Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

The more you watch it the less interesting it gets. The characters repeat the same jokes most of the times. Lou and his not really sick friend Andy who always says: "I want that one" and later says "I don`t like it". Vicky Pollard and the dumb "yeah-but-no-but-yeah" stuff. The Scottish guy with his flute is kinda ok. The fatfighters things don`t go nowhere, the transvestite Emily Howard is dumber than dumb, and Anne, the crazy person ain`t too diverse. Oh, I do like "The only gay in the village" though. By the way, the extras don`t make it much better. After having watched "The Rock Profile" best-of I came to think - if it`s the best these guys can come up with in the field of immitating pop-stars what would be their worst? They aren`t too good with make-up, their jokes are mostly rubbish and they can`t even pick up the right stars to make fun of. For example, where the hell did they forget those nice and cuddely Gallagher brothers? And the thing is only getting bigger and bigger, despite the fact that after having seen season 1 I`m sure I won`t need no season 2.

Although it ain`t the first album by D.B. it`s usually considered as his first, for before it David Jones wasn`t particulary known even in UK. But everything changed with the title track of this album (he at least became a one hit wonder for some years). "Space Oddity", the weird ode about Major Tom, a guy in space, is without a doubt the best track on this album and the only one you can`t live without. Lyrically it`s nice but one thing is wrong with this record - there aren`t too many beautiful memories on this disc - after having listened to it some three-four times over the period of 30 hours I have only managed to remember "God knows I`m good" and "Memory of a festival". The longest track on the album is "Cygnet Commitee", it goes for 9,5 minutes, by the way I don`t know what Cygnet is. Containing several parts almost as a prog-rock piece it starts off quite impressively but towards the end there`s quite an unlistenable coda. There are several Bowie albums that I would prefer to this one for sure.

It`s the first album of the giants in some eight years. I can`t really say that I was eagerly awaiting it all this time but it surely was interesting to learn what they could come up with after all these years. Jagger and co aren`t getting younger, of course, and they don`t find it particulary easy coming up with great melodies and superb lyrics, the way they did in the sixties/seventies. But they still try to be loud and proud, and some of the songs aren`t bad. Yet there ain`t a single signal of greatness - it`s just your average album by an aging rock band that still wants to keep its reputation. Had it not had the brand of "Rolling Stones" to boost the record it would remain unnoticed for sure. But as it is it will probably be sold pretty well but I doubt that many people will really love this record. I don`t certainly, it just leaves me cold.

It started off quite nicely but proved to be overlong. This book is a comic book about comic things about books. First thought this was something similar to the "scientific essays" in S.Dali`s diary but it proved to be real literature science and not just a hoax. Basically Mr. Rath-Vegh has collected different funny and not so funny stories from the history of bookwriting and book buying and selling. Some of the elements in this book seem to be pretty unrealistic - for example, Rath-Vegh mentions scientific works about Adam being the first writer and the first scientist, etc, etc. But the problem with this book is that it`s too complicated to write a book on such a subject. But it was a bit too boring for me, so I stopped reading everything from the beginning to the end, but just read a few passages that seemed to be more interesting than the others. Yet in its own category the book ain`t a bad one, it`s just not that kind of stuff I`d normally read in big amounts. It`s more like a good vinegar - you need it but you can`t drink a lot of it (unless you want to die).

Nicole Kidman has sold her soul to the devil of mass consuption! Either this or she`s out of her mind. How otherwise could you explain the reasons an actress of her name and calibre would agree to do a film like this one? On paper it whole looks good - a popular actor who`s career has been on the decline recently hires a simple girl from the street to do the leading role of a witch in the remake of a sitcom "Bewitched". But little does he know that the girl (Kidman) is a witch herself. And little do I know that Kidman, supposedly a young and naive girl is in her mid thirties! Not quite type for a young naive girl. It was different on that real sitcom about the teenage witch Sabrina. Ok, in this film we at least get to see a living cat instead of a talking taxidermists patient. But we also get to see a romantic comedy with a script that was probably written by a single monkey in a limited amount of time, for otherwise the complete works of Shakespeare might have been the result. Jokes are silly, tricks are silly, dialogues are stupid, all supporting actors should receive a death penalty and Nicole Kidman should sign a paper prohibiting herself from ever seing anyone involved in this film again and prohibiting her doing films that I would dislike after the first 10 minutes. This is it, Nicole Kidman! Either this or you`ll do the cat in Sabrina!

