This book was something new for me in several aspects. First, it was the first book by R.S. I read. Not too surprising though, for he isn`t that popular. Second, never before had I read a book where characters occasionaly speak in yiddish. Not that I learned anything from that language, apart from "Meschugge" and "Kuss mech in toches" which I knew before this book. Then the contents of the book were really untrivial - it`s about modern days of Jews in Germany and about what people`s attitudes towards Germans are, what they think of themselves and of the others. The leading character is a man in his early seventies who can`t accept that he`s got cancer (because he hasn`t got cancer), who can`t accept that his son lives with a German woman (although he himself also lives with a German woman), and who doesn`t want to spend a rather big amount of money for his friends eye surgery. The interesting aspect for me was how the Jews draw a very strict line between themselves and the "gojim". For a partly Jewish person like myself it was quite a surprise, it was also interesting to read about the different approaches towards the state of Israel and towards the Palestinians the German jews have nowadays. As a pure work of art the book ain`t no slouch either, but it`s surely mostly the content and not the form that made the difference for me.

Welcome to the magnificient world of Francois Ozon! The director of "Swimming Pool" and "Water Drops on Burning Rocks" has created another controversial movie. The film starts with the divorce trial of Marion and Gilles. After the trial the former couple goes to a hotel room in order to perform the good-bye sex, but it ends up as Gilles raping Marion (I`m not gonna discuss whether I find it a perfect occasion for what they do). After that the film starts going backwards showing us the most critical moments of Giles` and Marion`s relationship. We see how they argue over Giles` homosexual brother, we see how Giles falls asleep on their wedding night and how Marion meets some English speaking guy in the park and does as if he was her new husband and not Giles. Then we switch over to some place near the sea where Giles and Marion become a couple. Apparantely there`s got to be 5 major scenes in the film, but I somehow remember only 4 of those but it doesn`t really matter. In comparison with other Ozon`s movies this one doesn`t offer anything particulary new. It`s more in the direction of "Water Drops" but not quite as daring (since no Fassbinder had written the script for it). It`s a bit disturbing to the eye - especially the rape scene, but that`s a thing you`d expect from Ozon.

Most likely you won`t agree if somebody`ll tell you that "The Bloodhound Gang" is a genuinely intellectual band. And neither will I, although I must admit that they must be less stupid than their music premises it to be. They rock not to suck but to make you laugh. Frank Zappa already gave you the answer to the question whether humor belongs in music. But it`s not only good news. Musically the new round piece of plactic the bloodhounds have put out is purely bad. For instance, the opening "Balls out" is an endless repetition of the same note. It may be hard rockin` but it ain`t too good. The first single "F.U.C.K." contains more than ten different innuendo ways of saying "sex" and it somehow reminds the best cuts from their previous albums and is the only real highlight on the record. But overall it`s too much ear-bashing synthesizer sounds that don`t really work too well. "Ralph Wiggum" (the son of Springfield`s police chef Wiggum) is an okayish song but a bit boring. Without a doubt the most disturbing song on the record is the dance music piece "Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss". If the melodies weren`t that lousy and unlistenable I`d probably call this a so-so record. But I won`t do it. Instead I`ll say it`s plain bad.

After having read "The Mansion" I found myself really interested in Faulkner`s work. But "Intruder in the dust" proved to be such a demanding read that I couldn`t convince myself in it being interesting. No, not that it wasn`t interesting, it was written in a style too complicated for me. And, if you want to know, I read it in my native Latvian language, not in English. The story is quite simple - a black man is blamed for shooting a white man in the back but it wasn`t him really. His only chance is that of two teenagers and an elderly woman digging the corpse from the grave and proving that it wasn`t killed by the black man`s gun. In terms of the story "Intruder" reminds me of some Mark Twain`s work (something quite like "Tom Sawyer" in style). But there`s a major difference between Twain and his follower, Faulkner. Faulkner writes in such a manner that his book doesn`t flow too simply, it`s much like some of Joyce`s or Prouste`s work - you get a very simple story done with so much reflections and in a crazy grammatical style that you can`t get the story as easy as you`d probably want to. It`s pretentious in style but it`s to twisted in the writing for me to enjoy such a book.

