I don`t know why but I thought a bit differently what this film was going about than what it actually happened to be about. To start with I never was a fan of gangster films (I guess I`ve already mentioned it on the factoid but I have no intention to check that up right now), and that means that I will never drool and rave about a certain piece of cinematic work only because somebody mentions the name of Al Capone in it, even if Al Capone was the greatest person of the 20th century. Neither am I wild about Tom Hanks. Ok, that`s no wonder for I`m not into guys. But I mean that Tom Hanks ain`t my favourite actor in the whole wide world. So in this film he plays a hitman who`s family except for one son is murdered by the son of Hanks`s boss. Since he doesn`t know a better way, Hanks goes on a mission of revenge. A bit similar to Kill Bill, by the way, only the boss`s son and Hanks were never lovers. So, the film is quite touching and it ain`t that brutal and it`s cool how Michael Sullivan (that`s Hank`s name) tries to save his son from ending up on a road to perdition. Yeah, that`s good that Michael Jr. never came to some revenge mission of his own. But the great depression and the whole thing about this movie don`t really fall into the category I`d call "mine". So that`s the point I`m trying to make.

This is probably the only band to come out of Moldova that`s at least a bit known outside its native country. The style of music can be at best described as some weird ethno-pop with elements of rap, rock`n`roll and a lot of other stuff. The closest thing to that can be probably Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra. Why? Because the music is bound to make you shake like a jelly fish (a quote from "Crazy little thing called love" by Queen) and because the band doesn`t have no real musical virtuousos and the singer is kinda lame. But that`s surely a part of the show. Probably I wouldn`t care about the band, hadn`t it participated in the crappy thing called Eurovision. From this album a few tracks seem more memorable than the rest - "Hora cosmica" and "Videli noch" which is the only song sung in Russian.

I know you`re probably gonna crucify me but I didn`t find the performance captured on this DVD particulary amazing. Ok, one simply has to appreciate the singing abilities of Mr. McFerrin and one also has to agree that the whole thing is pretty impressive for a complete improvisation. But one could probably notice that the whole thing isn`t that interesting musically and that it`s certainly not an entirely musical experience you get from Bobby McFerrin. Ok, Frank Zappa answered the question wheter humour belongs in music but as a matter of fact McFerrin seems to me to be more of a clown and less of a musician on this record. Yeah, sure at some times it`s funny but would you really like to listen more than once to a guy clapping upon a spectators jacket with his hands and singing: "I`m in leather"? I certainly would not. While it would probably be much more fun to watch McFerrin with my own eyes, in my opinion his magic didn`t transfer well onto this record. The biggest problem for me is that there are no real songs on here - mainly you could call that jamming if Bobby used any instruments. Therefore the only really interesting part of the concert was "Walkin`" where another dude appeared on the stage and Bobby didn`t just do his vocally miracles. In that case the bonus tracks - music videos for "Good Lovin`" and... "Don`t worry be happy" did a much better job of entertaining me. For I prefer songs to mindless vocalisations.

For quite a long while Queen was my most favourite band and I couldn`t even imagine that one day I could say that this band recorded a lot of crappy songs. Sure, Queen were quite good at selecting singles from their albums (apart from maybe "Body language" and "The invisible man") but, man, do their albums contain a lot of filler which sometimes is boring and sometimes is even worse than that. This album surely is considered their peak by most rock critics and it probable was it as well. But even on here some problems can be found. Out of the 12 tracks only "Death on two legs", "You`re my best friend" and "Bohemian rhapsody" are totally amazing. Of course, this album doesn`t have any stinkers as well, for otherwise it would be hardly a great album, don`t you think. But the "Prophet`s song" is terribly long and not particulary interesting. If you could skip tracks on an MC I`d probably skip this one even way back in 1990s when I still was a huge fan of this band.

Oh, lord! I`ve actually listened to an Abba record that isn`t just a compilation of the best songs but an actual album. What`s my verdict? I`d rather stick to the "greatest hits" formula. On this album we get a few Abba classics - songs like "Money Money Money", "Dancing Queen" and partly "Knowing me, knowing you" deserve to be called classics of pop music. The first one of them even has some partly interesting lyrics. Then there`s "Then I Kissed the Teacher" which is about as dated as "Then He Kissed Me" (or was it "He kissed me in the way" who cares). The chorus is catchy though. Apart from that - almost nothing. This probably ain`t bad pop music but it`s too generic for me to listen to it again and again.

