At long last, IFC Films is releasing Armando Ianucci‘s much-admired The Death of Stalin (97% Rotten Tomatoes, 88% Metacritic) on March 9th. I missed it in Toronto five months ago, but it’s screening at Park City’s MARC on Saturday, 1.20, at 5:45 pm. I’ll definitely be there, but it’s taken too long to open. It feels weaker that it did six months ago. I love Ianucci’s ability with aggressively rude farce, but something’s off.

Posted on 8.11.17: “I loved Armando Iannucci‘s In The Loop and I’ve enjoyed watching Veep from time to time, but I’m not getting the Death of Stalin thing. Based on Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin‘s graphic novel ‘The Death Of Stalin,’ and so what? Soviet apparatchiks scrambling for position in the wake of Stalin’s passing? Who cares what a demimonde of paranoid Russian assholes were up to 64 years ago? It may be ‘funny’ on its own terms, but why?

“Featuring Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs, Jeffrey Tambor, Rupert Friend, Andrea Riseborough, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine, Michael Palin, Olga Kurylenko, Paul Whitehouse and Adrian McLoughlin. Playing at TIFF 2017, opening in the U.K. on 10.20, getting a U.S. release via IFC Films sometime…what, in March?”