Zero City (Zerograd) 1989
IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 43 minutes runtime rated 7.4 by 2,300 cinematizens
Genre: [Unknown]
Verdict: Nyet
Tag line: oh hum
Engineer is sent from Moscow (not the one in Idaho) to Zerograd in the sticks to shape up a factory. His first encounter there is with a briskly efficient receptionist who goes about business naked. She types, telephones, and directs him to the CEO who is delighted to see someone from Head office. Unbeknownst to CEO the factory’s manager hasn’t come to work in eight months. That might explain the problem.
Engineer goes to dinner with the Marx Brothers. The food is so bad that the chef kills himself. Did the engineer’s lack of appetite drive chef to take his own life? Enter Franz Kafka, an honorary Marx.
By mistake engineer gets a guided tour of the local museum where history is what we say it is…today. This goes on and on and ends with rock and roll. The gag is that the wax work figures are real people. Get it? (So what you may ask? Me too.)
Satire may be the intention but the result is boredom. It is as heavy handed as that which it mocks. Monty Python it is not. I gave up after an hour. A better person might get further. The best person would have been smart enough not to have ever started at all. When will I ever learn? No time soon.
It is listed on some web sites as Sy Fy and that is why I went looking for it on You Tube. That label is fake news. Wacky would a more accurate designation.
Get this, per the IMDb, it was the Soviet Union’s official entry for the ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ at the 1990 Academy Awards (USA). No wonder the Evil Empire fell.