When I was a kid we didn’t have Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa (the latter is due to the lack of African-Ukrainians). We had New Year, with Ded Moroz and Snegurochka, “New Year’s” Tree, presents, and obligatory toast at midnight. New Year was the only Soviet holiday that wasn’t associated with any communist or revolution bullshit.
People dressed up, even at home, the table was covered with hard-to-find delicacies and drinks. Then my Mom made me take out the trash one last time, which involved going 3 floors (81 steps) down to the cold and dark yard. Then everyone waited.
Few minutes before midnight the General Secretary of the Communist Part of the USSR would congratulate the Soviet People with another giant leap toward communism made in a previous year and wish them to make even more giant step next year.This is what it looked like in 1971. I only expect a few readers to recognize who this is, Leonid Illyich Brezhnev died before some of you were born. I know it’s in Russian but I am sure you’ll recognize every other word being “socialism” or “communism”. Brezhnev loved himself a long speech. He could go on for hours but he knew that vodka and champagne are getting warm and people restless. But there was no escape: all three channels had the speech on. Soviet people had to be congratulated whether the wanted it or not.
When the General Secretary finally shut up, the Kremlin Kuranty rung midnight, the universal signal to start the festivities. That’s when we toasted New Year, my Dad would go outside and leave a bag of presents right behind the door, I don’t think we even wrapped them. We usually didn’t stay up for too long. I am still not a night person. I still like New Year better than all the other holidays combined. Nobody is born, no miracles of burning oil, just a clock of life ticking along, all the bad things are behind you and a brand new, bright and shiny year is ahead.
This year I will be celebrating in St.Louis with a bunch of other Russians, old style. Even three months of Christmas music every year can’t make us forget who we are.
I wish you all a Happy New Year, I hope that you will prosper, win a lottery, don’t get sick and have fun.
P.S. To all the beautiful women who want to date me next year: I will be appearing here starting January 2 so you know where to find me.
On January 21 all that’s left from the “progressive humanity” (mainly two bloggers in Kansas City and a couple of drunks in Moscow) remember Vladimir Lenin who died on this date in 1924. I wrote about Lenin and his preserved body a time or two, but recently while looking for some video I ran into something that truly made me want to gauge my eyes out. Due to graphic and disgusting nature of the video showing some work being done on the Lenin’s corpse I am not embedding it here, if you feel that you need to see it, follow the link.
Below is the video of the Kremlin Regiment Honor Guard near the Lenin’s Tomb. I could totally march like this but didn’t have the looks, the height and the weight, and I talk too much.
One sure-fire way not to sell me a food item is to lace it with unwanted vitamins and minerals. I don’t need “fortified” this and “enriched” that. I am not in imminent danger of scurvy, I don’t suffer from bone density problems, and if I am to believe the labels I eat so many times over my “recommended daily dose” of multiple vitamins and minerals that I should be (pardon) crapping straight One-A-Days. Popularity of certain food supplements varies every year and there are plenty of studies on the subject disproving each other’s findings. I eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, meat, etc. and vitamin deficiency has never been a problem. With that in mind, when I go to the store, I avoid anything with additional supplements just because I didn’t ask to improve my food; there are plenty of unknown weird substances in my food already and don’t feel like I need to add to the list.
If you are a female over the age of 6 or a male over 28 and posted an excited review or Transformers 2, your movie-reviewing bona fides are hereby revoked. The only exception is granted to those who were stoned or too upset over Michael Jackson’s death while watching this pile of robot rust.
Two hours worth of repetitive CGI accompanied by non-stop metal clanging noises made me think how little was needed to impress a young viewer just 30-50 years ago. I remember my Dad telling me how during his school years everyone went crazy over the Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller. The old Tarzan movies produced in the 1930s made it to the USSR as war trophies and were shown everywhere for years after WWII (In the following book clip start reading the paragraph starting with “Basically Hollywood…”).
Many injuries resulted from attempting to swing on any hanging rope with one arm while imitating the Tarzan call.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwHWbsvgQUE
Cheesy special effects of the 1930s and even an obvious reusing of the same footage throughout the series didn’t prevent me from enjoying them when I saw Tarzan for the first time in the early 80s.
When I was very young another movie took me and my classmates by a storm. Zorro probably caused more property damage than any movie before it, with a “sign of Zorro” drawn, engraved, chiseled or carved on everything with a surface.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vT1aje5u1Y
Speaking about cheesy special effects, how can one forget “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad“. When I was 8 or 9 the monsters from this movie looked totally real. Not so much anymore.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a77pycC78Q0
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03k8di93r5Q
In the late 70’s a Japanese movie The Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds was the talk of the country, at a time when Jurassic Park wasn’t even a concept. From appetizer to dessert – One town becomes a monster meal – was the tagline.I still distinctly remember a half of a horse falling off the cliff, the other half bitten off by a dinosaur, and I still avoid bloody movies.
Another scary Japanese movie of my childhood was the Sinking of Japan (Tidal Wave) which came out in 1973 and was remade in 2006. Here is a clip of a recent remake.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJ6Cftc-E8
You can imagine pitiful special effects of 1973 but I still remember it as a terrifying movie years later.
There are plenty of acclaimed and beloved movies with really low-quality special effects, that did not benefit from a more sophisticated remake.
Unfortunately no amount of special effects could benefit Transformers 2.