Movie Recommendation: Solaris

Not the new one, which I haven't seen, rather the 1972 Russian original. I recommend it. Let me state up front: the opening portions of the film are draggy, especially a mind-numbing 5 minute sequence involving driving on roads that look like the early 70's, which we are suppose to believe is the city of the future. Five minutes of driving. Ouch. However, once our "hero" gets to the space station it gets a lot more interesting. Make sure you are watching the Criterion Collection DVD, and not some other form of this film. Aside from being the complete cut of the film and subtitled instead of poorly dubbed, the audio-commentary on this edition adds a lot to the experience, including giving the Communist Russian context in which the film was made and it even sheds some light on that 5 minutes of driving. Definitely worthy of a rental. Even if you don't like science fiction I think you might like this film, but don't expect a happy ending. Vodka might be appropriate. I "rented" this movie via netflix (which I love, by the way, because it gives access to what appears to be a complete DVD library - if it exists on DVD, they seem to have it, albeit not including your favorite XXX features. Damn!)