Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Back to the classics of the American filmmaking. In a little town somewhere in the South States during the great depression lives a family of a lawyer named Atticus who has two children - a daughter call Scout and son named Jim. There`s a strange guy named Boo Radley living in a neighbour house, weird things are told about his being mad and very dangerous. Also there`s a farmer who`s daughter has been beat up by somebody and a negro called Tim Robinson who`s blamed for the crime. It turns out that the father was the one who attacked his daughter but nothing can convince the jury and Tim Robinson is sentenced guilty after which he sorta commits suicide (he`s dead all right, but it`s not an official suicide). What`s important about the trial it`s that Atticus was the defender of the black man and almost everybody in the rasistic town hated him for that. The whiskey drinking daughter hitter attacks Atticus`es children one night but gets killed by Boo Radley who`s not as bad as people think of him. I really liked the film, I don`t even know why. Perhaps it`s because Atticus loses the trial, because it shows the way people judge other people without even knowing them but only because of their prejudices. By the way, a mockingbird is a bird that sings all the time and does nothing apart from that. Boo Radley is something similar to that.

Lately I`ve been into Jan Svankmajer, and this here is the first full-feature film by him I`ve seen. It`s an adaptation of `Alice in Wonderland` by Lewis Carroll. And it is a strange adaptation indeed - all the characters except for Alice herself are animated and they don`t look really pretty. And the action doesn`t take place in some magic forest - on the contrary everything happens in some ugly house. From the aesthetical point of view it`s a masterpiece - never before have I seen something like this. For example, the catterpillar that is in fact a sock with false teeth sitting on a mushroom that is being used to patch socks is quite impressive and so is the teaparty featuring the Mad Hatter and the March Hare both of whom are not only insane but also quite unlike Carroll might have thought them to be. On the negative side the film is not very much entertaining, especially in the beginning.

Did I expect this one to be good? No, I oughta be mad to await anything worthy. Therefore it was not a dissapointment but just a completely stupid movie.

Oh my god! You actually can see Terry Gilliam on screen! And he has a perfect role of a man claiming to own a diamond mine which is in fact just a rock mine! But he`s not the main star of this film which he has directed. Michael Palin is. Gilliam`s old friend from the Monty Python days is Dennis Cooper who is a cooper`s apprentice looking for a job in a medieval town which is terrorised by the vicious jabberwocky from Lewis Carrols poem. What else matters is Dennises beloved Griselda who is fat and ugly and doesn`t care for him at all. What this film is - it`s a realistic take on the middle ages, where everyone starting with the king and ending with the beggars is dirty, filthy and stupid. The king himself is called Bruno the Questionable, his castle is a mess, he`s an even bigger mess, he enjoys knight competitions and lets his best men die for no particular reason. Due to a misunderstanding the kings daughter thinks that Dennis is a prince who`s come to rescue her, and after he accidentally kills the dragon, he marries the princess despite his heart belonging to the fat Griselda. This film is not a comedy, that`s one thing I can say about it, although it has its funny moments, and it has its dull moments - for example, there are quite manny pissing scenes in this film. But it is different from almost everything you`ve seen before and after.

Have you ever considered that the world outside your head never existed? That you were the only real person in this world and everybody else was just a part of your imagination? I certainly have. In this book the main hero who doesn`t even have a name accidentally discovers that there once was a philosopher named Gaspar Langenheart, who started a theory that he was the Creator of everything. And this hero starts looking for information on this philosopher, but it turns out that there`s there little to find. Not many people considered him significant, and more than that - there was no real proof that he ever existed and ceased to exist. But what happens is that the main hero partly becomes Gaspar himself, and its a thing like that - every 50 years a man jumps out of nowhere and starts digging up information on Gaspar Langenheart, thus prooving that the man was something like God and that he couldn`t die. Or could he? The book digs deep but manages to stay entertaining. It`s one of the best novels I`ve read this year, without the slightest doubt.

Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson. That`s impressive, isn`t it. A strange spaceship is found in the pacific ocean that seems to have been there since the 1700s. A group of scientists including the already mentioned trio and a guy whos name I`m not familiar with gets on the board of the ship and discovers a strange goldlike sphere. It proves that the sphere is a living thing and that one can enter it. The trio of stars are the only survivors in a submarine after the others die under strange circumstances and they have to find out who the strange fellow named Harry communicating with them is, also needing to stay alive. I can`t really say that this was a smart film, not really. It was a bit strange, a bit creepy but not particulary good. Sci-fi may be one of my favourite genres but not every film in it is good. Talkin` about "Sphere" I gotta say there`s nothing really in it that will make me remember much about the film in the years to come. Basically a throwaway.

Alena Kūltera filmu "Holivudaszeme" skatījāmies N2 apartamentos pēc ne īpaši veiksmīga brauciena uz Kandavu turienes Velnalu nobildēt mēginot.

(valoda: krievu). Šī Hosē Rizāla grāmata ir kārtējais pierādījums tam, ka mana lasāmvielas izvēle visprecīzāk būtu raksturojama ar haotisku funkciju, kur zināma loma, protams, ir mājās grāmatu plauktos esošajam saturam. Toties vismaz vienu šādā veidā esmu sasniedzis - šis romāns atklāj jaunu lappusi manā faktoīdā kā pirmais Filipīniešu darbs, kas ticis šeit apskatīts.

This was one of the few films I was really waiting for. Terry Gilliam hadn`t done a film for quite a while and I was certainly eager to find out what he`s managed to come up with. Will it be as great as "Brazil"? As silly as "Jabberwocky"? As crazy as "Fear and loathing in Las Vegas"? As useless as "Time Bandits"? It had a bit of it all. Will and Jake Grimm are two con artists travelling around Germany in early 1800s and fighting the dark spirits which they themselves create. But when they have to go to a forest where a group of their peers supposedly work they find out that strange things have a place in their world. A wicked witch played by the beautiful Monica Belucci, a child-eating horse and lots of other stuff for your pleasure. Gilliam has been better and he has been worse. Matt Damon and Heath Ledger are the brothers Grimm. THey aren`t really those two folk tales collecting weirdos from the history. They are way too cool for that. The film is quite a creepy one, but it`s not really what I`d dream it would be. Yet I wasn`t dissapointed - after the very low standarts of expectations different people like Roger Ebert provided with their reviews I was ready to be happy about anything Terry would give me. What was missed was at least a single MPFC member in a silly little role. But that`s the sad thing with those films nowadays.

Šī filma man ir uzskatāma par zināma veida debiju - pirmo 2007. gada filmu, ko esmu noskatījies. Tā kā galveno lomu šajā darbā atveido Hjū Grānts, lieki teikt, ka tā ir romantiska komēdija. Tomēr var pieminēt, ka viņš šeit saspēlējas ar Drjū Berimoru, kura arī lielākoties piedalās tieši romantiskās komēdijās. Personīgi man šķiet, ka Hjū labāk iederas angļu un nevis jeņķu filmās, bet tas ir tikai mans viedoklis.