T.A.T.U.:Screaming for More

Rating:
Summary: Untapped Potential: 2 "Remarkable Rockets" gone to waste...
Review: "I knew I should create a great sensation," exclaimed the rocket...
and he (burned) out!
From "The Remarkable Rocket" by Oscar Wilde

That quote pretty much sums up the career of tATu - Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina. They're not the first pop phenomenon to flash and burn out within the space of two years, but their full potential went untapped (more on that later.) "Screaming for More" definitely did have their most devoted fans craving something beyond the faux-lesbian shtick they perfromed on stage. Sadly, they did not deliver.

"Screaming for More's" North American package could be considered valuable since it contains - aside from "All the Things She Said" - three videos that were not seen Stateside:

First, the melodramatic "Not Gonna Get Us," a fantasy where the two lesbian protagonists scheme on escaping the disapproving authority figures in their neighborhood and flee to a remote, untamed haven as they trade reckless vows of love to one another. In the video, singers Yulia and Lena hi-jack a huge tractor trailer and barrel their way through the snowy Russian wilderness. Along the way, they run over a hapless road worker. They then step out of the cab of the truck and mount the top of its trailer. They bask in their freedom, caress each other and pose heroically as they hurtle heedlessly
into parts unknown. This little drama would have been great shameless fun except for the unsettling image of the innocent road worker being run over. He hardly qualifies as the typical snooty authority figure most teenagers dream of plowing into. He's nothing like the overbearing dad Twisted Sister playfully fling around with slapstick abandon in their "We're Not Gonna Take It" video. This video has compelling images, but it is poorly thought out.

"30 Minutes," a quiet and more tender single where the girls sing of consumating their mutual attraction sexually. The song is coupled with a video that's both erotic, morbid and somewhat unrelated to the shy theme of the duet: Yulia plays a jealous girl who constructs a time bomb and sets it inside a carousel where Lena - Yulia's crush - is fondling and teasing a boy suitor. Naturally, the video ends with a well-shot and well-edited explosion that rains flaming wreckage throughout the amusement park where Yulia prowled after Lena.

tATu do a satisfactory cover of The Smiths' "How Soon is Now?" with Lena's mellower vocals contrasting with Yulia's more piercing pipes. There's one problem: This song is about painful lonliness from the perspective of a young MALE. It begins with the lyrics: I am the SON and the HEIR. In my opinion, a more appropriate selection producer Trevor Horn could have chosen for the Girls to sing from the Smiths' catalog would have been "Sheila Take a Bow." "Sheila" is a sly, playful courtship song where the singer woos the object of his/her desire out of shy aloofness as they playfully bend gender roles. "Take my hand and don't be shy/I'm the girl and you're the guy." "Sheila's" bump-and-grind beat would have fit the duet's image more comfortably, and who knows? It may have become a favorite at high school proms and the dance club circuit (I'm crying over spilt milk, folks.) The video itself is a slapped-together montage of live performances.

The DVD contains three behind-the-scenes featurettes of tATu recording English tracks of their album in Los Angeles and in London with Trevor Horn. (The Buggles/Yes/Frankie Goes
to Hollywood.) These featurettes reveal how poorly packaged and mismanaged tATu were for their American debut: Captioned quotations of questionable origin attributed to the Girls flash on the screen. The featurettes are abruptly edited, giving the viewer the suspicion that there was a serious lack of worthwhile footage. Lena providing uninspired answers to insipid questions while Yulia barely says a word due to her poor command of English. Why not simply interview them in their Mother Tongue with English subtitles? It's embarrasing to behold, they're like female adolescent versions of Bush and Cheney bumbling through a press conference, with their producer Ivan Shapovalov playing the role of a lecherous Karl Rove.

The visual package of artfully shot music videos is clearly designed to overshadow their awkwardness with a North American audience. Their manager, Ivan Shapovalov, basically created a cartoon package of lesbian romance and could have used any two girls as figureheads. So why not dismiss tATu altogether? Mainly because the very same Featurettes that show the weaknesses of the tATu endeavor also give us fleeting moments of Yulia and Lena exhibiting genuine talent and discipline. There is a hand held camera clip of Lena Katina laying down the vocals for a "Stars," a ballad not featured among the videos. The audio source is from a camera mounted mic, so the vocals are untreated by the studio mixing board. The young girl is a masterful vocalist. Another interlude, even more brief, reveals Yulia Volkova as a pianist who runs through a classical piece with an effortless control that put me in mind of Rick Wakeman, the classically trained keyboardist of Yes. I am actually comparing Yulia's command of the instrument with a man who'd been jamming with bands two decades before she was born!

