Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Dīvaini, ka manā kolekcijā agrīnajos diskos diezgan daudz parādās šī grupa, kurai es zinu tikai dažas dziesmas un no kurām neviena nav iekļauta šajā albūmā. Iespējams, nekā interesanta tur arī nav.

Dīvaini, ka "Kuņas dēls" man tolaik, kad to lasīju pirmoreiz, likās laba grāmata. Ne jau dīvaini tādā ziņā, ka tā nebūtu, bet dīvaini - kāpēc tā. Tagad pārlasot šo romānu, saprotu, ka tolaik daudz ko nebiju sapratis un ka izņemot autoram raksturīgo nekaunību neko vispār nebiju uztvēris.

Last year I watched a film that was done after this book (and done brilliantly by Stanley Kubrick). And now when I had a chance to buy the novel, I didn`t really hesitate. Reading it in Russian was a bit weird though, for the storyteller has a wicked language that has borrowed quite a lot of words from the Russian language which would certainly look more like it if the rest of the text was plain English. Still the story is quite simple - Alex at the age of 15 is one spoiled brat who gets his kicks for living by attacking people in the streets and in their houses together with his gang. But suddenly his comrades turn the back on him and he`s left to the police and charged for murder (which he has commited). Alex goes to prison but after two years he joins a program for "curing" criminals which means that he gets pain every time he sees something bad happening or when he does something wicked himself. In the end he returns back to his old style of being a spoiled brat. Still in the book he grows out of it as well and becomes a normal member of the society. What I like about Alex is that he despite being a violent asshole loves classical music, is pretty intelligent - thus shitting on the whole concept of blaming the modern subculture for youth being out of control.

I have absolutely no idea why do Germans prefer calling God "dear". This is the second book where I see such an expression in the title. Anyhow, Mr. Rilke is considered to be one of the greatest German poets of all time. Since I don`t have any interest in poetry at all I decided just to read a collection of his stories which are supposed to be revolving around God. In fact they are but only loosely. In the form of the stories you have little doubt that Rilke is a poet in deed and not a writer of prose. His style is a bit of expressionism + E.T.A. Hofmann`s aproach towards the word. I can`t say that I enjoyed it very much for to me it all made little sense but I can`t deny that this may be an interesting aproach he had although these stories do sound quite a bit dated nowadays.

Nu, ko, atzīšos - mani kaut kādā veidā piesaista filmas par retard`iem. Jo kā citādi lai izskaidro, ka mēs skatījāmies šo kino eposu?

Tāpat kā Nazareth, arī Manfrēds Manns manos agrīnajos diskos parādās relatīvi bieži, kamēr vēlāk par tāda eksistenci pavisam aizmirsīšu. Kāpēc tā?

This documentary provides a lot of insight on to the material behind the "Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. It features interviews with some of the writers who inspired Brown for his bestselling thriller and it makes much more clear that there ain`t too much substance in Brown`s theories. Basically the main ingredient of everything seems to have been "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" - a bestseller from 1980s, one of the books that also inspired Eco for "Foucault`s Pendulum" - only he didn`t take "HBHG" too serious. Then there were some books on templars and some other books about Mary Magdalene. The film itself is done quite conventionally, without any narration, just some 5-6 people talking. Among the talkers you should see Dan Brown himself yet since my version of film unexpectedly ended after something like 95 minutes (instead of 135) I didn`t get to that part. Of all the talkers only the author of "Holy Blood Holy Grail" seemed to be an interesting person to me - he didn`t appear to be one of the crazy maniacs willing to change the world. Quote from him: "Any document proves only that it has been written and nothing more. Everything else is speculation." (ok, that`s not a direct quote, he used some other word and not speculation but I don`t remember it). What I found particulary amusing the way those posessed people mess with material using only fragments which they like. For instance, a lady mentioned a non-canonic early Christian writing called "The Gospel of Thomas" which supposedly was much more in Mary Magdalene`s favour than the canonic ones. She quoted a sentence from this gospel: "Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don`t deserve life."" By this she meant to show how jealous Peter was of Mary and Jesus` attitude towards her. From this fragment the reader/viewer might conclude that in reality there were HUGE reasons for Peter not to like Mary. Yet I wasn`t too lazy and found the whole text on the Internet. And what do you think was Jesus` reply to the accusation? "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven." That sounds particulary feministic to me, doesn`t it? Usually that`s quite similar to what one would say about his beloved wife whom one wants to give his reign over? Still I`m not going to rate this thing upon whether I believe it or not. It`s quite a decent documentary, perhaps not too deep but quite interesting.

Grupas Green Day trešais lielās ierakstu kompānijas paspārnē izdotais albūms lielākoties netiek dēvēts par grupas karjeras virsotni, lai arī viens būtisks pluss tam noteikti ir - tajā Green Day pirmo reizi sāk eksperimentēt un spēlēt kaut ko mazliet savādāku nekā savas tradicionālās un praktiski identiskās trīs akordu dziesmas.

"Big Nothing" nav no tām filmām, par kurām runā visur un visi - programmētāji-Unreal tournament cienītāji tavā darbavietā, sievietes ar pundursuņiem spa salonā, Tautas partijas deputāti Saeimā, Kristaps Kaupe kārtējā NSS sanāksmē par tēmu "ebrejpediņi ir kaitīgi mūsu sabiedrībai, likvidēsim tos", pat tantiņas tramvajā nekad viena otrai nejautā: "Vai tu redzēji to melno komēdiju ar Saimonu Pegu un Deividu Švimmeru?"

Do you like films about cops? If you like them you`ll probably decide that you can watch this film. Starsky & Hutch originally was a 70`s TV series about two stupid but totally good looking cops. And now we have a full time feature film about these two characters. Starsky is played by Ben Stiller while Owen Wilson is Hutch. These two guys already worked together in "Zoolander" and in "Meet the Parents". And here we go again. The film actually pretty much reminds of the "Zoolander" but this time it isn`t very good. What about the plot? Some drug dealer has found a way to make cocain impossible to find by dogs, and he wants to sell a huge amount of this cocain to resellers. And here do the heroes step in. And they do it with style - killing a pony, showing their pretty body to a pervert sitting in the jail, participating in disco dancing competitions - you got it. What I don`t like is the fact that disco music sucks, that the film is stupid, uninspired, boring and not funny. Apart from that - there`s nothing that can save this film from being an atrociuos piece of garbage.