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Going to see Russian Ark tonight with Chas, and hopefully l0vesmenot at 9:30. It sounds incredible.

RUSSIAN ARK is a story of records and firsts: the first entirely unedited, single take, full-length feature film. The longest ever Steadicam sequence and the first ever uncompressed digital movie. After months of rehearsal and the deployment of 867 actors, hundreds of extras and 3 live orchestras, Aleksandr Sokurov's stunning film unfolds in one fluid unbroken shot, the camera floating through the majestic spaces of The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, engaging real and imagined characters from Russian and European history. Generations of the Romanov family actually lived, loved, and, in some cases, died in this palace they called "home." Proceeding through 35 rooms and crossing four centuries, the film reenacts history on a grand scale by means of an array of sophisticated effects. The nameless protagonist, a 19th-century diplomat, guides us through the lost, sumptuous dream that was the Enlightenment, and the film, staged among some of the Western Art tradition's greatest masterpieces, climaxes in a glorious pageant of color, motion, and music, creating amazing visual meditations that guide the audience on a voyage through war, revolution, and social upheaval, which has left in its wake all the landmarks of a great culture. This film is an astonishing technical tour de force and a brilliant meditation on the delirium of history. Like the biblical Ark, the Hermitage has steered a difficult course through the adverse currents of time and tide. A treasure house of life and art, it is also a testament to the buoyancy of the human spirit.

Now the qustion is, do we have a small snack here and dinner at the Enzian or do we eat dinner here before we go? The Enzian's food is pretty good, but it is pricey, but how often can you eat dinner at a movie theater? Decisions, decisions...