This was the first time I went into the territory where Roald Dahl doesn’t write scary stories on taxidermists and butchers but switches to children instead. After having watched the film less than 24 hours ago I probably am no qualified enough to compare what Dahl wrote to what Tim Burton did. In terms of character development there’s a significant difference between the film and the book. While Dahl’s Willie Wonka is just an eccentric fellow Burton makes him a creepy man with a twisted mind. But that doesn’t necessary mean that one of the two Wonkas is better than the other. The ending is also different, and it has a lot to do with Wonkas character – here he simply invites Charlie and his whole family over to the factory so they would live with him and doesn’t do any nonsense. I got to admit that the film ending was better (apart from the meeting the father scene). Although I can imagine why Roald Dahl has become a classic in the genre of books for children, I can’t really see myself a fan of his. Why not? This fairytale has a storyline much to linear and an ending much too trivial for my taste. Ok, the whole factory was designed in Dahl’s mind perfectly, so was Charlie’s family, and the archetypical characters were really good. So I don’t know why I’m so critical about it. Probably the best choice would be just finishing the review and run away like a sissy.

Yesterday all the troubles of Guy Ritchie were so far away, now they look as they are here to stay. Do you know what his troubles are? If I have to answer in one word I’ll just say – Madonna. If I have to answer in more than one word I won’t be able to give you an answer for I don’t remember her full name and the Internet is out of order right now. Anyhow, you probably got the point already. By the way, I don’t really mean that his latest films suck because he has married a formerly attractive pop star. No, the problem is much deeper. I guess Guy Ritchie has somehow come to the conclusion that he is a serious filmmaker and that most people consider him to be shallow but he isn’t shallow at all. With “Revolver” he tries to establish a link between an action film/comedy and a serious film. Jake Green (played by Jason Stetham, you probably remember him from “Transporter” – in case you’re younger than ten that is). The worst thing about the film is that it is uninteresting, never before was I so close to falling asleep while watching a Guy Ritchie film. Oh, no, he was the master of hooking the spectator to the screen but nowadays I can’t see any difference between him and most directors. The plot is twisted, that’s for sure but the twist makes very little sense to me, actually being too pretentious for such a primitive film.

The Latvian translators did a great job as they do it usually, by deciding that the perfect translation for the title of this film would be “European cocktail: 2”. This film features Audrey Tautou and a lot of other actors I don’t know anything about. I find it a good choice of the filmmakers to have native actors for every role – if someone is playing to be Russian he is Russian in real life, and not just some Hungarian with a silly accent. The story itself isn’t too bright – there’s this Xavier fellow who wants to be a serious writer but right now he’s a scriptwriter for a silly TV series. He isn’t too happy in his private life, which is no wonder for a person who lives in his Lesbian friend’s apartment and who’s still looking for the ideal girl, although he’s almost thirty already and should past the idealistic period. He starts a relationship with one of his friends’ sister but they have their ups and downs. The overall style of the film reminds me as if it came from Europe. And it does, of course. In case you want to know why Russian dolls, I’ll try to explain the metaphor. It goes like that: every girl you meet is one girl closer to your real one. Yet since the whole thing is organized similarly to traditional Russian dolls where one doll is put inside of another you can’t get to the last one without meeting the others. That’s the most important thing about the film actually.

I`m not quite so sure why but this is my favourite album by John Lennon. Probably because it doesn`t have any songs with the word "Yoko" for its title. Probably, because there`s a whole lot of magnificient compositions that would make me cry if I was even more of a sissy than I feel like right now. There`s the fast rocking opening "Titan Ass" which sounds as if it was written by Chuck Berry but updated for early Seventies. The next song is "Mind Games" - the most famous of songs on this album. "We`re playing those mind games together - pushing the barrier, planting the seed". It`s psychedelic, it`s very sad and it`s very beautiful. Just like a really good film. "Aisumasen (I`m Sorry)" is just a beautiful ballad. "One day (At a time)" is the perfect love song, sung by a perfect John Lennon. "Bring on the Lucie (Freeda people)" is one of Lennon`s freedom songs with a very catchy chorus. "Nutopian national anthem" is a song that goes for 6 seconds and sounds like silence. The second part of the disc isn`t quite as good as the first one, yet it has another freedom song called "Only People" which once again is undeniably catchy. The disc closes with "Meat City" - another good old fashioned hard rockin` song. And as a whole it makes one hell of a record and one of the best records by any ex-Beatle. Update: I`ll have to relisten to "Plastic Ono Band" before stating that this is the best Lennon`s album once again.

FF bring forth their second album so we`d remember that they exist. Some signs say that it`s better than their first, while most say it`s worse. On some songs they do sound like the Beatles rip-offs, "Eleanor Put your boots one" is one of those tracks. Sure they don`t have the harmonies the Beatles had, probably it`d be better to associate them with John Lennon`s solo work. My favourite song on the album surely is the opening "The Fallen" with its catchy riff and it`s "i don`t give a damn attitude". "This boy" is also cool, a bit like early Brian Eno (circa 1973). If this record has one problem is the lack of diversity - a FF song always sounds like a FF song. "Walk away" sounds as if it was lifted off a Paul McCartney album in the verse and as a typical FF song in the chorus. "Evil and Heathen" is a good nice rocking song sounding a bit like "This fire". Oh, I`ve got to correct myself "Do you want to" is This Fire Part II. It`s got the same disco beat, yet it`s good. Basically I don`t have anything in particular against this record but it isn`t daring enough to become a classic.

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.

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).

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.

Having already talked about both this groups albums on my site I have to mention a gig of theirs I went to. It probably wasn`t the best concert of my life, especially since I wasn`t feeling very well and spend the next week after the concert at home with influenza, but it`s surely my fault and not the fault of the band. The opening act was quite intollerable and I never managed to get its name but the central band played quite a decent show. There wasn`t a single song on the set which I didn`t know - that means that the group doesn`t have a lot of new material, but it didn`t bug me at all for I`d never seen them on stage before. The lead singers did quite a good job, and even the sound mix was ok, which is a rare thing in Latvia. The band didn`t rely only on it`s "greatest hits" (as if any of their songs were hits as you understand the meaning of the word) but that was also ok. "The cat", "The heart", "Birds fly away" were my favourites of the night. A good show for a Latvian band, probably a bit too much trying to sound as in the studio but that`s alright with me.

A film about football hooligans. Man, are those people stupid. They don`t care about the team who`s supporters they supposedly are, they only care about kicking each other as hard as possible. I may be a fan of footy but I`d prefer to have at least a single goal on screen when I watch a football film and not only a lot of fighting pricks. The message of the film may be a positive one, but I don`t care. Some people claim that the film is meant to be idolizing those hooligans but I really doubt that, I`d rather say that the film had quite a lot of struggle in terms of a plot which is close to non-existant. At some stages the film tries to be funny but doesn`t quite succeed at that, at others it tries to be a lot like "Trainspotting" but it ain`t trippy so it`s mainly silly. Yet I can`s say that I didn`t like it, I just don`t think that there`s a need for films like this one in the world.