I`m not much of a fan of documentaries about animals. I never considered it a necessity to watch the famous film about migrating birds, I don`t own the entire National Geographic 200 disc box set and I don`t go in the wilderness in order to watch rabbits mate. This film was recommended to my girlfriend by one of her professors at law studies. By the way, it was a fellow specialising in authorship rights. Does that mean anything? Yes, it means that he gave an advise that resulted in an illegal downloading action. Let`s skip the authorship question and jump straight over to the film. The film tells us about the mating habits of the Emperor`s penguin - the largest penguin there is. It proves to be quite a complicated thing which involves long walks for some 20 days (which are repeated many times over the mating season), starving without food for 4 months, dying from the cold, surviving in the most grave circumstances in a cold where you`d most likely die sooner than you could say: "Penguin!" The film is done in an interesting manners where penguins tell you about their lives themselves, proving to be loving and caring as you`d never expect from a funny bird like that one. It`s a sad film, of course, since many of the penguins don`t survive. But it`s a beautiful film, a majestic film, shot in a way you`d expect from a big budget movie and not from a documentary.

Not a great songwriter, but a great performer, that`s who Joe Cocker is. On his debut album he`s performing prime quality material and he delivers it as only he could. You couldn`t believe from the sound of this record that Joe was a young fellow back when he done it, on the other hand you`ll most likely never believe that Cocker was ever young. His partly bald head is such an unmistakable characteristic that you can`t imagine him looking differently. His style is quite similar to that of "The Band" (actually I`m talking about the backing band and not about Cocker himself, but who cares). This record is mostly famous for having the title track on it - a great cover of the Beatles original. Then there`s "The New age of Lily", a cover of "Just Like a Woman" by Bob Dylan, a cover of "I Shall be Released" by Bob Dylan and a cover of "Feeling Alright" by I don`t know whom. It`s a very good record but I`m not in the mood discussing it right now.

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.

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.

I`ve had this record in my collection for quite a while but I never managed to listen to it entirely before. Actually it`s a bit surprising, since this 14 songs containing LP is less than 16 minutes long. But now after having done an interview with Mark Prindle, the legendary Mark Prindle, who considers this a hefty fine album, I thought - why not. Do you have something against group sex? Well, I do. Anyhow, this record is something unique. Not uniquely great but certainly not the kind of stuff you forget 2 minutes after finishing listening to it. Basically it`s an hardcore punk record, but the key ingredient to it is the speed. The Ramones are just some teeny-weenies playing college rock, while the Sex Pistols sound like Aerosmith in comparison with the Circle Jerks. They don`t sound too professional, of course, but at least some of the songs are quite good. My favourite track is "Beverly Hills", but "Operation" - a track about a guy getting castrated - comes close to it. "World up my ass" is also good. A few of the songs might sound a bit monotonous but it`s not that much of a problem for an album this short. I admit that the rating is much higher than you`d enjoy this record unless you`re into hardcore punk (I`m not really) but it does have something about it. Still I`m not sure whether I`ll listen to most of these songs again.

This film isn`t the only meeting between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, but it`s undoubtely one of Burton`s strangest works. Edward Wood Junior is a historical person, but I didn`t know that and therefore it took some time to figure it out what`s this all about. Ed Wood is a young film writer/producer/director who wants to make it big in Hollywood. He`s a fan of Bela Lugosi - a hungarian actor who`s old and poor nowadays but who played Dracula when he was younger. So Ed makes him the star of his first few films. But all his attempts fail. He tries harder and harder yet nobody really likes his work. And you know why? Because he`s a bad writer, a bad producer, a bad actor and a shitty director. That`s probably the punchline - it`s usually considered that if you try hard you have a chance of making it, only if you believe in yourself. But it doesn`t help in the case of Ed for he ain`t got no tallent at all. That`s probably why this film failed to become a hit - people have nothing against losers that don`t achieve their goals because of somebody not allowing them to, they like losers that don`t do anything, they like even everyday losers. But a guy who believes in his work and does his best but it proves that his best is worse than anybody else`s worst - that`s not a cool character by any means. The film was quite good though, not brilliant in my book but certainly better than you`d expect.