Siberian adventure

No, "12" is not the number of teeth our son has: he only has 11 so far. Nor is it the number of days they will be celebrating New Year in Russia this year (that's 'only' 10).
What it is, is the title of Nikita Mikhalkov's latest film, which was awarded a Golden Lion in Venice. In it, 12 jurors try to reach a verdict in a murder case: did the boy from Chechnya murder his adoptive father -- a Russian officer -- or did het not?

It's quite an interesting picture, I must say, that depicts the contrasts between differents layers of society and tackles some of the problems in everyday Russia (and the world at large). If you like, you can read more about it in a number of places. Here's what "the Hollywood Reporter" thinks.

Olga and I watched this film at the "Russia" theatre in Kiselevsk, while baba Lyuba looked after Stefan. We left there with mixed feelings.
It was good to be out just the two of us for a change. We've hardly been anywhere since our son was born: all we do is look after him and take him for walks. So it was a very welcome change. If I'm not mistaken, this was our third time at the movies during my three-and-a-half-year stay here.
The film itself was great, I'd recommend it to anyone. Unfortunately, we didn't get to enjoy it to the fullest for a number of reasons.
For starters, it was freezing in the teatre (about +8°C, I would imagine). Secondly, halfway through the film, the two female theatre employees started blabbing pretty loudly. Luckily, they left pretty soon, because they didn't like the film, so that we had the whole theatre to ourselves again. Thirdly, the sound kept disappearing, that is, music would play normally in the background, but the actors' voices were sometimes muffled, so that you couldn't understand what they were saying. At first, this would go away almost instantly, but near the end complete monologues were muffled!
Personally, I was also irritated by the absence of sugar glazing on the popcorn. I mean, the girl in the cafeteria agrees to make a batch of sweet popcorn just for you on condition that you buy a big bucket (the standard kind is salted) and then you get a big bucket-full without the sweet stuff!!!

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