What TV Shows and Movies have you seen recently and recommend?

[WuDu]

5 minutes ago, SShcherbyna said:

I read Tarle a lot. Although he did not write much about the topics raised in the "history lesson", in his books he distinguishes between Ukrainians and Russians, whose languages and cultures are quite close, but still develop in parallel, and not one follows from the other.

Igor Danylevsky - Ancient Rus'. He is considered a rather good expert of these times. It very clearly divides Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, although it says that the last two peoples have always lived between two forces, so they were under constant pressure and their identity may seem contrived.

I also read a lot of Petro Tolochko, I consider him a Soviet historian, but he is still Ukrainian, so maybe he was also paid by Poles and Austrians). The view on the history of Kyivan Rus is similar to that of Danylevskyi.

Oleksiy Shakhmatov is a Russian linguist and historian. I read (partially and abbreviated) at the university. He is considered one of the best specialists (both in Ukraine and in Russia) in linguistics. It quite clearly separates three languages (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian), which arose almost simultaneously from the Proto-Slavic language and each developed in parallel (of course mixing with the languages of its neighbors, especially the Slavic group).

Interesting, what about the historic data mentioned? What about Ukraine being neutral yet moving towards Nato?

6 minutes ago, SShcherbyna said:

I do not understand your attack. I only wrote that today Russian PR is better than Ukrainian, but I did not say that Ukrainian PR or propaganda does not exist)

My point is that your leadership offers nothing but smoke and mirrors for the Western audience in order to defraud the Western taxpayer to send money and weapons into the 2nd most corrupt country in Europe to keep a war going you have already lost. Kuleba fever dreaming of taking back Crimea , Zelenskyiii and his "spring offensive 23", Melnyk demanding trillions (with a t) of Euros in weapon deliveries while his son is chilling in Berlin.

It's just funny that you mention PR in case of the interview.

17 minutes ago, Livertool said:

 What i do care is our own western propaganda fed to people so they can't vote based on what is really going on. 

That's the point.

[SShcherbyna]

5 minutes ago, WuDu said:

What about Ukraine being neutral yet moving towards Nato?

For NATO, I wrote in a topic that was closed and provided graphs of the survey by year. In short, the majority was against NATO and for neutrality until 2014. Then, for obvious reasons, supporters of NATO began to increase, as they saw protection there.
If someone wants to accept someone into the alliance, then it is necessary (even if the reasons are different) for both parties.
Let Ukrainians decide whether they want to join the alliance, and let the alliance decide whether they want to see Ukraine as part of themselves. Everything is simple.
Personally, I do not believe in Ukraine's membership in NATO in the next 10 years (in my opinion, it makes no sense to predict for more years) and in general I have always been in favor of neutrality.

[Livertool]

Oh yeah forgot to ask @SShcherbyna when Putin mentioned the illegal third round of your president elections, was it true or even hint of truth in it? Don't remember what elections he was talking about, latest one or earlier than that but curious anyway especially when US elections are on the way and no doubt fraud claims will be thrown out there again.

11 minutes ago, SShcherbyna said:

Let Ukrainians decide whether they want to join the alliance

For sure, unfortunately seems that NATO made the desicion for you instead with declining Putin's offer like Stoltendonk there said. Lets put it this way: would you have liked NATO to take that offer if war wouldn't have even ever started or is current situation better?

16 minutes ago, SShcherbyna said:

Everything is simple.

Yes and not. If you squeeze someone or something in the corner, eventually they will fight back. Russia did, now Ukraine is doing it, if China/Russia would park their nuke ships and troops on coast of USA they would response as well.

[SShcherbyna]

3 minutes ago, Livertool said:

when Putin mentioned the illegal third round of your president elections, was it true or even hint of truth in it?

