It's amazing how much emotion this movie has caused on IMDb. Reading the reviews on this one reads more like a restart of the cold war.
MY FELLOW Americans, apparently our reviews of this film have stepped on the balls of a sort of Slovakian/Russian cultural icon. I don't think we'd get so rabid about it, but I guess we'd feel kinda the same way if they started bad-mouthing Dorothy and Toto in The Wizard of Oz. This movie is shown yearly on TV in some countries and I guess the fairy tales related in it go back centuries. It's fascinating too that those commenting from Slovakia/Russia/Czech Republic/etc. didn't really get on-line in significant numbers until about 2003, and even now their number of on-line users is only about 35%. Yet they've found IMDb, and particularly this movie, in vast numbers. In fact, I suspect some sort of voting/movie review campaign was involved with this. If you check the "Loved it" reviews (those reviewers that rated the movie 3.9 or above), you find they number 43 out of a total of 117 reviews (as of this writing). Of those 43 positive reviewers, 31 have reviewed only ONE movie; this one. A record, I believe. I smell a rat in that math. Frankly, they seem to view this as more of an attack on their culture and history than just some movie reviews from boneheads like me.
However, they did manage to write those reviews in English (if sometimes a bit strangled). Something I could NOT do in Russian on a Cyrillic keyboard at one of their movie sites. So I give them props for that.
TO OUR FOREIGN FRIENDS who love Morozko/Jack Frost, I apologize if some of the American reviews felt like we were stomping on your 'nads. I think that the translation to English probably left a lot to be desired, and I know that, in my own case anyway, Russian culture is not very familiar (I only learned a few years ago that while the entire western world was rocking out to the Beatles in the 1960's, they, and their music, were banned in the Soviet Union. We didn't even know music COULD be banned). But you need to remember, these are just movie reviews, not cultural attacks. Also, children, including teenagers, are allowed to comment on IMDb, and nobody knows what they might say, so ignore the odd review that doesn't make any sense.
That being said, I just didn't like this movie very much. Besides the cultural stuff that was lost on me, and likely translation problems (learning to sit on a shovel????), I just didn't think it was very good. That's not a cultural attack, it's an opinion on this movie. Americans have lots of kids movies too, both good and bad. Two examples are The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964). Both are wild, weird, children's stories. In fact, I would venture to say that Wizard of Oz is stranger even than Morozko, with trees, scarecrows, lions and robots that all talk, as well as witches and monkeys flying around. I found both TWoO and SCCtM very entertaining when I was young, but children are easily entertained. As an adult I still like Wizard of Oz, as it was a well made and well told story. But I found out that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a piece of crap that is ONLY enjoyable by children. Americans give SCCtM a lower rating here on IMDb (2.3) than we give Morozko (2.6). But for those of you that rated this movie a 10, I'm afraid to find out what movies get a rating of 1.
So try not to take our movie reviews so personally. You seem to find them much more important than we do. They're opinions which can be easily disregarded.
There. I feel better because of my attempt at détente.
MY FELLOW Americans, apparently our reviews of this film have stepped on the balls of a sort of Slovakian/Russian cultural icon. I don't think we'd get so rabid about it, but I guess we'd feel kinda the same way if they started bad-mouthing Dorothy and Toto in The Wizard of Oz. This movie is shown yearly on TV in some countries and I guess the fairy tales related in it go back centuries. It's fascinating too that those commenting from Slovakia/Russia/Czech Republic/etc. didn't really get on-line in significant numbers until about 2003, and even now their number of on-line users is only about 35%. Yet they've found IMDb, and particularly this movie, in vast numbers. In fact, I suspect some sort of voting/movie review campaign was involved with this. If you check the "Loved it" reviews (those reviewers that rated the movie 3.9 or above), you find they number 43 out of a total of 117 reviews (as of this writing). Of those 43 positive reviewers, 31 have reviewed only ONE movie; this one. A record, I believe. I smell a rat in that math. Frankly, they seem to view this as more of an attack on their culture and history than just some movie reviews from boneheads like me.
However, they did manage to write those reviews in English (if sometimes a bit strangled). Something I could NOT do in Russian on a Cyrillic keyboard at one of their movie sites. So I give them props for that.
TO OUR FOREIGN FRIENDS who love Morozko/Jack Frost, I apologize if some of the American reviews felt like we were stomping on your 'nads. I think that the translation to English probably left a lot to be desired, and I know that, in my own case anyway, Russian culture is not very familiar (I only learned a few years ago that while the entire western world was rocking out to the Beatles in the 1960's, they, and their music, were banned in the Soviet Union. We didn't even know music COULD be banned). But you need to remember, these are just movie reviews, not cultural attacks. Also, children, including teenagers, are allowed to comment on IMDb, and nobody knows what they might say, so ignore the odd review that doesn't make any sense.
That being said, I just didn't like this movie very much. Besides the cultural stuff that was lost on me, and likely translation problems (learning to sit on a shovel????), I just didn't think it was very good. That's not a cultural attack, it's an opinion on this movie. Americans have lots of kids movies too, both good and bad. Two examples are The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964). Both are wild, weird, children's stories. In fact, I would venture to say that Wizard of Oz is stranger even than Morozko, with trees, scarecrows, lions and robots that all talk, as well as witches and monkeys flying around. I found both TWoO and SCCtM very entertaining when I was young, but children are easily entertained. As an adult I still like Wizard of Oz, as it was a well made and well told story. But I found out that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a piece of crap that is ONLY enjoyable by children. Americans give SCCtM a lower rating here on IMDb (2.3) than we give Morozko (2.6). But for those of you that rated this movie a 10, I'm afraid to find out what movies get a rating of 1.
So try not to take our movie reviews so personally. You seem to find them much more important than we do. They're opinions which can be easily disregarded.
There. I feel better because of my attempt at détente.