Reviewing with Others, Pt. 30: The Russian Winter

3 Quick site notes: I have added "captcha" again to the comment box. Sorry, but I've been getting too many spam comments, and they're genuinely starting to annoy me. It's still easy for people to comment on my posts, (which you can still do anonymously, btw) but if you get one that you can't read, just click the little "reload" button until you get one you can read.

Also, this is the site's 400th post! I'm happy and excited, but I can't do anything special for it right now. My earlier anniversary posts did that, but I wasn't posting 4+ times per week back then and I didn't have as much paid writing and photography work to compete with lawyering and this blog. Maybe I'll put it into the End of the Year posts that I will of course do again at the end of this month...

Finally, I will do a Christmas review this year, as I did twice before to my great pleasure. I'm taking suggestions for this year's entry - just call one out to me...

This weekend, I watched The Russian Winter, a documentary about the life (and resurgent Russian concert tour) of John Forte, a member of The Fugees. Part of the motivation for this doc was that Forte is an incredibly talented musician, but the other reason was Forte's unusual experience:
  he was busted at Newark Airport while carrying $1.4M worth of liquid cocaine. He was sent to federal prison, and only the support of certain people (specifically, Carly Simon) helped him receive a commutation of his sentence (which means the law decided that he'd served his time already).

It's exceptional to see a person who got another chance in life, and made sure to seize it and stick to what he loves: making songs and working with other musicians. I found it be thoughtful and uplifting, and the portion of the doc that follows him on the road offers a very interesting look at modern-day Russia.

You can read my full review over here at Man, I Love Films.

[UPDATE: The post won't be up until around 9PM, but I had to stop this flood of spam.]
[FINAL UPDATE: I was almost an hour and half behind my prediction, but the review is up and ready for reading. Enjoy!]