This is the second part of T.Mann`s tertalogy about Joseph from the Bible who`s known to most people in connection with his brothers. I`m not sure why I took the second part of the novel from my library. Not that this would be the kind of book where you absolutely must read from the first page til the end - the story isn`t exactly new and unexpected twists aren`t a thing to look for in a book like this one. So this part tells us about Joseph`s youth (as the title clearly suggests) - when he`s in his teenage years, starts having his stupid non-sexual dreams, pisses his brothers off, is thrown by his brothers in a hole, rescued by some travellers and close to being sold into slavery into Egypt. I`d rather not talk about the story but what I thought of Joseph. To me he is an annoying brat, completely deserving the attitude his brothers have towards him. He just thinks that he`s sooo clever, sooo good looking and so much better than everybody else that he needs to wake up and smell the coffee. And the best thing to do that is being thrown in a hole in the ground with a nice perspective of dying there. Now let`s hear what I have to say about the book. First it was quite hard to get into it - T.Mann is a bit a heavy writer, relying quite massively on the German tradition of writing every detail you`ll never need in your life and doing to in quite a boring manner. Later on I found out that it`s quite a rewarding read, yet mainly for my German and not for my soul. It`s good, it`s well-written but it`s not my kind of literature. I may be happy having read at least one of Mann`s works but I`m not planning reading any other part of "Joseph and his brothers" right now.

If this is her best, what`s her average? Es nekad sevi neesmu uzskatījis par šīs dziedātājas cienītāju un, izņemot, "Nothing Compares to you" nevienu O`Konoras dziesmu patiesībā arī nezinu. Tomēr, klausoties viņas labāko dziesmu izlasi, biju cerējis tur sagaidīt arī citas normālas dziesmas. Starp citu, idejiski man šī dziedātāja šķiet diezgan interesanta - viņa tomēr ir izteikti pretrunīga persona, kurai nav bijis bail būt provokatīvai (kas sievietēm - dziedātājām nav īpaši raksturīgi), tomēr muzikāli viņā laikam gan nekā diža nav un "Nothing Compares" viņas mūžā ir izņēmums un nevis likumsakarība (turklāt, kā zināms, patiesībā tā ir Prince dziesma, kuru viņa tikai kaverē). Žēl.

John Cale of the Velvet Underground fame doesn`t give up on recording music. On his latest album he doesn`t pretend to be a young and crazy fellow, oh, no, he records songs like "In a flood" where he sounds just like Johnny Cash a few years before his death. But he isn`t always like that, he also does stuff like "Outta the Bag" where you`d be surprised that the man is over 60 years old. Of course, the days of experimantion Cale was best known for are long gone now but he has some of the weird charm not many musicians have. My favourite track on the record is "Perfect" which sounds so rocking you`d never think it was the same John Cale. With it`s simple rocking sound Cale doesn`t like a dinosaur that still doesn`t wanna die but like a very diverse musician that will record until the day he dies interesting music that will selll badly.

No, I wasn`t really planning to see this film this soon. It was just that I went to a wrong press preview. Not that I wouldn`t be on the list for this one but I was planning to see "Cinderella man" - a film I have no interest in whatsoever. Anyhow, "The Transporter", the first part, doesn`t bring me any good memories at all. It was the kind of stupid action film that makes you laugh more than it keeps you intrigued. Now we discuss the sequel for that film. And you know what? I liked it more. No, it`s still pretty much the same stupid scenario, Jason Stetham (he, who once was so brilliant in "Snatch" and that "Lock Stock" flick) is a transporter - a guy with his rules which include not asking any questions. But now he works as a driver for some rich man`s kid. When the bad guys kidnap the kid and inject him with a deadly virus the Transporter can`t simply let the kid die. So he starts hurting people. Being more skilled than B in Kill Bill, he rarely needs any weapons at all - a fire hose usually is enough for him to stop something like ten villains. Yeah, technically in terms of SFX and stunts the film is brilliant. In terms of a plot it sucks. But at least it doesn`t have a sappy love story like the first part. And it has the guy who played Tom in "Lock Stock" as a Russian biologist villain. And it has a nice middle aged Frenchman who cooks for the police after he`s been taken to the office.

One of Oliver Stone`s most famous films. Buddy Fox (Charlie Sheen) works in the stoke selling-buying part but he wants to become a big gun. In order to achieve that he has to get to Gordon Gekko (the notorious villain actor Michael Douglas) - a local multi millionaire who`s become rich as a pig just by selling and buying stuff. When he does that GG teaches Buddy how to play in the big game. It proves to be quite a dirty one, but Buddy is ready to do almost everything in order to becoming like GG. He gets a high-class chick, a high-class apartment, etc, etc. Only when GG tries to buy the airplane company Buddy`s dad works for in order to break it apart, Buddy can`t stand it anymore. By the way, Buddy`s dad is played by Charlie Sheen`s real father - Michael Sheen, that`s cool. So GG`s and Buddy`s roads cross again. And you can probably guess that it don`t end 100% well for Bud. A film about finance and brokers isn`t particulary easy to make watchable, yet Stone has done a good job with this one. Ok, probably some parts of it aren`t 100% entertaining but as a whole the film deserves little complaints from a fellow like me.