I don't know why I never felt motivated to watch it — script by Iannucci ... stars Buscemi and Whitehouse ... theoretically, it should be superb.

I think it was probably the fact that Michael Palin was in it and … apart from Brazil (in which he didn’t exactly shine as such, but wasn’t really a major player anyway, so, whatever) … outside of the Monty Python stuff, I haven’t liked anything he was in, so I probably figured “Nah.”

Also … unless written/directed by people who were there at the time and have, therefore, the requisite insight … I find the idea of a comedy about a figure like Stalin just too frat-house: “Ooh, let’s make a movie and poke fun at Hitler/Stalin/Saddam, it’ll be hysterical!” — no, it won’t, it’ll be tedious and unfunny ¹.

So, it looks like Imade the right call and didn’t miss anything then — good to know.

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¹ Cf. Iron Sky: The Coming Race. Where Iron Sky just managed to stay the right side of the matter and (some dubious elements, like a black guy with bleached white skin, aside) was actually quite a good low-budget schlock B-move/satire, The Coming Race had no saving graces whatsoever, just Hitler/Saddam//Stalin/Putin/Caligula/Zuckerberg/Jobs as evil alien lizards in disguise — oh, how I laughed.