Right now…Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone is on. Actually, in the past two years, I’ve seen almost every Sylvester Stallone movie from the Rocky Series, his arm wrestling movie, the Rambo series, and a number of others I don’t recall offhand. Considering how little television I watch, Ukrainian television producers know when middle-aged foreigners will be watching television…or Sylvester Stallone is very popular…or acquiring rights to run Sylvester Stallone movies is very easy.

Arnold Schwarzenegger movies…well, I saw Conan the Barbarian and a movie in which he was Danny Davito’s twin brother, probably missed quite a few. Will Smith, Sandra Bullock, Tommy Lee Jones, Russell Crowe, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Wesley Snipes, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson…all the way back to the first Road Warrior movie. Chuck Norris seems pretty popular. Old Star Trek – got that. Pretty much everyone who is popular in the United States shows up here…especially if they were popular in the late 1980’s and into the 1990’s. All the good movies from then seem to make a showing. Of course…all of it is in Russian…or Ukrainian. Occasionally, the background English is loud enough to make out the words, but usually it’s easy enough to make out what’s going on. Leastwise, a large percentage of Ukrainian television draws from western movies.

Clint Eastwood? Yes. John Wayne? JOHN WAYNE? Yes…it is a special thing to hear the Russian voice dubbing for John Wayne. Which oddly, in a roundabout way, brings up the most popular American singer…Dean Martin. There are more commercials featuring Dean Martin songs than anyone else.

There is a full mix and perhaps a broader overall mix than one might anticipate – talk shows, comedy, sports, soap operas, documentaries, children shows, cartoons, lots of news and lots of history, and many old black and white movies. Just about everything is covered…almost all of it is in Ukrainian or Russian. Old World War 2 movies and documentaries are frequent and provide footage rarely seen in the west. Anyways, I’m not a big fan of television though it has its place. I flip through the stations before going to sleep and very frequently say, “Wow! I haven’t seen that movie since 1990!” Nothing like watching old re-runs and understanding only about 10% of what’s being said…but really, there weren’t many movies in the 1990s where the script was necessary to understand the plot.

Anyone remembering Demolition Man with Stallone, Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock…well, we all know that Taco Bell goes on to win the fast-food wars. The Ukrainian version claims Pizza Hut did – blasphemy!