All that untapped potential is the reason why I "mourn" the failure of an act that was the product of a chickenhawk's fevered imagingation (Producer Ivan Shapovalov.) They could have performed songs of homosexual infatuation without being straightjacketed in a pervy, lipstick lesbian image by their producer, an image that predetermined the act's rapid rise and embarrasing decline.

As for the remainder of the DVD, it contains a live perfromance of "All The Things" in Barcelona, Spain and a studio rehearsal of "Not Gonna Get Us" in Los Angeles. Subtitles are in English, Spanish and Brazillian Portuguese and versions of the first two singles are also sung in their original Russian versions ("Ya Shosla S Uma and "Nas Ne Dagoniat," respectively.)

Rating:
Summary: Some t.A.T.u fans will be Screaming for More
Review: a couple of days ago i received my copy of the t.A.T.u: Screaming for More dvd, i bought it on ebay by the way, you will find the best prices there if you're smart and do your research.

anyway, boy was i dissapointed with this dvd.

the very first thing i noticed was that the video quality was not that of a dvd. a tv broadcast is a lot better than what we got in this dvd.

second thing i noticed, was when i quickly fast forwarded to chaper 2, which would be "All The Things She Said +Russian Version (Ya Soshla S Uma)" the intro of the song sounded the same, but as soon as they started singing, OMG!!! i can't describe how mad i was about listening to the remastered/u.s.a version of Ya Soshla S Uma Terrible. I, like everyone else, was expecting to hear the ORIGINAL RUSSIAN version of Ya Soshla S Uma. I'm still upset about that so i have not watched Ya Soshla S Uma in its entirety. The name of the song was also misspelled and it was printed as "Ya Shola S Uma" just like the audio CDs. I don't know why.

the remix video of All The Things She Said/Ya Soshla S Uma was nothing but a very bad edited version of the original video. that i do not care for, as it looks as if was edited with Nero or some sort of Photoshop video editing software.

the 3rd thing that got me very upset was that Nas Ne Dogoniat is neither the Original Russian audio, nor the Original Russian video. I somehow knew this would be so, but i was hoping they would leave this video intact becuase of the "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" rating this dvd release received, but no, the audio and video we got for Nas Ne Dogoniat was the version edited for US tv broadcast, funny thing is i don't remember ever seeing it on any music channel in the United States, and still this version exists. The original version of Nas Ne Dagoniat incluedes the part where there is a picture of (i think is Yulia) a naked little girl, and that should have been the only reason for this dvd to get a Mature rating, but go figure the americans.

I won't talk about the remix version of Not Gonna Get Us, as there's really not much to say about it. It's just another badly edited video of some sort of Photoshop video counterpart editing software with a audio of a remixed version of Not Gonna Get Us.

"30 Minutes" audio and video quality is badder than the rest, it deserves a 5 out of 10 in quality. the song is good though.

"How Soon Is Now" video is a copilation of "Behind the Scenes with Yulia and Lena: Part 2 and 3". very good song cover, ok video.

behind the scenes with Yulia and Lena part 1, 2, and 3 could have been just one special bonus material but they like the idea to make us think we're getting more for less. badly done and directed, but being a fan of t.A.T.u/Taty i won't complain about it.

the photo gallery incluedes very nice pictures that i'm sure everyone's already seen long before the dvd came out. good quality.

the bonus material Q&A with Yulia and Lena was a rather insipid/funny/boring interview with insipid/funny/boring questions.
i am a fan of theirs so i will not complain much about it.

subtitles were great by the way, they could at least help one understand what Yulia and Lena are saying sometimes. spanish subtitles were made for spain distributition, central/south american natives (like me) will find them to be a little awkward.

overall, i give this t.A.T.u: Screaming for More dvd release a 6 out of 10.
me being a great fan of t.A.T.u but that the real honest truth of my review.
americanized/remastered audion versions of "Ya Shoshal S Uma" and "Nas Ne Dogonyat" really upset me a lot.

the barcelona presentation was the only near to dvd quality video that was inclueded in this package. pretty good actually.

as a t.A.T.u fan i couldn't be happier, since this is pretty much the only thing to an official dvd we'll ever get. i doubt t.A.T.u is coming back (the had about 4 hits but they are still a one hit wonders).


