A few months ago I heard about a movie called “9th Company”.  It was a Russian movie about a group of their soldiers in Afghanistan in the late 1980s fighting the Mujahadeen.  I heard that it was the most successful Russian movie ever made and had broken every domestic box office record.  I’d also heard that it was the closest Russia has ever come to making a retrospective that questioned what it was like to be a soldier in the Afghan conflict - similar to American movies about Vietnam like Deerhunter, Full Metal Jacket, or Platoon.

However, there was just one problem: I couldn’t find a copy of this movie anywhere.  Local video store didn’t have it.  Forget about Blockbuster and I’m too lazy to join NetFlix.  However, a few weeks ago I found myself out at Brighton Beach after a trip to Coney Island (photo below) and wandered into a Russian video store, where I was able to pick up a copy.

The film is amazing.  Beg, borrow, lie, cheat or steal to get a copy of the film.  It’s one of the best foreign movies I’ve seen this year and in the same league as Das Leben der Anderen - which won the foreign film Oscar this year...