The second round was with a result of 46% against 49% in favor of Yanukovych.
Yushchenko submitted (he has the right by law) a package of complaints to the Central Election Commission (CEC). The complaints were mainly related to the mass casting (a type of falsification) of ballots for one of the candidates (Yanukovych) mainly in the polling stations of eastern Ukraine.
The CEC rejected Yushchenko's complaint (it has the right under the law if it considers the complaint inappropriate or if the violations do not affect the election results).
Yushchenko called on his voters to picket and thus force the CEC to consider the complaint (pickets and calls for pickets are a constitutional right). The beginning of the Orange Revolution.
The CEC finally rejected Yushchenko's complaint (he has the right under the law if he considers the complaint inappropriate or if the violations do not affect the election results).
Yushchenko filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court against the CEC (he has the right by law).
The trial was public, among the evidence were numerous videos from surveillance cameras installed at the polling stations, which clearly show the mass throwing of bundles of ballots into the ballot boxes.
The Supreme Court recognized the elections as canceled and ordered the CEC to set a new date for the elections, i.e. the third round.
It should be noted that polls before the second round showed equal chances of victory, some polls showed equal chances even to the tenth of a percent. But the pickets activated Yushchenko's voters and their turnout was higher in the 3rd round, which ensured his victory. Pickets continued (including calls to vote) until the very day of the 3rd round.
Yanukovych (Russia supported him in this) declared that this was a violation, because campaigning is legally prohibited in the last week before the elections.
Yushchenko stated that 7 days before the elections, he publicly called on his voters (this is true) not to picket and campaign.
Yanukovych did not file a complaint with the CEC about violation of the "7 days of silence" rules (although he had the right).
Yushchenko wins with almost 52%

 

[WuDu]

9 minutes ago, SShcherbyna said:

The trial was public, among the evidence were numerous videos from surveillance cameras installed at the polling stations, which clearly show the mass throwing of bundles of ballots into the ballot boxes.
The Supreme Court recognized the elections as canceled and ordered the CEC to set a new date for the elections, i.e. the third round.

Well, well, well, where have I heard that one before?

Could you add more context to the historic data that were mentioned? Especially what happened geographically when you were a Soviet Republic?  

1 hour ago, SShcherbyna said:

Let Ukrainians decide whether they want to join the alliance, and let the alliance decide whether they want to see Ukraine as part of themselves. 

So Putin was right in that regard. Nato was encroaching towards Russia.

1 hour ago, SShcherbyna said:

Everything is simple

It is indeed. Try to join Nato and you'll get wrecked. Stay neutral and you deal with Russia being your neighbour. We've seen that before at the end of the continuation war. Or do you think Finland was keen on making peace with Stalin, paying reparations, losing land and betraying the Germans? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the appropriate Mannerheim quote here is: "We're a small country. If we fight to the last man, there will be no Finland anymore." 

1 hour ago, SShcherbyna said:

Personally, I do not believe in Ukraine's membership in NATO in the next 10 years (in my opinion, it makes no sense to predict for more years) and in general I have always been in favor of neutrality.

Let me get on record here and see if I'm right again. Ukraine will never join Nato. The war will end with negotiations, Ukraine will get split up, demilitarized and forced to stay neutral. Since you totally depend on Western welfare, it's all about Western inflow of money and weapons. Once Trump gets re-elected, that will be the start of the whole process

Personally, I think that's the out all the other Western leaders hope for to get out of this situation. Trump gets elected, stops funding your war, peace talks within 5 minutes and all the war-mongering politicians and the mainstream media can then frame this as "Dolchstoßlegende 2.0".

Stab-in-the-back_myth

Difference will be that at the end of WW1, there were no foreign troops on German soil...

[SShcherbyna]

Quote

Putin: At the same time, Stalin insisted that these republics, which were formed, be included as autonomous entities, but for some reason the founder of the Soviet state, Lenin, insisted that they have the right to secede from the Soviet Union

On the one hand, it is so, but it is very simplified and the reasons for choosing the Leninist option were quite valid.
The Bolsheviks, by their very nature, are dissatisfied with the emperor, revolutionary-minded ordinary people from all corners of the empire, a consequence of clumsy domestic politics and an unsuccessful war. And on the outskirts of the great empire, Bolshevik attitudes were correlated with separatist ones.

When the empire collapsed, it turned out that the Bolsheviks were not a single unit (oh, wonder), and the Georgian Bolshevik had somewhat different views on the future than the Ukrainian Bolshevik, or the Russian Bolshevik, or any other Bolshevik. The question arose of what to do next, and the Bolsheviks split into two camps. One camp wanted to rule their small country, and the other (ideological) camp wanted to spread Bolshevik ideas to the whole world, so that the proletariat of the whole world would be united.

And the Bolsheviks, in fact, had to negotiate with the Bolsheviks. And it was possible to preserve a single country and carry the idea of communism to the world only when the ideological camp of the Bolsheviks promised another camp of Bolsheviks the right to leave if something went wrong with communism.

