Alyona & Co. - Whether "From Russia with Love" or "From Russia with Lust," the world's fascination with Russian women shows no end in sight

RT America video: From Russia with Lust, November 26, 2010.

http://youtu.be/-YIrlTWmxRw

Alyona & Co. - Whether "From Russia with Love" or "From Russia with Lust," the world's fascination with Russian women shows no end in sight

Almost 50 years after the worldwide release of "From Russia with Love," the second of the James Bond films -and one of my two personal favorites- despite all the 007 films that have come and gone and become part of our everyday experience and pop culture, despite all the beautiful actresses who've played their parts to the hilt to advance the narrative of the world's favorite espionage agent, the number-one-rated all-time "Bond woman" among James Bond fans remains the first Russian femme fatale, Tatiana Romanova.

Or, rather, the faux Russian, since actress Daniela Bianchi was actually Italian.

No matter!

She was Russian in the film!

We love us our Russian femme fatales!

Above, an amateur remakeof the trailer for "From Russia With Love" and one of the better ones you'll find on YouTube, too.

http://youtu.be/VqAOf66o1Wg

,

From Russia With Love - 1963 (Theatrical Trailer)

http://youtu.be/n26GjSLcbdY

Before there was a Tatiana Romanova to distract MI6's James Bond from the task at hand of preventing the Russians from getting their hands on high-tech gadgets, there were other Russian femme fatales of one sort or another, some stoic and others smoldering.

There was director Ernst Lubitsch's 1939 romantic comedy "Ninotchka" starring Melvyn Douglas and Greta Garbo -"Garbo laughs" was part of the film's famous marketing campaign. Garbo's the stoic visiting Russian official who meets dignified schemer Douglas in Paris and whose personality evolves as she comes to spend time with him.

Moral of the story, as always, is that 'Opposites attract.'

Eventually.

Ninotchka - 1939 (Original trailer)

Ninotschka - Melvyn Douglas and Greta Garbo's characters meet for the first time and it's far from instant attraction, as she makes clear her disdain for the West.

http://youtu.be/H3sjxMRwQBk

Then there was smoldering Russian streetcar driver Theodore (Hedy Lamarr) slightly skewing newspaperman Clark Gable's view of Russia in King Vidor's film "Madame X" a year later in 1940. Her he likes, Russia, not so much.

Comrade X - 1940 (Original trailer)

I'm a longtime Hedy Lamarr fan.

And why do Western consumers, especially men, immediately get a certain mental image in their heads when they hear the word, "Natasha"?

No, not this one...

Boris & Natasha, Russian Spies

http://youtu.be/EtpCosu-FH4

something sorta like this one...

Clip from NBC-TV's "My Name is Earl": Jasper's Russian mail order bride says "Moose and squirrel."

http://youtu.be/fO12p3iXqrc

And where was Irina Shayk, the 2011 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model that's melted hearts all over the world and quickly became one of the most-followed women in the world from? One guess.

Yes, Mother Russia.

http://www.theirinashayk.com/

From 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit special video:

Irina Shayk - Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2009

http://youtu.be/fvQoSobQ4J8

From 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit special video:

Anne Vyalitsyna & Irina Shaykhlislamova strut their stuff in St. Petersburg, Russia's front-window to Europe.

http://youtu.be/m-zUlrsiZbQ

My favorite Irina?

Irina Rodnina, the female Russian pairs figure skater who, along with partner Aleksandr Zaitsev, were the most dominant pair in the world, and the template for future generations of a certain refined Russian figure skating style that was pure magic and radiance on the ice.

She was transcendent!

Irina Rodnina & Alexander Zaitsev - Pairs Figure Skating, Long Program, 1978 European Championships, Strasbourg, France.

http://youtu.be/IWzQYjgudz4

Guess who Rodnina's daughter is?

Alyona Minkovski.

Really.

That just absolutely floored me.

Above, a screen grab I did of Alyona Wednesday night on her show, talking about the U.S. economy with a guest.

I didn't know that amazing fact until THIS summer!

It's actually hard for me to look at her the same way knowing that information.

This is the fourth post of mine that has mentioned RT's Alyona Minkovski, and my last post on her in April was one of the five most-popular posts since the blog was born in early 2007:

1. APRIL 22, 2011

Beguiling Alyona Minkovski zeroes-in on TIME's "100" list and fillets some particularly dubious celebs we're supposed to admire -but DON'T!

