Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

That was one of the worst films I`ve seen in my life. I`m not gonna say that the original "The Mask" was a cinematic masterpiece which made me cry like a little baby (although I was small at the time it came out), but this utterly disgusting vomit inducing painful experience will never heal. What was the good thing about the first movie? It was the acting by Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz. What do you get in "Son of the Mask"? Some unknown asshole named Jamie Kennedy who has played tiny roles in some bad films, probably never reaching beyond "Hello!" level and a baby. Actually I didn`t really see the baby because after something like 30 minutes the movie was switched off because it was not only totally unfunny but also sleepy and senseless. It just would be a crime against humanity to make somebody pay for the possibility to watch this film. That Kennedy person is got to be the worst actor I`ve ever seen. Not to mention that while being a mask he had some stupid plastic hair upon his head as if he intentionally looked similar to Barbie`s fuck buddy Ken (only with a green disgusting face) but he also had no mimics whatsoever and reminded of the already mentioned Ken.

I just love those titles most indie bands have. How can anyone write them down more than once? And remember them? You gotta be krazy with a kapital K to be able to differ between "Dogs die in hot cars" and "The flaming lips". Why can`t they come up with a simple title that anyone could remember? Like "Limp Bizkit" for an instance. Still this is one very strong record, never mind the stupid band title. It sort of has some reminescences of the rock music of old - having an orchestration like a sixties band would want it to have. Overall it`s very smooth and relaxing, althoug I would appreciate a bit more energy, but as a moody record its almost perfect. I can`t really say which of these songs are highlights, probably the opening "A Long Day Continues/We Sound Amazed" but probably something else as well. This record seems to me being a timeless thing if not music for every occasion.

Knowing me as a sicko who`s just crazy for anything done by any member of the Monty Python flying circus, you can guess that I watched those 3 episodes of the Muppet Show only because of John Cleese`s performance. It turned out that he indeed was the only worthy thing about those episodes. Peter Sellers was a great actor for sure, his performance in "Dr Strangelove" playing multiple characters of that film was just excellent. But he doesn`t have a very funny part in the Muppet Show. Probably the only good thing about his performance was when Kermit introduces him as the epitome of Britishness and then says: "So we naturally employed him as a gypsie violin player." The rest is crap. John Cleese has two good sketches - one where he complains that he never works with pigs, and then another when he works with Pigs in space as a pirate with a stupid talking parrot. Dudley Moore? Who`s that fellow? I don`t know, and after watching the show I`m not so sure that I want to know who he was.

A documentary about a tour the Rolling Stones did in the United States. The tour ended with a free concert for something like 300000 people which had the famous incident with the bikers "Hell`s Angels". Basically it was a stupid idea, and it basically is a stupid film. Why on earth would you have on a 90 minutes film about a concert where the Stones, Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Grateful Dead played on the same stage have only circa 45 minutes of music and no sign of the Dead on stage whatsoever? Ok, there was this violence part, that was interesting, but why would I need to see a lot of crap about how and why somebody made the Stones change the place of the concert, and what problems arose at any moment? Could the film makers have at least got some replies from the Stones why the hired those Hell`s Angels to be the safe guards at the concert? If they could, they did not do that. All they did was make a visually interesting piece of film - I mean there are many masterfuly filmed scenes, but there`s very little content behind it. There`s something like 6 songs done by the Stones, one by Tina Turner, one by Jefferson Airplane which ends with a fight, and one by the Burrito Brothers. The rest was just crap.

The subject of what Pilate thought and did to Jesus has been used in lots of different books, and as for itself isn`t anything unmentioned before. But I already knew before this book that E.M.Schmitt is capable of creating very convincing stories. What I didn`t expect from this book was that it wasn`t a comedy or a farce based upon the birth of Christianity. It turned out that this book had two parts - Jesus tells about his own life until the last Thursday in the gardens, and after that the story is taken over by Pilate. The first thing that comes to mind about Jesus according to Schmitt is that he is loveable - much more than Jesus of Bible - he himself doesn`t have the faith to believe that he could be the Messiah. His closest friend is Judas, who`m Jesus asks to give him up to the law trying to save the rest of his people. To achieve that Jesus uses the same words that he does in the Bible - that`s one interesting thing that Jesus quite often in this book says what he says in the Bible but Schmitt brings a whole different meaning to those words. Pilate is also very similar to the biblical one - but it`s interesting to follow how he finds different explanations for the dissapearance of Jesus`s body, using the common logic but logic fails him every time. I guess, if the Bible was anything like this gospel, I would be much more of a Christian than I am now.

