Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Just so the 10 hours long journey through the carreer of the fab four comes to the end. "The White Album" isn`t a collective work by the band anymore, but it still has many beautiful songs upon it. The tension in the band has become really bad, and the making of "Let it Be" which was supposed to be a film of them making an album becomes a real horror - with nobody liking what the rest did. Ringo leaves the band, but comes back again, the same happens to George. The songs are simply beautiful, despite all the problems in the band. The arrival of Yoko in John`s life is probably the biggest problem which the band faces. This doesn`t mean that John can`t come up with great songs anymore, but the Beatles as a band have almost died by the time. Still they do the legendary performance on the roof, which was simply superb. Later the Beatles reunite to record "Abbey Road" being almost sure that it`s the last album, therefore they were much more relaxed and each one of them did their best. There`s also the video to "Free as a Bird" - but that song sounds too little like the Beatles and too much like Tom Petty (I wonder whether Jeff Lynne of ELO also produced Tom Petty). And the last words of John in this film are just so cool: "It`s just natural. It`s not a great disaster. People dramatise like it`s the end of the world. It`s only a rock band that got split up. It`s nothing important." Isn`t it really?

This album is considered either a silly excourse the Stones did in 1967 just for fun, a terrible record that doesn`t make sense, a "Sergeant Pepper`s" ripp-off, or the most underrated rock album of all time. After having been listening for it for some 3-4 hours I gotta say that this surely ain`t my favourite record from the Stones. The opening "Sing this song all together" bugs me a lot and I don`t think that the kind of psychedelic junk suits me fine. "Citadel" is much better. "She`s a rainbow" and "The lantern" are good, but I still prefer "2000 light years from home". To my book there`s a bit too much goofy experimentation on this album sometimes making it close to unlistenable and the Stones aren`t certainly known for being unaccessible as the Residents.

Pēc šašlika un novusa sezonas atklāšanas skatījāmies jaunāko Supermena inkarnāciju pagājušā gada grāvējā (nosacīti) "Supermena atgriešanās". Negribu izlikties gudrāks kā esmu, tāpēc varu godīgi pateikt, ka manas zināšanas par Supermenu un tā nozīmi ierindas amerikāņa ikdienas dzīvē ir tuvas nullei. Es neesmu lasījis supermena komiksus (kā to arī varētu gaidīt), neesmu redzējis nevienu "Luisa un Klārks" sēriju (kā to varētu iedomāties) un nevienu Supermena filmu (kas, protams, ir šokējoši).

Varu pavēstīt, ka tuvāko mēnešu laikā visticamākais neviens Uriah Heep albūms faktoīdam nepievienosies, tā kā ātrāk kā 27. numura diskā to parādīšanās nav gaidāma. Un, kā teiktu kāds Latvijas hokeja komentēšanas klasiķis - labi, ka tā!

This wasn`t one of the books I had on my A list for reading. No, Sir! I had a lot of better things to do than reading Arthur Hailey. Not that I knew anything about the author. But I was asked to read it. My girlfriend had to read it for some psychiatry course but she asked be - you do it! So I did. I was told this was supposed to be a horror book. Since I never had read a horror novel... well not never but rarely. Yet it wasn`t a horror novel really. If you ask me the genre of this book I`d say it`s a script for a suspence film, for a thriller. There`s a whole lot of different characters, including Mel Bakersfield who runs an airport, his brother - a guy who`s guiding airplanes at landing and taking off. Then there`s Mel`s wife, some foxy lawyer, a guy named Joe Patroni who can solve almost every problem, a crazy fellow named D.O. Guerrero who wants to blow up an airplane so his family would get his insurance money. Mostly it`s Guerrero who made me read this book - for he`s the only really psychic character. Many people don`t consider Hailey a real writer - I`d rather say he`s a workingman than an artist. Without a doubt this book is perfectly suited for becoming a film for it doesn`t have too much literary value but it has a lot of things going on in it. The ending was crappy as you`d expect from a book that has "bestseller" written all over it (not on my copy, of course, for it was issued in the USSR).

"Goijas spokus" es gaidīju ar nepacietību (cik nu es vispār kaut ko spēju ar nepacietību gaidīt) - kā nekā iepriekšējā Formana filma iznāca nu jau diezgan tālajā 1999. gadā, un visas četras viņa emigrācijas perioda filmas, kuras esmu redzējis ("One flew over the Cuckoo`s Nest", "Amadeus", "The People vs Larry Flynt", "Man on the Moon") es novērtētu ne zemāk (bet drīzāk - augstāk) par astotnieku, nemaz nerunājot par to, ka cēlies Formans ir no Čehijas, kuras kultūra man vispār ir īpaši simpātiska.

Otrais Manfrēda Manna zemes bandas ieraksts, kas parādās šajā faktoīdā, ir mazāk pazīstams nekā tas, kas vēsta par lakstīgalām un bumbvedējiem, taču šeit atrodama grupas viena no pazīstamākajām dziesmām - "Angels at my Gate". Iespējams gan, ka tā dziesma nemaz nav tik pazīstama, bet tā bija iekļauta izlasē "Classic rock ballads", ko pirms ļoti daudziem gadiem iegādājos centrāltirgū un kur līdzās Manfrēdam Mannam mitinājās arī Deep Purple, Nazareth, Rolling Stones, Styx, Kansas, Guns`n`Roses un vēl vairākas grupas, kuras šobrīd atcerēties nevaru.

Can you make an action film deep and insightful? Never mind the answer, the creators of this film certainly try to achieve that. Tom Cruise who calls himself Vincent is a hitman who must kill five people within a single night. To do that he hires Max (a black taxi driver) to drive him around. As you can guess, Max doesn`t know from the start the mess he`s in. The whole movie leads to Vincent killing a young woman that Max met before Vincent got into his cab, and about Max saving her from the vicious killer. The action part isn`t actually particulary interesting, but the most time Max and Vincent just are driving to a location where someone must be killed and with them talking about moral, the meaning of life etc. Vincent is absolutely cold blooded but he isn`t that simple as you could have probably guessed. Still he uses words to destroy Max`s life thus provoking his own death. As you probably know, I`m not particulary into action films, some moments of this film were certainly predictable, it wasn`t very realistic, but on the other hand - I`ve seen much worse films that this one.

Tim Burton asked Johnny Depp to star in his latest film. They had already worked together in "Edward Scissorhands" so Johnny probably thought this could be a perfect opportunity to gain good reviews from the critics and also it was his best chance to impersonate Michael Jackson. He doesn`t succeed 100% for he has a nose way too big in order to be mistaken for Michael Jackson.

Šajā filmā apvienojušās divas mockmūzikas skolas: Džeks Bleks un Kails Gess (kā Tenacious D) no vienas puses un Lījams Linčs (leģendārās "United States of Whatever" autors un izpildītājs) - no otras puses.