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/beguiling-alyona-minkovski-zeroes-in-on.html

2. OCTOBER 19, 2010

Shockingly age inappropriate or simply base marketing hucksterism? The Taylor Momsen example staring us right in the face

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/shockingly-age-inappropriate-or-simply.html

3 SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

Alyona Minkovski interviews Wired Sr. Editor Kevin Poulsen about Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and the group's immediate future

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/alyona-minkovski-interviews-wired-sr.html

To close this Russian-centric tangent, I've got the Russian-language version video of Belarus-born Norwegian singer/violinist extraordinaire and 2009 Eurovision Song winner Alexander Rybak's "Europe's Skies," one of the handful of go-to catchy songs I've been singing and humming -a lot- in the car this year when stuck in traffic.

I prefer the English-language version because I've heard it so many times, but this one is okay, too.

Александр Рыбак - Небеса Европы (Русская версия)

Alexander Rybak - "Europe's Skies" (Russian version)

http://youtu.be/izej_xd-ESE

-----

You can watch RT America here LIVE 24.7.

http://rt.com/on-air/rt-america-air/

http://rt.com/

Alyona Show YouTube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlyonaShow

http://www.youtube.com/user/RTAmerica

http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday

Beguiling Alyona Minkovski zeroes-in on TIME's "100" list and fillets some particularly dubious celebs we're supposed to admire -but DON'T!

Russia Today America video - Alyona Minkovski zeroes-in on TIME's "100" list and fillets some particularly dubious celebs we're supposed to admire -but DON'T! http://youtu.be/nHkWwtnwa58

This week, TIME magazine's annual embarrassment to journalism, their "100" list, came out.

"Meet the most influential people in the world..."

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1984685,00.html

Yeah, I know, I know, Breakling News... same old tired MSM faces and Usual Suspects, with the lovely Blake Lively's tossed in for a wild-card.

Supposedly, this list is comprised of some of the most influential people around, but RT America -formerly Russia Today America- host Alyona Minkovski throws a red flag on the whole embarrassing enterprise by simply highlighting the fact that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, self-promoting author Amy Chua and actress Blake Lively are on the list.

I like Blake, but admittedly, it's hardly anyone's Murder's Row of deep thinkers!
http://justjared.buzznet.com/2011/04/22/blake-lively-chris-colfer-times-100-most-influential-people/

I wrote about Blake here on March 24th, 2009 with the title, Blake Lively: A Smile That Can Fill a TV Screen!



Above, screenshots I took of Gossip Girl star Blake Lively on CBS-TV's Late Show with David Letterman, March 24th, 2009.
My photos are larger at http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/blake-lively-smile-that-can-fill-tv.html

No, not the professor or researcher or historian whom you've never heard of who is doing some amazing and revolutionary work in an esoteric area you otherwise think little about, but whom within a year or so, will absolutely rock our world view, dumbfound us with their discoveries or create an antidote or cure for something that we think is a death sentence now, but will seem self-evident years from now.
Someone who could use some kudos to get over the hump.

U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the DWS pal?
Really?
She's not even the most influential politician in her own state -Gov. Jan Brewer is.

And not that it has anything to do with the video, but I would absolutely pay money to watch the lovely and personable Alyona -who is really looking better than ever- absolutely pummel some of the more exasperating female reporters, experts and consultants that currently get trotted out on TV with regularity now, both verbally and physically.

She can start with the distaff crew at MSNBC, since I don't watch it at all anymore but recently heard yet another eye-rolling story about Contessa Brewer that just reaffirms my decision.

At this point, it hardly matters if it's true, Contessa's hopelessly smug and unctuous eye-rolling attitude over so many years, her refusal to believe something that conflicted with the Beltway MSM orthodoxy, and her cuteness being completely negated by her vacuousness and self-deception, means nobody I know takes her seriously.
And neither should you.
If you put your ear up to her ear, you can hear what sounds like a wind tunnel.

Alyona Show YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlyonaShow

You can watch RT America here LIVE:
http://rt.com/on-air/rt-america-air/

Shockingly age inappropriate or simply base marketing hucksterism? The Taylor Momsen example staring us right in the face

Jail Bait in Chaps 'Taylor Momsen'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkf3eURu5lY


Like most of you, I love glibness. Some of you may even like it more than your faithful blogger.
It's like a little boost of something, a shot of sugar or caffeine at just the right time when you're dragging.