Lenin and Stalin were both supporters of a single country. Only Lenin was in favor of the compromise option, and Stalin was in favor of the force option (to destroy a part of the Bolsheviks who were against it). As a result, they still decided to compromise, probably because the dispersion is smaller 🙂

Quote

Putin: And, also for unknown reasons, he endowed the emerging Soviet Ukraine with lands, people living in these territories, even if they had never been called Ukraine before

The rubric "he shouldn't drink anymore"

1613

If I am not mistaken, this is the first mention of Ukraine on maps. But that's not all. The word "Rus" in the Old Slavic language means "the land, the territory of the people" and therefore the number of these "Rus" was countless, so people both in conventional Kyiv and in Novgorod could call themselves Rusych, but at the same time not associate themselves with each other at all and speak different languages. It's the same as Scandinavians or Africans (yes, I realize I'm oversimplifying). Therefore, there are a lot of even older maps, where there are a lot of different "Rus" on the territory of modern Ukraine/Russia/Belarus. The Russian Empire essentially united all these "Rus", which was reflected in the name.
Ukrainians began to call themselves Ukrainians and their territory Ukraine much later than Europeans (map of 1613). After all, for Europeans, we were "on the edge" (in the Slavic language, "on the edge" is pronounced and written as Okraina). Ukrainians called themselves "Rusych" (before the time of the Cossacks, during the Cossack period there was even more confusion, since there were even more variants of the Cossacks than the Rusych) as well as other peoples, Kyiv Rusych, Novgorod Rusych, Northern Rusych, Southern Rusych, etc.) had their culture and language unique from other Rusychs, and only during the Russian Empire began to call themselves Ukrainians, to distinguish themselves among the many peoples of the empire.

Quote

Putin: Even if we remember, let’s go back, 1654, when these territories returned to the Russian Empire, there were three or four modern regions of Ukraine, there was no Black Sea region there. There was simply nothing to talk about.

First, it was not a "return" but a conquest.
Secondly, yes, Ukrainians did not live in the south of modern Ukraine (like Russians or Cossacks or Rusychs) until the time of the Russian Empire. But the Russian Empire "returned" these lands, resettled the indigenous Christian peoples (Armenians, Greeks) deep into the empire. Over time (when the Tatars finally left these territories), "disobedient people" from the empire itself (mainly Ukrainians, Kubans, and Russians) were forcibly relocated to these territories.

Quote

Putin: And for many decades, the Ukrainian SSR developed as part of the USSR, and the Bolsheviks, also for unknown reasons, were engaged in Ukrainization

an absolute lie

A story from life. My grandmother came from a small village and from the age of 8 (1954) worked as a milkmaid on a collective farm. She was given a lower salary because she spoke Ukrainian (this rule was abolished in her collective farm only in 1976, my mother was already 7 years old and she remembers her grandmother's complaints about the fact that her salary was unfairly reduced for this). You had to speak Russian at work, but my grandmother never spoke a word of Russian during her life (according to her) and was very proud of it.

This mentally ill grandfather chooses the most convenient date for himself in the history of mankind and wants to "return" the lands that should "justly" belong to him. To understand whether this position is adequate or not, it is enough to imagine what will happen if each country starts to "return legal territories".
Of course, we can still talk about the historical block of interviews, but I seem to have expressed my opinion about everything. As for the political bloc, I don't want to enter into a discussion, especially with Trumpistas 🙂

Edited February 10 by SShcherbyna

[Rushbie]

Movies and series that makes hunger arise 😄
Top 1, Hannibal.
hell i thought it was a puny joke after reading books/watching movies before and despite it having Mads Mikkelsen on it. Ended up saving every episode to times when having a personal meal. With red wine. Crazily delicious setups for food 😍
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2243973/

The Menu.
Meh, have watched it 2 times now. Ralph Fiennes won't disappoint. Works well if fantasizing about what to eat next. Appetizer.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9764362/

The third i haven't seen yet. Gotta give it a go, because Eli Roth as a director and the mad gun guy from Hostel 1 in it (Rick hoffman). Drooling already 😄
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1448754/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Edited February 23 by Rushbie

[Livertool]

6 hours ago, Rushbie said:

Hostel 1

Totally forgot that one, gotta find it somewhere to see if it is still any good.

[Livertool]

Speaking of horror, IT was good. (Original, new ones are pretty much shit as far as i am concerned)

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0099864/

And sounds of my "skate punk years" to go along with it: pennywise rocks!!

