Recently viewed movies.

I recently watched "World Chess Champion" (2021, Russia). It's about chess. Of course, it immediately brings to mind the relatively recent "The Queen's Gambit," and the latter is better – but still, I was surprised that "World Chess Champion" is quite good. Much better than you'd expect from modern Russian cinema. It's all very cultured, with no excessive use of slang or other nonsense, and the schizoid directing only showed up once throughout the film, which is a great achievement. The emotions are quite strong, and the romance of chess is well portrayed. And although I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece, you can easily spend an evening watching this film.