I Thank a Fool - DVD

Sent to repair a burst pipe at a run-down housing community, plumber’s assistant and college student Dima notices a crack in a wall that indicates major structural damage to the building. With imminent collapse looming and the lives of 800 residents hanging in the balance, Dima becomes an unlikely crusader when his attempts to alert the proper authorities are hampered by a corrupt political system. Artyom Bystrov, Natalya Surkova, Boris Nevzorov star in this compelling Russian drama. 121 min. In Russian with English subtitles.

Widely regarded as the screen's first true S*x symbol a leading actress whose charm was built not upon quaint innocence but carnal desire, Theda Bara revolutionized the adolescent art of cinematic sensuality. One of the very few Bara films that exist today, a Fool There Was catapulted the actress to stardom in 1915 and introduced the term InchvampInch (both as a noun and a verb) to the American pop culture vocabulary. Bara plays the InchVampire,Inch a cunning woman who uses her irresistible charms to seduce and abandon a series of influential men. When one lover commits suicide on the deck of a luxury liner, she merely turns her gaze to another passenger, John Schuyler (Edward Jose), and leads him down a path to moral degradation and public scorn. Schuyler's wife (Mabel Frenyear) never gives up hope for her husband's redemption but has severely underestimated the hypnotic power the Vampire has upon her victims. One of the most remarkable aspects of a Fool There Was is it's uncompromising ending. Rather than offering a syrupy resolution of eleventh-hour moral enlightenment, the film allows it's characters to follow their downward trajectories toward less edifying fates.

Sent to repair a burst pipe at a run-down housing community, plumber’s assistant and college student Dima notices a crack in a wall that indicates major structural damage to the building. With imminent collapse looming and the lives of 800 residents hanging in the balance, Dima becomes an unlikely crusader when his attempts to alert the proper authorities are hampered by a corrupt political system. Artyom Bystrov, Natalya Surkova, Boris Nevzorov star in this compelling Russian drama. 121 min. In Russian with English subtitles.