When I worked in D.C. and was working on some big cases, especially mergers, where I and other members of my team would put in 60-70 hours and practically live in the firm's large conference room, that time was always around 3:15 p.m. or so.
We were already worn out by Thursday and knowing at 3:15 p.m. on Friday there was another seven hours ahead of us, and that we'd be there from 10-9 on both Saturday and Sunday, was rough.
But we got take-out food from the best restaurants in D.C., learned a lot, made lots of new friends and helped a client out that could be very grateful and was actually in-the-right, so you just cope with it.

Sometimes, hearing someone saying the perfect glib thing in the most unexpected of places or context, much like seeing someone actually suffer their long overdue just punishment after long evading responsibility, like parking tickets, and then happening on seeing the offending car towed-away, can have a salutary effect on the rest of your day.
You're smiling on the inside!

But glibness for the sake of glibness can often be like a -choose your own personal example here- delicious Key Lime pie, which after the third slice in an afternoon at a charity fundraiser just makes you sick, no matter how good the coffee or the company.

(A perfect example was in 1982 while driving down from IU for Spring Break at the Fort Lauderdale Sheraton Yankee Trader with some friends.
Though we always aimed to make the best time we could to get down here, part of our tradition was to ALWAYS stop for a bit at certain places: a local restaurant in Elizabethtown, KY that had multiple 20-year old waitresses who looked like the ever-adorable Amy Smart(!), a great pecan place in central Georgia, and the Shoney's Big Boy restaurant in Macon, GA.
That year, though, we got caught in a downpour and figured we'd cool our heels there for a bit longer 'til it stopped, which is how I came to order a second slice of Key Lime pie with my third cup of coffee.
Five minutes after finishing it off, the sugar nearly made my brain explode!)

And so it is with our amusing Russian TV friend, Alyona Minkovski over at RT America, Russia Today's U.S. channel, host of The Alyona Show, which airs at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
http://rt.com/About_Us/Programmes/The_Alyona_Show.html
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlyonaShow

A little of her can be fun, amusing, charming and even thought-provoking at times, like a delicious dinner over at the Tri-Delt house on Third Street in Bloomington, when you formally meet some of your good friend Gail Amster's sorority sisters, and come away impressed, bedazzled and even a little weak-in-the-knees.
Wow!!!

You see first-hand, all over again, just like the last time you were there, why they are la creme de la creme of IU's sororities, along with Kappa Kappa Gamma, Chi Omega, Delta Gamma and Pi Beta Phi.
Your pal Gail's a beautiful, charming and talented Phi Beta Kappa with a fabulous personality, and is captain of the Red Steppers dance team, to boot, but there's a lot to recommend her "sisters" too!
And you are so very, very glad you are at IU!

http://www.indiana.edu/~tridelt/ -Correct, the sorority seen in Breaking Away
http://www.iubpha.com/ -IU PanHel

But sometimes, when discussing some subjects, Alyona seems to be a little too glib for her own sake, and then it's just a downer all around for everyone, especially the viewers who want some gravitas once in a while.
Not to be a buzzkill, just to insure a decent amount of responsible discussion on the show.
Sometimes, it's like she doesn't realize that she can take it down a notch once in a while and be just as informative and entertaining.

That was what I was thinking after first watching this video of her's at the top of this post last Friday night, featuring Alyona's interview with Cris Clapp Logan on the latest scandal-du-jour featuring teen actress Taylor Momsen, who, in my opinion, seems to have no earthly idea how unappealing her public persona is making her to people who are going to largely decide her future.

And that is NOT other teens at The Galleria mocking their friends who have to work part-time because their parents don't want them to think that money grows on trees.


Sweetie, talented directors want talented young actors and actresses who CONSISTENTLY show up on time, know their lines and speak them exactly as they are written, and who hit their marks.
And who are NOT "problems" on the set.
They are not your parents, your understanding Grandmother or even your West Hollywood shrink.
They're your boss.

http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/celebrity/celebrity-news/2010/04/12/is-taylor-momsen-about-to-quit-gossip-girl
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1321728/Under-age-Taylor-Momsen-lights-Gossip-Girl-set.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

You, Taylor, despite plenty of advantages, popularity and some degree of talent to speak of, are NOT a 17-year old Natalie Wood -beloved!- and at age 17, you are already starting to collect baggage of the worst sort.
The "sort" that makes casting directors put you in the Plan B stack when directors call, because they want to keep directors and producers happy.