Rating:
Summary: t.A.T.u. Rocks This Is GREAT!!!
Review: hi im sorta obssesed with tatu. and i just wanted to make my opinion on what i think. the dvd is extrodinary it lets us see videos, pictures, interviews ect... it really lets us see what lena and julia go through to record and lets us see what there like. so ya this dvd is really GREAT i recomend it as an abselute must for all t.A.T.u. fans!!

i hope they release more stuff soon and the it comes faster in Canada

Rating:
Summary: Te Amo T.A.T.U.!!!
Review: I really like t.A.T.u. I like the beats to the music. I can't wait till the DVD comes out! I heard so much about it, and I've seen it before because my cousin bought it on EBAY. I thought it was excellent. People, you must see it. It's worth the money. Can't wait to get mines. Adios :D

Rating:
Summary: Overall good dvd.
Review: I'd say that as a whole this is a good dvd. It comes with a nice poster. The dvd contains four music videos from their cd. The best of the four is All The Things She Said. You can watch either the english version or the Russian version. It's intersting to compare the two versions. In the english version you don't see much of the girls singing. The russian version is almost identical, but with more scenes of the girls singing in their own language. You can also watch a dance remix version of that video too. The video for Not Gonna Get Us is cheesy, but i loved it. It looks very rushed, and for some odd reason they rewind many of the scenes and play them three times. The scene of the two girls on top of a moving 18-wheeler truck speeding down the highway with no driver inside will make you burst out laughing at how rediculous that part is. The video for 30 Minutes could have been better, since that song is so excellent. The story of the video is that one of the girls sees her girlfriend kissing and making out with another man on a carousel, so she gets jealous and angry, and assembles a homemade bomb inside the stall of the girl's bathroom at school and plants the bomb on the carousel and blows it up. Some of the photography was interesting but i think they should have done a better video and a different storyline. Anyone who truely knows about Tatu knows that the girls are not gay and that the whole lesbian angle was justinvented as a marketing scheme. One of the girls even admitted to this. I also heard that Tatu are breaking up because one of the girls wants to go solo and is tired of the whole pretend-lesbian thing. The final video is for How Soon Is Now. It's basically a concert video. The bonus features are decent. You get three documentaries about the girls where they talk about their lives and the making of the videos and the cd, plus there are bonus segments that show live performances at events such as award shows. Considering that Russian is their first language and that English is supposedly one of the most challenging for foreigners to learn, i thought that they spoke English fairly well. The only bonus feature that i wasn't impressed with at all was the Q & A session with the two girls. The questions are very trivial and so are the answers. There were only about five or six questions asked, and it was stupid stuff like what are your hobbies (they enjoy bowling and billiards). Other than that one minor flaw in the bonus features i'd say this is an overall good dvd if you are big fan of Tatu. If you don't like Tatu, don't buy this dvd because the songs will be drilled into your head by the time you've finished watching it due to the fact that all the menus on the dvd have their music constantly playing.

Rating:
Summary: Large collection of TaTu's work, But could use a little more
Review: Like most people, I first got interested in T.a.T.u. after their first single, "All the things she said" came out and was highly addicted to it, then "Not gonna get us" was released and I became an even bigger fan. I never purchased their CD's, but always liked their music that I've heard.

This DVD is divided into several sections:
Music Videos, Behind the Scenes, Performances, Photo Gallery, Bonus Materials, and a Play all Music Videos option.

Music Video's is a list of all their video's

* All the things she said
* All the things she said russian version (ya shola S uma)
* All the things she said remix video
* Not gonna get us
* Not gonna get us russian version (nas ne dagoniat)
* Not gonna get us remix video
* 30 minutes
* How soon is now

Overall, that sounds like a big collection of videos, but in actuality, its not much.

