'The Death of Stalin' mines horrific history for satirical laughs

When Karl Marx, of all people, wrote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, he couldn't have known of the terrifying end of days of the brutal Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, nor the gleeful savagery with which it's reproduced in the dazzling "The Death of Stalin."

Co-written and directed by Armando Iannucci, the creator of HBO's "Veep" who wrote the Oscar-nominated script for "In the Loop," this is a comedy of terrors that creates laughs but doesn't let