elgatony

Anyone who knows Willie Colon's famous Grammy nominated song "El Gran Varon" will automatically know the story of this film and its end--with some tweaks to the ending and the additional stunner of the identity of Simon's ONE romantic encounter.

The Good: The actors playing Simon's father and mother are excellent and their looong resumes on imdb prove they have chops worthy of being hired again & again. For a shot-on-video low budget producation, I actually found myself getting into the story.

The Bad: Pretty much everyone else.

The Ugly: This was shot on video so it looks as cheap as it was probably made. And yeah, the dvd doesn't make it obvious there are subtitles but there are and they're...mediocre at best in that there are gross misspellings, translations that don't quite match what they're saying and some dialogue is flat out omitted but it really doesn't spoil things that much.

Elliot is a young love-starved 21 yo in search of a real relationship. He's a goofy, energetic, likeable Romantic (with a capital R) with a bad history of hookups and failed relationships; paralleling that of his mother's disastrous love life. Elena Goode deserves special mention as his mother who is the real emotional core of the film. She's amazing, charming and mesmerizing as a young single mother trying to hold on to her youth and dreams yet constantly finding the wrong boyfriend. And poor Elliot has to put up with that. There's even a montage of Elliot reuniting wih a failed hookup side by side with his mother's backstory of dating a BMOC and getting dumped with a pregnant Elliot in spire of her mother's warnings. Both Goode and the actor playing Elliot's emoting during this scene are the reason to watch this movie. The director makes some really weird choices such as having young Elliot bare-bottomed on the toilet telling his story as if it were an interview and there are random animated scenes probably meant to hide the low budget. The other actors are flaky and campy but this IS a comedy first, drama second so expect Elliot not to end up the same as his mother and have the 'heppy ever after' ending one can expect. There a lot of terrible films out there but happily this is not one of them though it could be better. Let Elliot and his family charm their way into your hearts and maybe you'll see yourself in them. Look for a young pre-Queer Eye Antoni Porowski as one of Ma's lovers.

Fetisov is a prickly guy. The opening scene where he blows off the interviewer to use his cell phone established this. However, he's a hockey legend so the interviewer puts up with it and often fumbles his questions. This is the mistake of "Red Army," a decent biography of Slava Fetisov, rather than that of the Russian hockey team. There are lots of great game footage as well as old footage of the founder of the Red Army team, Tarasov, which the film covers for about 10 minutes but other than Tretiak, some player I never heard of, a journalist, Fetisov's wife and a KGB agent, there aren't that many people other than Fetisov who have a voice in the movie and even less who were players we know. Two other star players are interviewed: Vladimir Krutov, who comes off as more prickly and private than Fetisov and Alex Kasatonov who also evades direct questions. Former coach Viktor Tikhonov refused particaption. This leaves Fetisov to carry the film and unfortunately, the interviewer is so out of his depth and star struck that he allows Fetisov to become the star at the expense of others. For instance, an article is full frame about his quitting the Red Army team. Yet also mentioned in the article as someone who quit with him is Igor Larionov. Where's HIS side of the story? The movie follows Fetisov into the NHL but NO mention is made of how Red Army coped with the sudden losses of it's stars. No mention is made at all of the first Soviet to be allowed to play, Sergei Priakhin. No mention is made of Tretiak's successors. Just how do you replace the best goalie in the world? VF mentions there was a purge of staff & players after the 1980 loss. WHO?? As for Tikhonov, nothing is mentioned that he actually had lots of playing and coaching experience before taking over Red Army yet the movie leaves it that he was hired simply because he was a protégé of a KGB bigwig. As for Kasatonov, the movie implies that their rift came simply because Kasatonov didn't appear with other players in a TV interview supporting Fetisov. It was more complicated than that but basically Fetisov felt AK was Tikhonov's spy, a resentment that carried over when the NJ Devils signed both and they stunk because there was no chemistry anymore. A competent documentarian would've found time to mention these things and balance the film but, again, this is the Slava Fetisov Show. So much so that no mention is made of how he was the one who hired the limo that led the career ending limo wreck that ended Vladimir Konstantinov's career. OK, it's not his fault but that's TWO car accidents he walked away from and it ended a teammates' career. I'd say that's pretty important. Nor is anywhere mentioned the alleged steroid use the USSR team has been notoriously accused of. Of course he'd deny it but it'd be nice to have him on the record as saying so. If you want a REAL history of that team, keep waiting. This movie is a flawed puff piece although if you're a Fetisov fan, this is the movie for you.