Category: Cinema

Costa Rican Parade: Cowboys and Dancing Horses at Tope Nacional | December 26 2025, 21:33

It all started when about 20 genuine cowboys on dancing horses passed us at the intersection. Turns out there are thousands of them here. Tope Nacional parade, San Ramon, Costa Rica

Preserving the Essence of Soviet Animation | December 13 2025, 15:05

In Soviet times, there was a great school of animation that led the world for many decades. If you search on YouTube for “Vovka in the Land of Far Far Away”, it almost exclusively shows restorations 🤮, and at the same time, it shows the same disgusting restorations of heaps of other cartoons, all made in the same style (vectorization, black outlines). If you go to Wikipedia, it will display a screenshot from the restoration, not from the original 1965 cartoon. The original can be found, for example, by searching “vovka in the land of far far away madina gazieva”, but searching “vovka in the land of far far away soyuzmultfilm 1965” shows nothing at all.

They really broke the internet.

P.S. By the way, “two of a kind, fulfilling wishes,” and “good enough” resonate very much with today’s ChatGPT 😉

Theremin Tones at Splean’s Concert: A Musical Blend | December 05 2025, 23:29

Thereminvox at a Splin concert yesterday. It turns out that this seemingly borrowed word doesn’t exist in English. Instead, the name of this musical instrument is theremin because the generic family name of Lev Theremin had French roots and was spelled as Theremin. The thereminvox was nicely incorporated into the arrangement, although it was played quite simply by a musician from Rostov, and the thereminvox itself had only one antenna.

Among the musicians, Meshcheryakov, the drummer, really stole the show. The most melancholic was the guitarist, Vadim Sergeyev. He just stared motionlessly into the crowd, almost immovable, but performed his part very precisely – evidently, professionalism can’t be diluted.

Lost in Translation: Modernizing Opera Subtitles | November 19 2025, 02:31

This must be about my tenth staging of Le Nozze di Figaro. And I still can’t understand why no one ever bothers to make modern, well-constructed subtitles instead of something that resembles a product of prehistoric “Google translate”. Every single line is translated from Italian in such a barbaric way that it’s about to make one’s eyes bleed. And for what reason? The Italian is certainly not modern either, but if you undertake to translate, then do so in a way that the meaning can be grasped within those tens of milliseconds when your eyes dart to the screen. Now, you land on a text that takes a minute to chew over… Every woman makes me change colour… Instead of make me blush or make me pale… If you are fain to dance… And all that stuff.

Instagram’s Nostalgia Marketing: Channeling t.A.T.u for Teen Engagement | November 12 2025, 12:51

Instagram advertises accounts to teenagers with a girl strongly resembling a young Lena Katina from t.A.T.u 😉

Revisiting the Sun: A New Invention in Art? | October 19 2025, 18:15

Interestingly, depicting the sun in a painting is a very recent invention. I haven’t seen a single painting in any museum where the sun is depicted above the horizon. Well, maybe with the exception of the Impressionists, Monet’s is very symbolic. In modern works, it appears more often. But in half, it’s a trace from a photograph.

Update: Turns out Aivazovsky has a lot of this. But he produced so many paintings in the studio with his students that it seems you can find any combination of little ships, waves, and sun.

Life Imitates Art: The Real Louvre Heist After “Lupin” | October 19 2025, 14:49

Just yesterday we watched the first episode of the series “Lupin”, in which Assane Diop, inspired by the adventures of the fictional thief Arsène Lupin from Maurice Leblanc’s novels, together with two accomplices, carefully plans and steals a necklace that once belonged to Queen Marie-Antoinette from the Louvre. The episode was very cool, I hope the whole series is too.

And today I see in the news that today criminals stole jewels of “immeasurable worth” from the section where the French royal regalia are kept in the Louvre, and then fled the crime scene on scooters. The thieves entered the Apollo Gallery, where the French crown jewels are housed, using a ladder and, presumably, small chainsaws. Nine items were stolen from the collection of Napoleon’s and the Empresses’ (Josephine’s and Eugenie’s) jewels, including a necklace, a brooch, and a tiara. The entire theft took seven minutes. At least one of the stolen items was found near the museum. It appears the robbers dropped it during their escape.

What a coincidence