MARINA SOKOLOVA

Revenge TV series.

Are you watching Revenge yet? It is lovely TV series about woman destroying lives of powerful people one by one for destroying the life of her father and ruining her childhood. She is very inventive and methodical and it is intriguing to watch her do it.

 

Worth watching.

Crazy Stupid Love movie.

Hilarious comedy about “true love”. At the beginning a wife cheats on her husband, a dull, decent Californian insurance executive, father of their 3 kids. The upset husband goes to a bar and confines into a smooth-talking, womanising younger guy, who takes the poor sod under his wing, gives him a makeover and turns him into a bar swinger. This new lifestyle develops into hilarious mess full of surprises. But all ends well.

  

Happy Endings TV series.

This one is a lot like the Friends, but fresh. The series revolves around the lives of a group of friends, living in Chicago. In the first episode the group is rocked when the couple that brought them together breaks up at the altar. This leaves the rest of the group in an awkward position. They decide to all stay friends, but there are many complications down the road.

 

Two and Half Men.

I am glad they replaced that very old saggy fat actor with cutesy Demi Moore's husband. Now there will be something to look at in Two and Half Men.

 

Movie: Case 39.

It's a sad movie about a girl, who was born with exceptional clairvoyance and hypnosis abilities. Her parents couldn’t accept her for this and witch-hunted her up to the point where they tried to burn her in the oven. A social worker, played by Renee Zellweger, rescues her and gains temporary custody of the girl, promising her a new beginning.

When she realises that the girl is not one of those helpless children she is used to and has wild talents, she quickly forgets that it is a 10 year old child desperate for unconditional love and acceptance. She fails to use any of her qualifications to get through to the child, neglects her, cuts her from the only therapy she was getting, witch-hunts her, then subsequently plots to kill her. The child defends herself however she can. Eventually the social worker succeeds in killing a child. That girl never had a chance in her short life. And all she was asking for is not to be left alone at home and some ice-cream after school, as an expression of love. But, she couldn’t get even that.

 

World through the eyes of a blind child.

Beautiful cartoon about a blind girl, who is looking for her lost dog. Since she cant see the world around her, she imagines it in her own way.

 

Fat Gypsy Weddings.

I watched My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, the other day, on channel 4 website. Before this documentary, I have never seen white and blond gypsies. This was a culture shock. I used to think that gypsies are discriminated because they look distinctively different. I used to think that it is a colour issue. You see, former USSR gypsies, even so most of them are settled and no longer travel, never cross-pollinated much neither with Slavic Russians nor with any other minority. They have distinct face features that gives out a gypsy in them. They preserved their original language and also still often wear traditional clothing even in everyday life.

The documentary also illustrated how little UK's government have done to either integrate them or to preserve their culture. Gypsies in USSR used to receive generous monetary compensation for settling down and getting jobs. Their image was romanticised in movies and media to upgrade their public image a bit, see example below. In UK, it feels like there was no overall government strategy to start with. As if gypsies existence wasn't even acknowledged. I don't know much about UK's history, so I am talking about my personal impression from these documentaries, so please tell me if you think I am missing anything.

 

Black Swan.

Boooooriiing. The movie attempts to be artistic and surreal. But for most of it, you just get Natalie Portman channelling Nicolas Cage through her face expression.

 

My favourite reality TV shows on Russian TV channels.

1) Битва Экстрасенсов/The battle of the extra-sensors.

If you want to get rich quickly or become a psychic to the stars in Russia, this is a reality show to get on. Over time it grew in popularity and became international. For example, two of its seasons were won by two different Iranian psychics. The producers of the show claim that it is absolutely genuine. Psychics are not allowed to bring on set any electronic equipment and they are searched before they enter the set. Three professional illusionists watch each psychic during filming. One illusionist is always right next to a psychic watching her or his every move. Other experts such as criminal psychologists and other police workers are often present as well. Psychics go through many different tests, such as working on real criminal cases, describing a person and room on the other end of the phone line, describe a photo in a sealed envelope, walk on a professional sniper who is pointing weapon at them and is hidden among sever skyscrapers, point out the person in the crowd with real illegal drugs in a bag, etc. Psychics who became finalists in the battle, usually become hugely famous and their careers are made.

Personally I made two conclusions. First is that even the best psychics, who usually get the answers right have days when they get it all completely wrong. Secondly, psychics, who read the answers of the people somehow and tell them what they want to hear, are more popular. A lot of times, people, who come to the show to have psychics help them to find out what “really” happened to their loved one, don't need the truth. They came to relive their consciousness. They already know the truth, and they don't want to hear it. What they want to hear and the entire nation to hear, that it not their fault. They hate the psychics, who make them face reality, and call them fakes. When these people end up on judging panel, they are much more likely to vote for psychics, who told them a story they wanted to hear. No one likes to hear something like: “Yes, the police report is correct. Your daughter was not raped, was not murdered, but committed suicide because of problems at home”. If a psychic can come up with exact words or actions that lead to incident, then the participants start to cry and often admit that, yes, this is what happened.

