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It is very very very strange that "Dear boy" has no reviews at all. The place is USA. A mob of gangsters kidnap a dog-food billionaire next of kin, but first by mistake they snatch a young tourist from USSR instead. Two boys, American and Russian, get locked in a trailer somewhere in the wilderness. Gangsters prepare to ask for ransom. Boys become friends, break out and call the police. That's all in a nutshell, if not to consider four songs and music written by D.Tukhmanov (Assault rifle, This old rude world, Life is race, I like to watch the stars). Also perhaps first time in cinema, the movie has comic book installations repeating the story line in comic book style pictures. There is also a big installation of art using different techniques (one is aniline and oil) as Timokhin's strange dream. The release year is 1974, but the movie gives you a strong and fresh feeling of tomorrow cinema, perhaps Kill Bill is something alike. The opening song "Assault rifle" (For what purpose the stars are shining it is not clear, buy me an automatic assault rifle, let everyone stand by the wall shivering and crying, believe me I know the right treatment, no one would speak against it, and if anyone would decide to speak up he will be down immediately, buy me an automatic assault rifle) is played over a music video clip like stream, made very aesthetically and ahead of time, featuring the story beginning and presenting the gangster mob members as comic book heroes. The final song "I like to watch the stars" (I like to watch the night sky, there are stars pouring light, and the world is cloaked in darkness) is played over comic book style boys on Earth planet. The cast features brilliant Soviet Russian actors, no Baltic stars (were frequently invited to play Americans). The "Dear boy" is a very special mix of elite aesthetic cinema, future cinema, action movie, fairy tale, musical, music video, car chase video, making together a grand style cinema, so you wish to revisit it again and again.

"Legkaya zhizn" (Easy life) is an example of how propaganda task gave birth to real masterpieces of play cinema in USSR. When I watch this movie I realize that it is propaganda and still I can not deny it is life sized truth to the last word in the last dialogue. To understand the "Lyogkaya zhizn" movie you have first to refer to the common belief that people in USSR lived under totalitarian oppression, working hard in the communist party factories for a bowl of borsch and a ticket to the Red Army Choire concert once in a decade. So, no wonder, some talented people, full of entrepreneurship spirit and business vision, preferred not to pay taxes by running secretly their own private businesses. They also could use their high education they received at no charge in the soviet institutes and universities to build and to promote their own secret officially illegal business empires to guarantee a more happy, more independent, a more free life, where bigger money come to you solely as a result of your own vision, risk, initiative, entrepreneurship, ability to keep things secret and if necessary, to lie, and the clear vision of the flaws and holes in the soviet economy. What makes "Lyogkaya zhizn" so beautiful and all-time movie is that author never argues neither with the alleged totalitarian oppression system nor with secret private entrepreneurship, but goes straight to the core of the problem - a desire for "Easy life" which comes first of all. When you can have everything what money can buy why start your career from the very basic level somewhere in the hick town ? Right and honest question made it possible to make "Lyogkaya zhizn" a light, comedy, slice of real life, with no false or boring place or moment. I re-watch it from time to time, and it must be already 20 or 40 revisits in all. They even put Adam's scull in the opening sequence, dropping a hint, that they don't care a rush about the political or economical questions, at least for 1.5 hour...

The movie is really "bad", in jokes-are-over style, and is comparable to the "Sole cruise" (Odinochnoe plavanie). The movie core is a die-but-do (Americans say "do-or-die") every-second-costs-life situation. American military sub being on cruise missile launch drills in the outer sea suffers a severe pile malfunction which leads to uncontrolled launch of two nuclear cruise missiles aimed at the USSR mainland. Well, quite a bold premise for the plot, but still tolerable, if to remember historical USAF loosing nukes. Sub's mechanic receives a LD of radiation, goes berserk, and sends mayday despite of commander's no. The mayday is received by Soviet Red Army. An immediate phone talk between Soviet and US commanders ensues. Soviets send a repair crew to the sub, an action that takes a feat of long-range aviation crew, that nearly costs them life. Americans play a double-face game, officially not rejecting help, but in reality trying to deny to Russians the access to the sub by any means. What is an excusable behavior for the military, but greatly overdone, as if a repair crew can steal some secret of the sub's construction or the US crew's Sunday menu or I don't know what. May be they simply don't want to let guests in the sub because they have mess and dust in their living rooms, you know, empty coca cola cans full of stubs lying everywhere around , and no time to clean the rooms. Anyway Americans are very very uncooperative and prefer to lock horns with Russians on every single instance. While the whole thing smells of WWIII. The movie displays lots of Russian and American tech, more Russian, and most important, in action, controlled by very persuasive die-but-do characters on both sides. The movie features a certain research of the psychology of the characters.