Once again I`m not going for the obvious choice for the best Sparks albums. After having listened to few first songs of their debut selftitled album which is supposed to be groundbreaking, revolutionary, the epitomy of a whole of genres I found it badly listenable and unintersting. So I switched to one of their favourite records of mine- "Big Beat". This album definetely is musically much harder than "Indiscreet", both in terms of music and lyrics. There are such songs as "I want to be like everybody else", "I bought the Mississippi river" and "Everbody`s stupid" which leaves little doubt whether this is an in-your-face kind of record. Ok, Sparks still do the Queen-like glam stuff (which they already did before Freddy Mercury was born in Iraq in 1909 or wherever and whenever he was born). On this record you hear a lot more guitars and less piano work than on "Indiscreet", but that doesn`t mean that Sparks have turned into Jimmy Hendrix or whatever. "Screwed up" is one cool song. So is "I like girls". I`m not particulary fond of the closing "Gone with the wind" - which is weird, of course, but some parts of it seem to be a bit too goofy for a humble lad like meself. Still no other complaints can be addressed at this album.

Although this isn`t considered the best record by Sparks I do consider it their best. On this album we have a lot of superb tracks in the goofy pseudo-operatic pop-rock genre Sparks were so good at. While I find most songs on "Kimono my house" dull, it`s not the case with `Indiscreet`. My favourites are "Without Using Hands", "Get in the Swing" and especially "Tits". Yeah, "Tits" is one masterful song. But there`s not that easy to say what is a highlight and what ain`t. Because there ain`t even one track on this LP that I would rather skip than listen to. Mael brothers do have a weird approach towards singing but their approach isn`t bad at all. My favourite quote from the album: "For years tits were a source of fun and games at home/But now she says tits are only there to feed our little Joe."

The Bloodhound Gang is a group of idiots who pretend to be musicians. This ain`t a particulary strong statement, it`s just a fact. But despite the fact that the band isn`t capable of any artistic messages it is capable of making some fun music. This album which is probably their best has quite a lot of strong tracks, which include "I Hope You Die", "Along Comes Mary", "The Bad Touch" and "Hell Yeah". Then there are songs that I find quite good but not really outstanding. Those include "The Ballad of Chaisy Lain" and probably "A Lap Dance is So Much Better When the Stripper is Crying". But other songs suck completely, especially "Magma Cum Nada" and "Yummi Down on This". When the guy named Jimmy Pop starts to rap you`re bound to think that a ton of hot gravy up his ass would probably improve his performance. When I was a wee bit younger I found this record particulary good but it was probably because the lyrics are cheeky and tended for teens, but as for musical value - it`s not a particulary strong point for this band.

It`s been some 15 years since I last seen this film. Maybe less. But not much less. Therefore I partly watched it for the first time. A cast of Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman is an impressive one (although back then Dustin was much more of a famous actor than Tommy-the-pretty-boy). Tom plays Charlie who after the death of his millionaire father doesn`t get what he expected and the money is left to his retarded (actually "idiot savant") older brother Ray whos existence he didn`t even know about. So Charlie kidnaps Raymond hoping to get some part of the money from him. Or he doesn`t kidnap him, `cos Ray can`t really be kidnapped. He`s weird, you see. And he can`t get away from his routine. The best things about this film are that it doesn`t get too sugary, that it doesn`t have a silly happy end or a really tragical ending, and acting is brilliant as you could probably guess. I also liked the song with the opening titles. Probably it ain`t the best film ever made but a very good one for sure.

Those Residents were some fine fellows who surely had done their homework before recording an album. On this fine record the eye-ball like mysterious creatures calling themselves residents invented a brand new approach towards making an LP. Logically reasoning that each pop song is basically a repetition of verse and chorus they decided to dump the repetition in order to be able to put 40 songs on a 40 minute long LP. And with the release of this album in the form of a CD we get a whole 50 tracks instead of those 40. What`s not so great about the record is that the songs aren`t that catchy and that they rarely have both a verse and a chorus, and they for sure don`t have too many different instruments on those songs. I can`t really name any highlights but the bonus material where we get goofy versions of "Hit the Road Jack" and "Jailhouse Rock". I guess only particulary weird people would enjoy this album and listen to it on a regular basis, but as a historical document and as a weird adventurous record it does in deed follow its purposes. Not that I am likely to listen to it again... at least in the next few years (that`s why the rating ain`t particulary high).