Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Welcome to the fantastic world of uninteresting literature. Our todays exhibit is a story (or rather a novel) by Christa Wolf - one of the most important writers of East Germany. This is a story about unhappy love of a young woman whose lover leaves the country for the West. Rita is a most typical person a socialist writer could choose for his/her hero - she`s young, ideallistic and she works on the railroad - sweet isn`t it. In the very beginning she has an accident at work and has to go to the hospital. Only later we learn to know that it was because of Manfred - a chemist who left the socialist Germany and wanted her to go with him but after a brief stay Rita returned back to the East. Of course, the book has its share of descriptions how the trains are made, what people work there - everything you could expect from a book like this. There`s also another man who loves Rita, but she doesn`t care for him. Manfred didn`t leave the country btw. only because of his ideological problems but mainly because his new design for some stupid thripe was not accepted - you know what it`s like when the old can`t accept what the young have to offer. To be frank I can say - this book is totally average, there are no high points in it and there are no lows. You read and you forget about. That`s it.

Damn, does ones attitude change with time. When I was a kid I though Pink Panther to be the coolest cartoon character ever. Now in this series of 51 minutes of Pink Panther I found only one cartoon I could fully enjoy - and it was the one I had already seen back then when I was a kid. All the rest? Uninteresting, quite similar to Tom and Jerry (which I never liked). So what was the difference between those two cartoons? I don`t remember.

Today, on January 23, 2006, I`m listening to the new Graham Coxon album, released on March 13, 2006. How can you explain that? Either I`m very close to Coxon`s record company (or G.Coxon himself for that matter) - and that`s a thing I wouldn`t mind as you can probably guess; or there are other options. I`m not sure whether Coxon is still a total drug addict like he was in his Blur days which were probably really blurred but I`m sure that he hasn`t lost the golden touch he once used to have when writing songs. His new single "State of mind" (which is coming out in February) doesn`t impress me though. As a whole the record is quite agressive and a bit punky with Coxon sounding like Johnny Rotten quite often. I like the beatlish "You & I" a lot, that`s the best song on this disc in my opinion. Maybe it`s not entirely beatlish - it`s more something like Beatles meet Lou Reed. "Gimme Some Love" sounds as if it was taken directly from "Never mind the bollocks", especially if you change its title to "EMI" or something like that. On some tracks Coxon doesn`t try to be a big punkster though and then he sounds like on "Don`t believe anything" - boring. From the sentimental songs I`d probably choose "See a better day" for my collection of Coxon`s best, it`s moody and nice but not exceptional.

Es nevarētu teikt, ka Disturbia būtu oriģinālākā filma, ko esmu savā mūžā redzējis - tās sižets pamatīgi atsauca gan klasisko Hičkoka "Rear Window", gan mazāk klasisko, bet tāpat labo multfilmu "Monster House". Tomēr tā noteikti bija oriģinālākā filma, ko noskatījos pagājušajā nedēļā, lai arī strikti ņemot nevienu citu filmu es šajā nedēļā tā arī nenoskatījos.

Svens Oge Madsens Dānijā, kā izrādās, ir viens no populārakajiem rakstniekiem. Taču šis romāns pat nav tulkots angliski. Dīvaini, kā tas sagadījies, ka man to izdevās dabūt latviešu valodā.

When I went to the cinema to see this film little did I know what it was going to be like. After having a brief look at what IMDB told about this film I thought: cool, a mystery film! So I couldn`t resist from getting a couple of free tickets for this film and so I went to see it. The strange thing thou was the fact that I took with me not only my girlfriend but also a friend of mine. Everything would be just fine, had this film less sex in it. But as it is I felt a bit embarassing, there`s probably no need to explain exactly why. The story of the film was a mystery after all - two comedians (Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth) who were very famous once split up after a dead naked girl was found in their hotel room. An another girl who`s a young and talented reporter tries to solve the mystery of the death and of the split up. It`s especially important for her to learn to know more, since she has been a fan of these comedians since her childhood. But as it proves to be, both of her heroes aren`t the kind and caring they were supposed to be after all. One of them lays her and doesn`t care for her at all on the very next day, while the one played by Colin Firth... I`d rather not even say what sort of lesbian action he induces in the film. What I found especially nice was the dual appearance of Jefferson Airplane`s "White Rabbit" in the film. The first time it was done at a play with censored lyrics, the next time it`s ok.