As far as I can tell, the original video and the russian versions (Of All the things she said and Not gonna get us) are the exact same video, only with a different audio track, so right off the bat, that's 2 less real videos.
Then the remix videos are the same video footage, run through a series of filters (Such as slow motion, Color filters, etc..) along with a remixed audio track. I didnt care for either of the 2 remix songs nor videos, and with it using the same footage, it basically brings the DVD down to 4 different music videos (1 for each song).

I really did enjoy all 4 of the videos though. The first (All the thing she said) involves the girls outside of a school in the rain, the second (Not gonna get us) has them driivng a large tanker truck through an iceland area, the 3rd (30 minutes) has them at a carnival in a dramatic video, the 4th (how soon is now) is a series of behind the scenes and live footage cut together.
The entire Music Video collection only runs for a total of 30 minutes, and is in Stereo sound.

BEHIND THE SCENES is divided into 3 parts, each running for a total of 6:30, 4:30, and 5:30 (respectively).
These are nice short little clips of behind the scenes features for a brief time, but mostly contains new interview footage (Such as "Where did your name TATU Come from?"), also in Stereo sound.

PERFORMANCES contains just 2:
* ALL THE THINGS SHE SAID: MTV Europe awards countdown show
* NOT GONNA GET US: rehearsal

All the things she said is a live performance on what loks to be a european "Total Request Live" show outdoors with a small audiance. It's a real good performance, but is obviousely lipsynched to a tape so it sounds identical to the album version. (4 minutes)

Not gonna get us shows the 2 girls as well as the band in the studio practicing the song, This also looks to be lipsynched, though. (4 minutes)

the PHOTO GALLERY is a collection of about 30 images from photoshoots, there is no "Slideshow" option, so you must use "NEXT" and "BACK" to go between them.

The BONUS FEATURES is also the 'setup' menu where you can select the subtitles (English, Spanish, Brazilian portuguese), but also has a QUESTONS AND ANSWERS Segment.
Questions on this portion include:
"What is the name of your album?" (0:26)
"Tell us some funny stories" (0:54)
"What are some of your hobbies?" (0:24)
"WHat are some of your touring plans?" (0:29)
"What is a normal day for t.a.t.u. like?" (0:45)

You can take off about 10 seconds for each segment because that time is used to have a blank screen with the question, and another 4-5 seconds of blank-screen at the end), it's a disappointment because it turns each of the questions into a short 15 second clip. Another disappointment being no "Play All" option, so you must click each question individually, then return to the menu afterwards).

Overall, It's a nice DVD, but it could have been so much better.

The total runtime on it is under an hour, and with so many long-running music DVDs being released lately, its a little bit of a letdown.
It also doesnt feature Dolby Digital sound like most others, and the video footage seems real compressed. I would have really enjoyed a longer (30 minute) documentary instead of the short clips used. I also would've really liked more Performance footage.

For the casual fan, or even hardcore fan, its still a good DVD and I recommend it fully. I just wish there was a little more in addition to what's already there.

Also of note, however, is this DVD Contains a "green and white" Poster in addition to the DVD insert. This is a 4-page foldout poster of the 2 girls together, something that was real nice to see.

Rating:
Summary: Screaming for More DVD
Review: This really is a great DVD. The music videos are fantastic. They also includs the Russian and Remixes. T.A.T.U. really is a great band! They also have a 3 part documentary about the girls. And lots lots more! I highly recomend this DVD to everyone, even if you're not a T.A.T.U. fan.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent DVD!!!!
Review: Well first of all, i think this DVD is the best DVD ever!!! It brings a lot of things that U.S. people didnt get to see, like the "30 minutes" and the "how soon is now" videos. I love the fact that they have the english and russian version of "All the things she said" and "Not gonna get us" and also the remixes. I recommend this DVD to everyone, cuz is really good. I love this DVD, and im sure anyone that buys it is going to like it.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent DVD!!!!
Review: Well first of all, i think this DVD is the best DVD ever!!! It brings a lot of things that U.S. people didnt get to see, like the "30 minutes" and the "how soon is now" videos. I love the fact that they have the english and russian version of "All the things she said" and "Not gonna get us" and also the remixes. I recommend this DVD to everyone, cuz is really good. I love this DVD, and im sure anyone that buys it is going to like it.