this film, she's been dead 100 years! nt - tinear 20:25:17 03/03/10 (3)
    fds
    - Mirren has not aged well....too many smokes and whiskey--her own admission. * - mr grits 12:56:04 03/04/10 (2)
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      Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
      - As Johnny Rotten said so often in the infamous LA interview to every female that called in, "Show us - tinear 21:43:03 03/04/10 (1)
        
        In Reply to: RE: Mirren has not aged well....too many smokes and whiskey--her own admission. * posted by mr grits on March 04, 2010 at 12:56:04
        
        your tits!"
        It was a radio show.......
        
        Did Stern say it first? * - mr grits 21:08:07 03/05/10 (0)
        
        In Reply to: RE: As Johnny Rotten said so often in the infamous LA interview to every female that called in, "Show us posted by tinear on March 04, 2010 at 21:43:03
        
        .
        Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.

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