Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) - Franklin J. Schaffner

Oh god my eyes are bleeding. Let me begin this review by saying "@#%$ this god damn horseshit, limp dick excuse for a movie". Absolutely @#%$ awful on nearly all acounts, and just as I was beginning to defend Schaffner as a worthwhile director. Hard to begin where to complain on this one. The acting is attrocious by nearly everyone, particularly the children. The film itself should not have been made. The picture makes all Russians out to be either blood thirsty radicals or morally alloof old fogies who are completely out of touch with the world. There is no good side here, just every Russian, whether white or red is a worhtless piece of filth and the world would be a great place if all of them were dead. That is in a nutshell the message of the film, in addition to, how many horribly elaborate palaces and costumes can we use? This film is at least 2 decades out of date, and had it come out twenty years earlier I still would probably say it sucked. Even with the loosened production code and the freedom of modern filmmaking, the film is still weighed down immensely by old world garbage. Even when the film is trying to be "provacative" it is done on such a G-rated scale to affectively alienate everyone. Now there were some decent deep focus compositions here, and I was glad to see Tom Baker in a somewhat significant non-Dr. Who role, but his makeup was so bad that he was a scarcely convincing Rasputin. He was impressive enough to warrant a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor though. @#%$ Christ this film was even more out of touch than Mankiewicz over the top Cleopatra. Stay away from it on all acounts, and for a better film on a similar theme Klimov's Rasputin is a much better place to go. For what its worth, this film received a best picture nomination from the Academy, The Conformist on the other hand didn't get nominated.

*This piece of @#%$ was nominated for best actress (Janet Suzman), best cinematography, best drama score, and best picture. It won for best art direction and best costume design.