CGI cartoons are becoming more and more popular and less and less good. "Valiant" is considered a minor cartoon even in this genre that doesn`t produce too many great works. Yet to my eye it didn`t appear to be that bad at all. Animation isn`t breathtaking, of course, and the plot is predictable as that of a soap opera. Valiant is a young pigeon who wants to be a homing pigeon in WW2. Since the homing pigeon force of UK doesn`t have enough decent pigeons Valiant and a group of 4 other misfits get a chance to fulfil a dangerous and extremely important mission under the command of an older and wiser pigeon. But it proves that even such silly creatures can outmaster the falcons of Hitler. The main reason why I liked this one was probably the voices behind those pigeons. Most important of those were Ewan McGreggor as Valiant and John Cleese as Mercury (a pigeon held hostage by the falcons). Oh, John Cleese, you get a big chance to blabber useless nonsense - that`s the right thing for you! Your voice may seem a little old for a pigeon but who cares! McGreggor`s voice doesn`t come perfectly for Valiant - after all Ewan is a fully grown man and not a teenage pigeon but man do I love those British folk! Were this thing done by Americans (as "Madagascar" was) I doubt I`d like it but so, despite all the minor flaws, it was quite a good cartoon.

Lately it`s been quite a trend for adventure movies following the pattern set by "Indiana Jones" and the like. "Sahara" is one of those films. In 1850s during the American civil war there was an idea by one of the leaders of the Southeners that the new American dollar should be entirely from gold. And according to the legend five golden coins were maid and given to four generals and a pal of the guy who made the coins. But in the modern days an adventurer finds a coin that nobody knew that existed so he logically comes to the conclusion that there may be more coins like this. Then there`s a gorgeous doctor (Penelope Cruz) that`s come to Mali for a healt care organization and she finds a strange disease in the poor and war demolished country. She teams up with the adventurer and his goofy pal (you know that every cool guy has a weirdo for his best mate), and they take on finding a ship that could be somewhere in Mali and that should be carrying a lot of gold; but they also have to find the source of the disease and beat the bad war leader of Mali who`s after them together with the nasty french guy from "Matrix" who`s also French in this film. Even in comparison to "National Treasure" this is not a serious film and even if your brain is in the size of that of a hamster you`ll most likely not think that there`s some truth beneath the film. No there is not, it`s just a fun piece made entirely for your amusement and not for your thinking. If you take it as it is you will be able to appreciate it, if you`re an ellitist, don`t bother.

This is the Gibb brother at their most pretentious. If I`m not mistaken this is a concept album about Napoleon Bonaparte. I don`t really care whether I`m right or I`m wrong but that seems to be a funny and not a serious idea to me. Ok, had it been done by "The Kinks" or some other heavy weight band, but the Bee Gees for chrissake aren`t exactly what you usually call prophets! I don`t actually have a few songs from this album but if they aren`t any different (which according to what I know they aren`t) I guess I can say that this is quite a boring sappy record. The songs aren`t particulary fast paced, for Bee Gees aren`t known for their rocking sound but for them being slow and overblown romantics. "It`s just the way" is a typical Beatles rip-off, "Trafalgar" is a non-typical Beatles rip-off, "When do I" is a pretty song, not too cool, of course, but not as bad as you`d probably thing. Yeah, that`s the best track on the record for sure. I don`t really know why I bother to listen to this one.

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.