Musings of the Obsessive Kind

( Oum Ruk )

( City Hunter ep 6 )

( Some nonspoilery CYHMH cuteness )

( New Tales of the Gisaeng - wedding obsession )

( The X-Family )

( Vigilantes in Masks )

Because I am on a WW2 fiction kick after Paullina Simons' novel, I am going to watch the 2008 Russian movie Мы из будущего (We are from the future), about a quartet of modern Russian friends who somehow get transported to 1942. I am sure that is going to be super-chirpy. Have a MV:



And speaking of things to watch, I am pretty indifferent to Ming Dao, but I love twdramas involving fights and smoochies, so Ying Ye 3+1, here I come! Have a MV!

Most of my grown-up fictional tastes can be explained by the fact that growing up I devoured Alexandre Dumas and Russian musicals. Doomed love, men with swords, melodrama, and things that never end well - yeah, that's where I got it all.

And you know what's best? When you combine Dumas and Russian musicals - no wonder that growing up, the Soviet musical film D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers was probably my favorite movie. When I was 10 or so, I probably knew every song in that movie by heart. I didn't know what a shipper was but I was definitely a shipper for D'Artagnan/Constance and Anne/Buckingham (even more so for the latter - now that I think about it, it's scary to think how my shipping preferences have been influenced by childhood devouring of Dumas - between St. Luc/Jeanne, Bussy/Diane, and La Mole/Margot, that's my ship types right there. Good Lord. That's totally my source for tough fighting men and women they worship thing I have going, with a dose of dysfunction thrown in. No wonder I love dysfunctional ships).

Anyway, that Soviet movie is something I am not really rational about - I can comprehend its flaws with my grown-up eyes but the child part of my brain will unquestioningly and blindly love it. Not to mention that I honestly do think that of all the adaptations I have seen (American and Russian - I have never seen a French one, though I do want to), it's the closest in spirit to the book.

Anyway, imagine my excitement when I found the songs on youtube.

( Songs )

I really need to dig out my DVDs of the 1970s French mini of La Dame de Monsoreau, my favorite Dumas adaptation (Bussy was my earliest fictional crush. Oh, how I cried when he died).

OMG, youtubing, I've discovered there is a 2008 version. I need to get my hands on it - I know the book so backward and forward I don't need subs.



Hmmm, the old English translation of that novel is horrific - it's abridged and Victorianish. I wonder if there is a more modern one (I only read it in Russian). Ehhh, this book must have given Victorians fits anyway, the main OTP are adulterers as the heroine is married to another (Dumas is pretty careful to tell us she was forced into her hideous marriage but I doubt that would make Victorians feel any better) and the secondary OTP is lawfully married which a Victorian would approve except for the whole thing where the husband used to be one of Henri III's boyfriends and has no regrets about it. Ha!

Most of my grown-up fictional tastes can be explained by the fact that growing up I devoured Alexandre Dumas and Russian musicals. Doomed love, men with swords, melodrama, and things that never end well - yeah, that's where I got it all.

And you know what's best? When you combine Dumas and Russian musicals - no wonder that growing up, the Soviet musical film D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers was probably my favorite movie. When I was 10 or so, I probably knew every song in that movie by heart. I didn't know what a shipper was but I was definitely a shipper for D'Artagnan/Constance and Anne/Buckingham (even more so for the latter - now that I think about it, it's scary to think how my shipping preferences have been influenced by childhood devouring of Dumas - between St. Luc/Jeanne, Bussy/Diane, and La Mole/Margot, that's my ship types right there. Good Lord. That's totally my source for tough fighting men and women they worship thing I have going, with a dose of dysfunction thrown in. No wonder I love dysfunctional ships).

Anyway, that Soviet movie is something I am not really rational about - I can comprehend its flaws with my grown-up eyes but the child part of my brain will unquestioningly and blindly love it. Not to mention that I honestly do think that of all the adaptations I have seen (American and Russian - I have never seen a French one, though I do want to), it's the closest in spirit to the book.

Anyway, imagine my excitement when I found the songs on youtube.

( Songs )

I really need to dig out my DVDs of the 1970s French mini of La Dame de Monsoreau, my favorite Dumas adaptation (Bussy was my earliest fictional crush. Oh, how I cried when he died).

OMG, youtubing, I've discovered there is a 2008 version. I need to get my hands on it - I know the book so backward and forward I don't need subs.



Hmmm, the old English translation of that novel is horrific - it's abridged and Victorianish. I wonder if there is a more modern one (I only read it in Russian). Ehhh, this book must have given Victorians fits anyway, the main OTP are adulterers as the heroine is married to another (Dumas is pretty careful to tell us she was forced into her hideous marriage but I doubt that would make Victorians feel any better) and the secondary OTP is lawfully married which a Victorian would approve except for the whole thing where the husband used to be one of Henri III's boyfriends and has no regrets about it. Ha!