Motleja banda ir viena no tām grupām, par kuru cienīšanu cilvēkus slavēt nemēdz. Kā nekā viņi bija neinteliģenti lohi, kas spēlēja primitīvu rokenrolu astoņdesmitajos gados un kuru ierakstu galvenais mērķis bija izdrāzt (un es nebaidos šī vārda) pēc iespējas vairāk mazas meitenītes. Ne velti viņiem bungas klapēja Tomijs Lī, kas lielāko slavu guva kā Pamelas Andersones vīrs un kā dalībnieks tajā video, kur viņi uz laivas un vēl daudz kur citur... Vēl tur piedalījās Nikki Sixx - vēl viens slavens izvirtulis, kas šamiem spēlēja basu.

Šajā ierakstā Nazareth apliecina, ka viņi ir kaut kas vairāk par vienkāršu smagā roka grupu, ka viņiem patīk arī eksperimentēt un ka tas reizēm viņiem arī padodas. Tipiskākais tā apliecinājums ir šī albūma ievadošā kompozīcija "Telegram", kas stāsta par problēmām rokmūziķa dzīvē un kas ne tikai ilgst gandrīz astoņas minūtes, bet kurā šim garumam ir arī savs attaisnojums - vairākas melodijas, saistīts saturs un pietiekama klausītāja intereses piesaistīšana. Man personīgi gan dziesmas ievadošā daļa ne visai patīk, taču uz beigām dziesma paliek patiešām ekselenta.

Weird, it had been something like only 18 months since I last saw this film, but today it didn`t work for me as it did at that time. Ok, the idea is pretty interesting to show how a young man tries to stop the time and return the GDR in order for his mom not worry after she comes back from a coma, but still this film isn`t as good as I thought it to be. It probably works well for me, because I do have a certain amount of knowledge about what the GDR was like and what was happening at the time the events of the film took place. But for a person with an average knowledge of the subject it probably wouldn`t be interesting. Still I do think that this is a good film, but I`m not considering it a contender for an A or B list or whatever anymore.

Actually I was going to see a different film but since it somehow didn`t work properly with the video projector there`s was no other option but than watch "One Day in Europe". I first learned to know that such a film existed quite a long time ago (circa 4 months I guess) when there was the first information about a festival of German football-related films in Riga. I was even intending to go and see "ODiE" at the cinema but I didn`t do it. Since the film watching event was a bit wider than my usual audience of 1 person I had my little concerns about how this film will come off with the audience. After all 3 of 6 spectators were of the feminine sex and girls typically don`t care much for football and films on football. Luckily I didn`t warn them what we were going to see, therefore no one had a chance to start arguing before switching the film on. Later on it proved that the film wasn`t about football after all, more likely it was a film about foreigners in trouble in different places in Europe. The film contains four separate stories, chained together by the football Champions League final game happening on the day when all other evens also take place. The first one is set in Moscow where a she-tourist gets robbed by some armed bandits and she tries to get help from the local police where nobody pays much interest for you, nobody speaks English and nobody believes that thieves can be caught. The second story is set in Istambul where a German tourist doesn`t get robbed but pretends that he did. He jumps into a cab and wants to go to a police station but the cab driver starts searching for the thieves on his own, not knowing that they don`t exist in fact. In the third story a Hungarian tourist lets a villain get away with his digital camera containing about 1500 shots. He must overgo a long and boring trip with a policeman to the office, at first it seems that this time for once there will be no problems for the city is packed with surveillance cameras, the only trouble is that some guard has spent a lot of time examining women`s legs and not filming the gate near which the man was robbed. The last scene is about a young French couple in Berlin who make their living from street performances but when the living is not enough they decide to simulate that... they have been robbed. In the end the cops don`t buy their story and the couple flees on the police car. As for the football - lots of supporters appear on the screen very often, and we learn to know that the game between Galatasaray and Deportivo La Coruna ended 1:1 and there were penalties.