I remember his song "What a Country" from the mid-Eighties. It was fun. I remember hearing him interviewed on radio back then, talking about his life as a comic in the USSR and the USA. He always seemed like a nice guy.

I had to think of this short film by the Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, which sends up "Rocky IV."

I had always heard about this movie and watched it on youtube several years ago. It was directed by the guy who directed "The Wolf Man." (George Waggner.)

"Reds" came out when I was in college. I had a friend then who was deep into the history of the American Left. He was so thrilled that Gene Hackman's character was in "Reds," playing some important American socialist (not Eugene V. Debs) of the WWI era, even though I couldn't figure out, dramatically, what the hell…

Interesting. Typically when I hear the Cold War brought up in connection with "Star Trek" it is someone saying "Gene Roddenberry taught us to anticipate the end of the Cold War by putting a Russian on the Enterprise."

I remember the novel this was based on was pretty popular in the late Seventies and early Eighties. I don't think the film did a lot of box office, maybe because Eastwood had to be an "organization man" in this one and not a maverick who couldn't work within the system.

Looking at the ad, I got an "Up" vibe from this. Old man + kid + past adventure. Surely this would have interested some people?

In 1967 or 1968, Don Siegel directed "Madigan," a movie about a New York cop played by Richard Widmark. It is a "realistic" movie, like "French Connection." Madigan isn't perfect. He loses his gun in the first scene and dies putting things right at the end. He has to knuckle under to his boss, Henry Fonda, who…