Showing posts with label Россия. Show all posts

Friday, December 31, 2010

Russian most popular New Year movie

The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! DVD cover
The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! (Russian: Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром!; Ironiya sudby, ili S lyogkim parom!) is a Soviet comedy-drama directed by Eldar Ryazanov as a made-for-TV movie.

Simultaneously a screwball comedy and a love story tinged with sadness, the film is traditionally broadcast in Russia and some other former Soviet republics and satellite states every New Year's Day. It is as fondly viewed every year as is the American films It’s a Wonderful Life and Home Alone during the Christmas holidays. Many memorable quotes from the film have become catch phrases in the Russian language.

Plot summary
A group of old friends have a tradition of going to a public bathing house on New Years eve. Occasionally too much vodka and beer makes two of them unconscious. The problem is that one of them (Sasha) has to go to Leningrad but another one (Zhenya) goes. Zhenya wakes up at Leningrad airport. Believing that he is still in Moscow he takes a taxi and goes home. The street name, building and even apartment number, the way an apartment complex looks the same and the key coincide completely - just typical Soviet-type 'economy' architecture. Imagine the surprise of Nadya when she enters her apartment and finds a man without trousers in her bed. What's more - Nadya's fiancé also finds him there.
The movie starts with an animated prologue. The rest of the film a live-action.

Watch full movie online with English subtitles
The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! Part 1

The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! Part 2

via ruslovo.blogspot.com
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Sunday, December 12, 2010

PM Putin sings 'Blueberry Hill' and plays piano to raise cash for children's charity

Vladimir Putin official portrait

www.kremlin.ru [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

St Petersburg played host to a number of celebrities from all around the world but the one that stood out was not an actor or a singer. It was Russia's very own Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He even got a standing ovation.

Full video of Vladimir Putin playing the piano and singing "Blueberry Hill". The Russian prime minister is used to taking to the stage, but this time it was not for one of his speeches. Vladimir Putin made his audience sit up and take note, as he sang at a charity fundraiser. The reception at an ice stadium in St. Petersburg was dedicated to fighting children's cancer. International celebrities including Kevin Costner, Gerard Depardieu, Mickey Rourke, Sharon Stone, Kurt Russell, Vincent Cassel, Monica Belucci, Ornella Muti, Goldie Hawn and many others attended the benefit concert. Many of the stars are actively involved in charity work which draws needed attention to children's oncological and ophthalmological diseases. When the hostess approached Putin's table and asked him to sing for the audience, his immediate reaction was "are you kidding me?" But the hostess was determined to get the prime minister on the mic and reminded him about the songs he sang with the Russian sleeper agents extradited from the US last summer. Putin attempted to evade the proposal by saying that the singing she was referring to had come from the heart. However, after seeing the pictures of ill children shown to the audience on the big screen, he took to the stage. "Like the majority of people I cannot -- but do like to sing and to play -- so you'll have to rough it," he warned as he sat at the piano and played the beginning of Blueberry Hill. The tune was immediately caught by Maceo Parker's jazz band. The prime minister then took the mic and sang it in English himself. Putin returned to the piano to sing in Russian "From What the Homeland Starts" -- the song he sang with the exposed Russian agents. The audience loved his performance and showed their appreciation with a standing ovation and applause. Many recorded the one man show on their mobile phones. On December 1, Putin confessed to US chat show host Larry King that he does study some songs in English with his language tutor. When the concert was over Putin took Sharon Stone by the arm and together with other guests they went on stage to sing a Russian song about cosmonauts, "Grass Near Home".
-RT

More "Russian" posts
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Thursday, December 2, 2010

I Love You - Russian animation (video)

A five minute animation by Rinat Timerkaev, inspired by Makoto Shinkai (新海誠) and Yoko Kanno (菅野よう子).
This animation has no special meaning, it just shows the beauty of love and Yekaterinburg* in spring, when apple trees are in full bloom.
"I love you" is also considered to be one of the first Russian anime-style animations.

* Yekaterinburg (Russian: Екатеринбу́рг, also romanized Ekaterinburg), formerly Sverdlovsk (Свердло́вск) is a major city (one of the top 5) sutuated in the central part of Russia on the eastern side of the Ural mountain range, it is the main industrial and cultural center of the Urals Federal District with a population of 1,293,537 (2002 Census)

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