I have bought a DVD of a movie from my childhood and have been watching Звезда пленительного счастья (The Captivating Star of Happiness), a Russian movie from the 1970s.

The movie is set during the years surrounding the Decembrist Revolt in 1825 (short version, if you don't feel like reading the wiki article, is that a group of Russian aristocrats, most of them veterans of Napoleonic Wars, demanded constitutional monarchy, revolted against Czar Nicholas I, and got either executed or exiled to Siberia for their trouble). It's not a political movie, however, but instead centers around the wives of Decembrists, who decided to give up their families, their aristocratic privileges, and basically their entire lives to follow their husbands to Siberia.* It's quite romantic and quite depressing at the same time - basically just made for me.

I haven't seen this movie in years, but it's quite as lovely as I remembered: I love the swimming camera and the looping narrative structure with nonlinear flashbacks. The movie is available on Region 1 with Engish subtitles, but be warned: the things I love about it (the looping structure) may make it a bit hard to follow for those who are not familiar with the story/individuals already (when I was growing up, everybody knew the events this was based on) because the movie doesn't pause to explain and, as I say, loops in onto itself sometimes which might confuse.

Anyway, give it a try?

I couldn't find many youtube vids, but here is one. The most famous thing about this well-known movie was the song written for it by Bulat Okudzhava, and here is a scene from the movie where that song is played.



* This story inspired someone as different from the maker of the movie as Alexandre Dumas. He wrote a novel called "The Fencing Master," about a Frenchwoman who was a mistress of one of the Decembrists, followed him into exile and married him in prison - he changed the names but based it on a true story, and got banned from Russia for the book.

I promise to reply to everyone tomorrow. Last couple of days have been a bit crazy.

This is a bit unconnected :)

I. Movies

Saw Across the Universe tonight. It was a flawed (if fun) movie but the creators of it were both incredibly talented and on drugs, to be able to fit all the Beatles songs the way they did. (it's worth seeing if for nothing else than for Bono doing 'I am the Walrus). And Jim Sturges is much better than the already-good movie. I have a new crush.

II. Bollywood

Aamir Khan has a blog. You guys, Aamir Khan has a blog. And he responds to people. OMG. I didn’t think I could love him more than I do (I mean, come ON! Fanaa AND Rang De Basanti same year?????). Seriously. I was wrong.

Here: http://www.lagaandvd.com/blog.php

In one of his posts he has this to say and it’s the best defense of Bollywood I have seen:

( Aamir Khan on Bollywood )

III. I rant about Tolstoy (inspired by fire_snake)

I have decided to blame my fascination with angsty repressed aristocrats and hyper, spritely girls on War and Peace. Reading it at an impressionable age, I am afraid I fell in love with Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova. So it’s all Tolstoy’s fault. Grrrr. I have still not forgiven him for the ending (considering that Anna Karenina ends up under a train, I guess only 33% of Tolstoy couples I find interesting, i.e. Kitty/Levin, end up having a hea, hmmm…That’s still better than the average for a Russian novel). I wonder if it was published today whether there would be ship wars, heh. It’s a little bizarre to crush on the same literary characters as your grandmothers probably did, but whatever…

( Ramble on Anna Karenina )

IV. Vladimir + Sarcasm = OTP.

Vladimir, I am deeply impressed by your sleuthing skills and your uncovering the real killer of your Daddy. I am also impressed that, even though you have lost all your property, you still managed to do it AND get Zabaluyev jailed and Maria Dolgorukaya running from the cops.

( ramblings on Bednaya Nastya )

V. My childhood tastes explain a little too much about me.

Seriously, when I think back to the types of movies I watched when a kid, is it any wonder I love Bollywood and kdrama? I mean, come on, I found this clip on youtube from the Russian movie I used to be nuts about when I was a kid (in my defense, so was the Vice Principal of our school :P), Gardemarini Vpered (sort of a Russian take on 3 Musketeers type story). Below is one of the two OTPs. I mean, come on, people singing songs in a movie and chock-full of love affairs storylines? So very Bollywood, including obligatory fade-outs to flowers and other growy things. And oh, so kdrama. Did I mention that this OTP first met when the guy was cross-dressing as a girl and the chick invited heself to travel with him because she was running away from a monastery? Could it get any more kdrama? :P Seriously, I have had the same tastes in fiction since I was six or so.

I promise to reply to everyone tomorrow. Last couple of days have been a bit crazy.