 

[Rushbie]

In the modern stream of absolute crap from everywhere, something not to miss, imo 👍
Worth the time. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13210838/


https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788316/

[GR1ZZL3R]

I watched The Gentlemen over two nights, very unusual for me as I normally only watch 1 or 2 episodes per day, but as you say, well worth it. Only one or two small quibbles, from watching our Vinnie in the past I thought he was underused, and being totally honest the end was slightly disappointing, to me a t least, I won't spoil it and say why, but highly recommended anyway.

I have Shogun on my to watch list and will start it as soon as all episodes are available. I read the book many years ago and watched the mini series with Richard Chamberlain, I'm expecting this to be a far different take.

 

Edited March 20 by GR1ZZL3R

[WuDu]

@Rushbie

Watching "The Gentlemen" right now, one episode at a time, and so far it's entertaining. Fredward FTW! 

I'll watch Shogun once all episodes are in, however I had to set it up for my father to watch, who read the book, and he likes it as well.

Two good recommendations! 

@jerry Does this show run on TV Polonia or Polski Sat as well?

I don't know what made me watch it, however they marketed it as a dark and gritty mystery thriller and corrupt journalists propagandists were praising it was well. Usually I know better that to trust anything coming out of German Public TV, but Babylon Berlin is also in part produced by ARD and Dark was great. What can I say? An absolute pile of crap and the worst part? Half of it was in Polski with subtitles!

[WuDu]

On 20/03/2024 at 22:05, WuDu said:

Watching "The Gentlemen" right now, one episode at a time, and so far it's entertaining.

Finished "The Gentlemen" recently and I'd say that it's a good recommendation. Especially in a sea of liquid trash today's streaming world, it's OK. However I also have to agree that the last 2-3 episodes are falling off a little. To compare, squid game was better and fell off even stronger over it's last 2 episodes. But if you like those Guy Ritchtie gangster movies, you'll be entertained.

 

 

[WuDu]

Gleen Greenwald (of Edward Snowden fame) and Prof Mearsheimer about the situation in Ukraine and Gaza. Very interesting:

The Hill TV on youtube also has surprising content:

Well, well, well...Something I told you guys for 2 years now.

Summary:

[jerry]

Watched this lately, was hoping for some kind Arrival/Contact mashup. 

• whole over 4h series could be condensed into 1h
• promise of some big reveal only to end with stupid ending
• you can be astronaut after having mental breakdown, all you need is to burn the psych results which you bring home
• whats with casting german ladies with enormous noses[schuttler]? is this some kind german fetisch? i wanna know, its like 5th or 6th german production with female with the nose that you can pick lock  at this point i think its deliberate
• naturlich one of two astro[NOT]nauts is of immigrant origin
• no bonus points from netflix for LGBTSJQGD character, but mentioned immigrant is very effeminate, so maybe that
• zero black characters [i dont think i even saw one black extra], so no points from Boatengs, Rudigers or Odonkors 
• lead child actress was great and deserved better
• also liked lead actress Peri Baumeister [not that horrible haircut though], she was in that vampire on a plane netflix Blood Red Sky which was watchable

[Livertool]

Just finished das boot series. Weirdest thing, i spotted one episode on our tv and got the feeling have i seen this already. Started to watch it on stream and through first two seasons i was positive i've seen it before but no recollection about the story so got little bit worried is alzheimer kicking in or what. Who knows, maybe i've watched it shitfaced sometime as series ain't newest new. From third season on i knew that i haven't watched it all the way through thou.

Anyways, i think it was good. Kept me interested all the way to end. Didn't like all side plots, some of them were built through many episodes just to be end like running to a wall without no greater meaning. Characters i did enjoy, they were complex and controversy enough to keep things interesting. Not the greatest great but solid 8/10 and worth to watch imo. Might throw extra + for some nice hooters in there too 🤭

[WuDu]

2 hours ago, Livertool said:

Just finished das boot series...Didn't like all side plots

I think the first 2 seasons ran on Free-TV here a while ago. As long as the plot stays within the Boot, it's not that bad. Wasn't there some lesbian resistance side plot as well? WTF? And the captain banging some black dancer (at least female) in New York?

[Livertool]

1 hour ago, WuDu said:

Wasn't there some lesbian resistance side plot as well?

That i find went well with the story as ss-chief wanted other lesbian and other one was who he was after to arrest but

1 hour ago, WuDu said:

And the captain banging some black dancer (at least female) in New York?

this was one thing i didn't get at all what was the point. Majority of season 2, or was it 3, they built their love story up just to end it the way it ended (don't want to spoil too much if someone wants to watch it). I expected something epic but outcome was quite a anticlimax.