Southwest Airlines may take your baggage for free, but in a competitive marketplace like Hollywood, while your personal antics and histrionics and looks may help you get into lots of places on the QT, many people you'd like to work with in the industry are starting to think they just don't want to touch you until you have come down on one side of the other.
It's your choice.

Just remember, Taylor, there are planes landing at LAX everyday with more talented (and more attractive) young women than you, so wise-up or be 'yesterday's news' at 23 in the not-too-distant future.

You'd be smart to start looking at Jennifer Garner as a role model, because everyone loves working with her for a very good reason -she's the consummate professional.

She does all those things I listed above, and she was doing them years ago, even when she was less well-known than you are now.
Maybe you should try it.
Or "act" like you are.
Just saying...

See also:
http://www.enough.org/inside.php?tag=640UAE1GT0
http://www.tmz.com/2010/10/14/taylor-momsen-parents-television-council-revolver-gossip-girl/
http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/search?q=Momsen
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/
http://www.aftonbladet.se/sofismode/article7923618.ab

Alyona Minkovski interviews Wired Sr. Editor Kevin Poulsen about Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and the group's immediate future

RT America's Alyona Minkovski interviews Wired Sr. Editor Kevin Poulsen about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the group's future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emsPfOG5OaI



http://rt.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlyonaShow

http://www.youtube.com/user/RTAmerica

http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday

http://www.youtube.com/user/primetimeru

"Sub-sub-sub-culture" exposes Japanese men to ridicule as they take 'virtual girlfriends' on holiday - augmented reality for lovelorn otaku nerds

Russia Today is a 24/7 English-language news channel based in Moscow and other international cities that I first watched the Saturday morning in April when Polish President Lech Kaczynski's plane crashed outside the airport in Smolensk, on his way to represent Poland at a ceremony commemorating the 1940 Katyn massacre, killing all 97 people on board..
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/11/world/la-fg-polish-president-crash11-2010apr11
RT was the only TV news network reporting the story LIVE from near the scene, plus had well-informed analysts on the phone from various European capitals, including Warsaw, who could speak knowledgeably about Kaczynski's personal life and Polish political history and how these events all connected in one horrible day for modern-day Poland.

As I wrote at the time here, since I was awake when it happened, the Fox News Channel was first U.S. cablenet to report the crash, and as usual, MSNBC slept, showing one of their many old crime documentaries they lard their overnight and weekend schedule with, rather than break into it.  
That was not the first time that I saw MSNBC be the last TV cable net to air some breaking news, so now I never even bother flipping to them to see their take on anything.
Homepage: http://rt.com/

Their YouTube Channel has some interesting videos.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday

Alyona Minkovski in particular interviews all sorts of characters on her show:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlyonaShow
Here's a video from her show about the topic du jour: lovelorn otaku nerds in Japan taking their virtual girlfriends on holiday with them to a hotel in Atami on the Pacific Coast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebrvafpjIlg



Some of you longtime readers may recall me writing in the past here on the blog that my first year living in Washington, D.C., I lived next door to (in front of) the Japanese Ambassador's official residence on Nebraska Avenue, N.W., thus putting yours truly in one of the safest neighborhoods in the city, due to all the security details in the area, which I greatly appreciated. 
This was when the crime and murder rate in D.C. was out-of-control and made D.C. America's murder capital.

I was living just down the street from the campus of American University, as well as the Swedish Ambassador's home, NBC-TV's Washington news bureau and their DC affiliate, WRC-TV, as well as the real-life HQ for NCIS.  (Years later, when I was living in Arlington County, I had an NCIS agent for a neighbor.)

Wall Street Journal's Japan Real Time blog:
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2010/09/03/this-weeks-hits-virtual-girlfriends-walkman-beats-ipod-calling-the-boj-shots/

'Love Plus' resort: A solo romantic getaway
Why are men with virtual video-game girlfriends flocking to a Japanese beach resort town?
http://theweek.com/article/index/206736/love-plus-resort-a-solo-romantic-getaway

Konami Digital Entertainment http://www.konami.com/

http://news.discovery.com/tech/love-plus-dating-game.html