Here is a bit from an episode called “Modern Inquisition”, in which, with in 10 minutes, the psychics need to find a mannequin and set it a light, instead of 4 real humans, who do such stunts for a living:

 

2) Квартирный Вопрос/The Apartments' Question.

This show simply pisses on any home renovation show in UK, big time. First of all, it is absolutely free for the participants. Their needs and wishes are taking into account, but they don't do any work, don't see the progress, and a final result is a surprise to them. The viewer then can fully enjoy genuine oooos and aaaaas, when the participants are allowed to come back to their home after 2 weeks. It showcases all the latest materials, products, technologies and techniques. Products and all are provided by sponsors, who want to advertise their latest products. The sponsors also seem to provide cute uniformed efficient workers who perform quality work on camera, so the producers must be saving in labour costs too. Young hip upcoming designers go out of their way to make a name for themselves and deliver their best work possible. So one can often see really clever and unique designs. A year later the participants are visited and filmed again. The viewer gets to see what residents changed and why, and what they liked or didn't like in the long run.

It is interesting that they don't just paint a wall or two in this show, but rip out the entire room, including floors, windows, doors, kitchen cabinets and appliances. Sometimes residents already have new windows, but hey are ripped out and replaced anyway because, I guess, the sponsors have already paid to advertise their windows. They install lots and lots of new latest TVs and kitchen appliances as well.

I remember when Jim and I went to view apartments once, right after I finished watching an episode from this show, and gosh did I get depressed by what I saw in real life. Later I realised that places we were viewing were good, it is just when viewing them right after watching this show made them seem so crappy.

One of renovations in progress, design inspired by London's autumn:

 

3) Дачный Ответ/ The Dachas' Answer.

In Russian cities people mainly live in apartments. A lot of those people have country homes for weekends and holidays and they call such home - dacha. If The Apartments' Question TV show is for appeasements, The Dachas' Answer is for dachas. Here, you can see more building work. Often entire houses are build or extended. Big garden or installation projects are often shown on this show. The architects and designers are eager to show their talents too and there are lots of sponsors as well. And it is absolutely free for the participants too. They also don't see the progress and the final result is a surprise to them.

Building banya (which is a Russian sauna):

 

My favourite recent TV series.

I decided to share a list of my favourite recent TV series, as I think they are interesting and those of you, who haven't watched them yet, might enjoy them too. I am not going to describe Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty, because I think pretty much everyone seen those. I will tell you about those which I love, but which are not shown on main UK TV channels.

Lipstick Jungle.

This one is like Sex in the City, but more balanced and down to earth. I like that there are a lot of details in the plot about heroines work and everyday life. They also seem healthier psychologically, more together, and more confident.

 

Cougar Town.

This one is like Friends, with a character similar to Monica, but years after, divorced, with teenage son, in a new town, and with a new set of friends.

 

Weeds.

This one is about a drug dealer, who is juggling her career with a single motherhood. It is a very brave writing and pushes a lot of taboos. I don't like one thing about it. The main heroin seems to enjoy being raped. I cant comprehend that. But then, it is written by a male, so, I guess, that explains it.

 

Dexter.

This one is my all-time favourite. It is about a serial killer, who works in the police and enjoys killing other serial killers as a hobby. Very gripping plot, you cant stop watching it. It inspired me to read the novels, which inspired these TV series. The books are also interesting, different from the series by the end of the first book. But then the next books seems to be different genders, it gets too surreal and less realistic compared to the TV series. TV writers also made it all a lot more politically correct than it feels in the books.

 

Warehouse 13.

This one is kind of semi-realistic semi-fairytale type, like Relic Hunters, but more surreal in a good way. The main characters are US secret police agents who work in this special warehouse, which stores magical artefacts. Their job is to track artefacts and bring them to the warehouse. All the episodes are similar to each other, but they are so light and airy that you don't get bored of them. This is something relaxing and entertaining to watch, when you don't get sucked to much into the story.

 

The Joneses.

Entertaining and beautiful movie about a fake family secretly promoting goods and consumerism. Demi Moore plays fake mother and David Duchovny plays fake dad. However, they fancy each other for real. Fake dad is new to this line of work in a fake family unit. So, when a neighbour kills himself because he can't keep up with the Joneses, the fake dad looses it confessing to the entire street. Then eventually he trucks down the Demi Moore's character and persuades her to loose her career and abandon her dreams for uncertain life with him.