This film confused me a bit. I found its title on the list of ten most funny British comedies. And I also found out that IMDB doesn`t consider this film to have anything to do with comedy but calls it a thriller. So I think to myself - why not watch this film? And I watched it. It turned out to be a thriller with some elements of a black comedy in it. Alex (played by Ewan McGregor), Juliet and Dave are looking for a new flatmate. They organise some sort of casting and lots of different are being mocked by the trio. Finally they decide to choose a supposedly nice writer, who happens to die in the apartment leaving a suitcase full of money behind. So our heroes decide to get rid of the body and keep the money. But they don`t know that a duo of killers is on the search for the dead man and that they kill everyone on their way. Because of him having to remove the legs and hands of the corpse Dave goes a bit crazy and becomes overprotective, whilst the other two people want to get away from him. In the end after having killed the killers Dave wants to get away with the money alone and stabs Alex, Juliet meanwhile kills Dave. So she gets away with the suitcase but not with the money. The ending is a bit ambigious - you can`t be sure whether Alex is dead or still living - he lies on the floor and is smiling and even talking a bit but nobody notices him. I did like this film, although it was no comedy for sure, but it was dark, it was dreary and it was daring.

I`m not particulary sure whether I have ever bothered to review a record by an obscure unknown one-man band from Down Under, where the only member is famous for participating in an other band which I don`t know anything about. This record by the Zillions contains whole 6 songs with the summary length of 22 and a half minutes. You say that ain`t very much? Well I say, knowing that that guy - Nick Craft - did all the playing on the record, and it ain`t no easy task for an Australian, why would he bother to write many songs? Out of those six songs "Don`t waste your tears on me" is probably the best one. Mostly this stuff is just basic indie rock, without any real surprises. It`s solid but it ain`t interesting, unless you`re in for every single indie band that comes around just because your average Britney wet-dreaming friend doesn`t listen to this kind of crap. I can`t think of many reasons why one shouldn`t listen to the Zillions, but neither can I think of one reason why one should.

This is a band that never really broke into mainstream but has been there or there about for some years now. Their latest (at the moment) album doesn`t feature anymore the Foo Fighters member Dave Grohl on drums, but that doesn`t mean that the music has changed. Apart from the opening track - "This Lullaby" - which is a slow paced mellow track sung in the voice of a young Tom Waits. "Everybody Knows that you`re insane" sounds like it was done by Pearl Jam. I like "Tangled up in plaid" more for it has a nice opening riff, it reminds me of something, I don`t know of what but it does. "Little Sister" is a rip-off for sure, but it sounds good. The biggest problem of the album is that its first half of songs is better than the second one - after "Little Sister" (number 7) there ain`t a single memorable track on the disc.

Some people call this the best album of the sixties. Most people (of those that know that such a band called "Love" ever existed) call this one of the greatest albums of all time. Until rather recently this band was completely forgotten but all of a sudden it arose to popularity (just like the Zombies did). Of course, this is a record that could have come out only in the summer of love - it has warm guitar sounds, stylistically "Love" is more similar to Beach Boys than to Beatles. Lyrical subjects are quite usual for 1967 - the album opener even has the line "I could love almost everyone", the songs are pretty orchestrated. Highlights include "The Daily Planet", "Live and let live" and "You Set the Scene". Music like that doesn`t happen anymore, and it`s sad.

Of course, it isn`t the first time I listen to this record, not at all, but I had never listened to it 3 times a row, and now I have. That`s not a particulary hard task, of course, since the album is only 35 minutes long. That was the second album Cohen ever had, and it is one of his best. Cohen never had very much melody in his songs, as you know, he mainly does some guitar strumming, accompanying his singing, which isn`t that much of singing as well. He`s a poet from the beatniks, you know, and he`s very good at writing lyrics (or was way back in 1969). "Story of Isaac" is one brilliant example of his writing skills, telling about a man who goes mad and decides that he must kill his children in order to praise the Lord. Another song about God is called "The Butcher". A nice vision of God, isn`t it? To be short, I like all of those songs, although they aren`t really songs, but if they are good, what more do I need?