Another one from the Fellini films (after 8 1/2) didn`t leave an impression of true greatness on me. Yes, some parts of it very really interesting but it is not my kind of film. Perhaps it`s so because I don`t like clowns, maybe not. Of course, it is not a film of low quality - there are no simple good/bad characters but nevertheless I didn`t find it to a film for me.

Another one of the classics that I thought to need to catch up with. And this one was no disappointment. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are great as Martha and George - the crazy couple that lives somewhere between reality and fantasies. Only four actors, almost no change of decorations, and still a great movie. Characters don`t act the way one would expect them to, but are we really that predictable and do rules of logic apply to everyday life? I don`t suppose they do.

After some thirty minutes I was already fast asleep, and I had no clue why this is considered to be a good movie. The plot was nowhere close to interesting, characters - uninspired, etc, etc. But then suddenly everything changed. No, I don`t mean to tell you that I found any interest in the storyline. It was the music, performances by celebrities of R&B that made the difference. And the Blues Brothers band also rocked quite hard. Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, John Lee Hooker - now that`s what I call musical entertainment. Once again it`s the soundtrack that saves the day.

Edward Norton is an ex-skinhead leader that wants to stop his brother from following his footsteps. The film is quite strong although I have to admit that all the black characters lack depth. Though I don`t mean to tell that the movie has a racist message, of course it doesn`t. The basketball scene is lame, but nevermind that. At one stage it seemed to me that the film might have a compelety idiotic happy ending, but it didn`t, and that`s really good (not that the actual ending was that great but at least it didn`t smell likek saccharine).

I`ll probably never know why I downloaded this film. It just accidentally happened that I saw its title in some users share in a P2P hub, and I thought: Hey, that`s one famous film, it`s certainly in the IMDB 250 greatest films of all time. Only later on I realized that it wasn`t there. I was mistaken and that was a bit of a surprise. Logically the most common reaction upon that would be deleting the film from my computer`s hard disk since after all it`s an illegal action to store films of illegitime source on your computer but I decided to watch it despite it not being as highly rated as I thought it would be. Hey, I never wrote that last sentence! Nor did I write the beginning! I never, I repeat never download films from the Internet! I saw this film on TV one Sunday morning, since it`s one of those films that Latvian television tends to repeat and repeat once again. So this is a story about an Arabian king who`s turned into a blind man by an evil wizard and he`ll remain that way until the wizard lays arms upon that fellows fiancee (if you can call her that since their relationship wasn`t exactly like that). And the wizard has also turned a thieving little boy into a dog who`s now the only friend of the blind king. The film is intended for children of course, therefore apart from the quite discussable the girls agreement to let the wizard lay his hands around her (which probably meant that a lot more was involved but this is 1940 and not the porn era after all). As a film for children "The thief of Bagdad" is quite good and even the special effects seem to be quite decent for its age. Nowadays you`ll still most likely watch this film just as a historical curiosity because advancements in the field of technology have been beyond imagination in those 65 years therefore the film has undoubtely lost some of its original attractions. Still - not bad at all. Just to give some names - June Duprez is the princess (quite good looking knowing how much tastes for beauty have changed over time), John Justin is the leading man (I`d probably like him if I was a woman or a gay man) and Alexander Korda is the producer of this film. The latter seems to be quite a legendary figure, for even I had heard his name somewhere. Still I have absolutely no idea - where.

That Jack Black is a really nice fellow - watching a comedy featuring him doesn`t mean that you will spend something like two hours of your worthy (or less worthy) life watching jokes of the banana peel slipping category. I gotta admit that I tend to like films about rock music, even the most stupid ones (like `Little Nicky` where the heavy metal business saved the day for me). And this one ain`t that bad, it`s certainly not even in the quality of `High Fidelity` but it`s still pretty good, and those children that actually play their instruments - now they are really awesome.

Special author note: I`ve changed my mind and now I`m ready to accept this as a really fine record. I`m not sure why I gave it such a very low rating in the first place and I`m too lazy to re-read what I`ve written here, so take my word - "One way ticket" is a real fine record after all. Still, since it probably depicts some of the feelings for the record I had something like 50 days ago, I won`t delete everything written below. Why would I? "Girlfriend" still has a ZZ-Top riff though.

A thrilling record. It`s almost impossible to believe that Cale is already more than 60. His music is still fresh and no aging problems seem to be visible. A very listenable record, certainly among the best 2003 could offer.

Good ol` Mr. Beck still doesn`t give it up and wants to keep up with time. While his guitar playing still is top-notch the actual pieces of music don`t leave a strong impression. First problem that comes to my mind is that there are no real songs on here. Sometimes there appears a bit of vocals from Apollo 440 or something of that kind but there is absolutely no singing and there is too much repetiveness on here. I can imagine this record as a good background music but concentration on it ruins the impression.

Usually I`m not fond of romantic stories about knights and their quests for fame and love. And this is a perfect example of me not being fond. The creator of Mr. Sherlock Holmes could most certainly come up with something a bit more entertaining than a totally bland story about some squire with lots of physical power and very little of a character. The latter is a problem I wouldn`t expect to encounter in a book by Conan Doyle since nobody can deny that his most famous character is even a bit more real than most people are.