Igenlode Wordsmith

So we've finally met 'Malish' -- who gives his real name, but I didn't get it as it flew past...

I started off on this 'episode' of "Smok and Malish" (half an hour or so of watching; we are still in the first episode of the series) with the studious intention of doing all the 'work' over short segments; watching the scene straight as intended, then rewatching with Cyrillic subtitles, then rewatching with Cyrillic subtitles and pausing with a dictionary, then finally rewatching with the auto-translated English subtitles to see if that picked up any colloquialisms or other material that I'd missed. And for the first couple of scenes I did do just that( but got carried away ) while YouTube persisted in inserting advertisements in the worst --or most effective-- places imaginable.

It absolutely cannot have been random. Every time something lethally dangerous happened, there was another cliff-hanger ad break at that exact moment, with multiple ads clustered close together in the most action-filled section :-P

I mean, objectively I knew that both characters had absolute plot armour at this point in the story, because neither the titular Smok nor Malish (even if we don't yet know how Kit becomes 'Smoke') couldn't possibly die in their first scene together. I even consciously *told* myself that during one of the enforced pauses for advertisements. But by that point the film had grabbed me to such an extent that I had my nails dug into my palms and my jaw clenched tight, and couldn't look away( cliffhanging action )... and I breathed a long sigh of relief and was finally able to stop watching ;-)

So by this point I'm clearly *very* much emotionally engaged in Kit's story, whether because it's an excellent lead performance or a compelling production overall (based on promising source material)!
Created a new tag, because we're obviously going to need it :-D

I wrote a long post, but the browser crashed while I was looking for images :-(

Summarised version:

( BBC Radio Lord of the Rings )
Waiting for the Out: continues very good -- Guardian review

(  Marie Antoinette )


And also *two* Russian Smekhov-adjacent serials: an in-depth nine-part podcast on the 'musical spectacular' "Ali-Baba" (which I had vaguely heard of but hadn't realised he actually wrote all the lyrics for -- apparently it was another beloved Soviet children's classic, at least according to the possibly-not-impartial makers of the podcast!) and a pre-Musketeers adventure serial that was referred to in several recent interviews, "Smok and Malish", in which he plays the lead. Again, I had vaguely heard of this: it is clearly the prior production briefly alluded to in "When I Was Athos" which had involved falling off roofs, out of canoes, and into snowdrifts :-D
( Read more... )

I don't know -- I'm beginning to feel that *maybe* I've crossed some sort of threshold since Christmas, and that I'm actually starting to understand Russian freely at last...? ( Improved listening comprehension )

( Fast-talking historian )