This is a bit unconnected :)

I. Movies

Saw Across the Universe tonight. It was a flawed (if fun) movie but the creators of it were both incredibly talented and on drugs, to be able to fit all the Beatles songs the way they did. (it's worth seeing if for nothing else than for Bono doing 'I am the Walrus). And Jim Sturges is much better than the already-good movie. I have a new crush.

II. Bollywood

Aamir Khan has a blog. You guys, Aamir Khan has a blog. And he responds to people. OMG. I didn’t think I could love him more than I do (I mean, come ON! Fanaa AND Rang De Basanti same year?????). Seriously. I was wrong.

Here: http://www.lagaandvd.com/blog.php

In one of his posts he has this to say and it’s the best defense of Bollywood I have seen:

( Aamir Khan on Bollywood )

III. I rant about Tolstoy (inspired by fire_snake)

I have decided to blame my fascination with angsty repressed aristocrats and hyper, spritely girls on War and Peace. Reading it at an impressionable age, I am afraid I fell in love with Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova. So it’s all Tolstoy’s fault. Grrrr. I have still not forgiven him for the ending (considering that Anna Karenina ends up under a train, I guess only 33% of Tolstoy couples I find interesting, i.e. Kitty/Levin, end up having a hea, hmmm…That’s still better than the average for a Russian novel). I wonder if it was published today whether there would be ship wars, heh. It’s a little bizarre to crush on the same literary characters as your grandmothers probably did, but whatever…

( Ramble on Anna Karenina )

IV. Vladimir + Sarcasm = OTP.

Vladimir, I am deeply impressed by your sleuthing skills and your uncovering the real killer of your Daddy. I am also impressed that, even though you have lost all your property, you still managed to do it AND get Zabaluyev jailed and Maria Dolgorukaya running from the cops.

( ramblings on Bednaya Nastya )

V. My childhood tastes explain a little too much about me.

Seriously, when I think back to the types of movies I watched when a kid, is it any wonder I love Bollywood and kdrama? I mean, come on, I found this clip on youtube from the Russian movie I used to be nuts about when I was a kid (in my defense, so was the Vice Principal of our school :P), Gardemarini Vpered (sort of a Russian take on 3 Musketeers type story). Below is one of the two OTPs. I mean, come on, people singing songs in a movie and chock-full of love affairs storylines? So very Bollywood, including obligatory fade-outs to flowers and other growy things. And oh, so kdrama. Did I mention that this OTP first met when the guy was cross-dressing as a girl and the chick invited heself to travel with him because she was running away from a monastery? Could it get any more kdrama? :P Seriously, I have had the same tastes in fiction since I was six or so.

tattarpunk came over last night, and between consuming pastries and fangirl-talking, we managed to watch four episodes of My Name is Kim Sam Soon.

MNIKSS is a kdrama about a 30 year old, slightly overweight (by Korean standards. She is what, size 4?) pastry chef with the unfashionable name of Sam Soon, who finds out her jerk of a boyfriend is cheating on her, on Christmas Eve.

However, suddenly-single-again Sam Soon's life is about to get a lot stranger and more interesting, because shortly after she finds a new job, her boss, a slightly younger (27), spoiled-rich-boy Jin-Heon (played by the yummy Hyun Bin, miles away from his character in Snow Queen) asks her to pretend-date him, to get his mother off his back. In need for money, Sam Soon agrees...

MNNIKSS is a super-famous drama. Very, very, very. Yet, I stayed away from it for a long time largely because I knew it was angst-light and I need my regular fixes. But tatterpunk suggested and I thought it would be a fine idea.

So, what did I think, four eps in?

I love it.

( Sam Soon rambles )

In other news, I don't like to have posts lately without Bednaya Nastya so here is a quick clip from next to last ep, with Vladimir rescuing Anna who is trapped frm bad guys. Not much translation is necessary but she does tell him things like 'I was so afraid I would die without seeing you again' and 'I love you' 18 bazillion times. I am sure he is gratified, considering he broke out of jail to rescue her.



And on a last, slide-to-obscurity point, this seriously is probably the most obscure entry I made in this LJ so far.

But I just received in the mail a DVD of 31 of June (31 июня), a Russian movie from the 1970s (1978) which I loved in childhood entirely too much. I saw it once and couldn't forget it.

31 of June is an adult fairy tale based on (ironically) an American novel by J B Priestley, called The 31st of June: A Tale of True Love, enterprise and Progress, in the Arthurian and Ad-Atomic Ages. The story follows a seemingly impossible love affair between a medival princess in a fairy-tale kingdom and a modern day painter.

Oh, it's totally dated, the outfits and sountrack are completely 70s. It's probably cheesy and not excellently acted, and production values are not really there. But I don't care. It has such a connection to my childhood, I loved it when I flipped through the DVD as much as I did when I was a kid. I think I finally get the people who like old school Dr. Who.

( Youtube clip )