Elvis is dead, and even I know it. But he was alive, and recorded some nasty rock`n`roll back then. Ok, not nasty, but rock`n`roll nevertheless. Of course, it didn`t take him too much to become a complete sellout and a Frankie Sinatra wannabe without the personality and the voice. But "(Let me be)You Teddy Bear", "All Shook Up", "Jailhouse rock" and many more of his songs are bound to last more than a lunch time, and the only remixed song on this album - "A little less conversation" is good in its form. What drags the collection down is the sappier part of his songs - something like "Love me tender", "Are you lonesome tonight", "Suspicious minds" etc. Some of those songs may not even be bad, but it ain`t music - it`s corporative shit. But man, you gotta dig that sound of "Hound Dog".

There is this kind of cow - the Latvian blue, and that is the blue in this play. Actually I`ve never seen a blue cow, only on a picture but some people tell me that they do in fact exist. Anyhow, there`s this fellow George who had a terrible accident on a road when he was driving a car when his dad and grandma were killed. Now he`s with his mom Rasma in Georgia, having a long time vacation and curing. Before the accident he had stopped the car to look at a blue cow, and now he`s searching in Latvian folklore for those cows. He is visited by a female friend of his, Linda, and her new twice-her-age lover Vidvuds. But his mom has problems with Linda. Anyhow, the main idea of the play probably is that children who don`t need anything are too spoiled and usually don`t know what they want. So, for a Latvian play it was quite good, I watched it in a very small place - something like 40 people were there, acting was good from 3 of 4 actors but Rasma was a bit over-the-top in my opinion. But it was still pretty good, and at least I didn`t get bored at all.

Hilarious, man! Ok, probably this isn`t the intellectual kind of comedy you would predict I would enjoy, but it`s just so goddamn funny! Shaun is the average man in town - he has a lousy job, a best pal who lives with him and pays no rent, and has no life of his own. Shauns girlfriend ain`t happy with him for he`s too boring and useless, so she dumps him. And Shaun doesn`t even notice that at the same time dead people have arisen from their graves and started eating the living. But when he finally realizes that he picks up Ed (his pal), Liz (his former girl), two of her friends and his own mom. So they start their own campaign against the zombies. Basically this film is about the little details - LPs you can throw at a zombie that`s going to kill you and LPs you would never throw at anyone, a zombie doing the refrain to "White lines", etc. I liked it - a very good quality truly British comedy.

Now that`s one thing you`re bound to call a classic. Tennesee Williams is the author of the play of the same name. I really watched it only because it was a central theme in "All about my mother" but who cares about what I do and why? So, there`s Stella who`s quite happy with her husband Stanley Kowalski, despite him being a common person (but he`s Marlon Brando, so she has her reasons for that). But when her neurotic sister Blanche arrives, everything goes a bit bad. Blanche has a very bad relationship with Stanley, and he uses a whole lot of ugly moments from her past in order to show her where her place is. The ending is a very sad one, and a very appropriate one as well. The storyline is actually quite simple, but the film seemed to me being very powerful. I`m probably not such a fan of films made in the 1950s but this one truly was a very good film.

This is once again one of the most famous films Martin Scorsese ever did. Basically its a true story about a dude who`s main ambition in life was to become a gangster and he succeeded at that. Robert de Niro is one of the central figures in this film, just like in quite many other films Scorsese did. He`s still not the leading one - it`s Ray Lyota, who plays Danny. Anyhow, the film mostly reminded me of a mix between Coppolas "Godfather" and i-don`t-remember-who`s "Blow". As a matter of fact, most probably "Blow" ripped this film here off, but I don`t care. Visually the film is quite good, acting is top level, the dialogues are also good, but I don`t see how this can be considered a great film, IMDB top 30. A good, solid film but not one that stays in your memory for years and keeps coming up in the most unexpected situations. Oh, I forgot - the music is totally good, there`s even a song by "Cream" in the film.

This is the rare case when I`m going to rate a book mostly basing upon political attitude and not its actual quality. You see, The Cell is the only book by a German author conserning the GULAG. Still in the content you don`t really get that its about the G. but its mentioned in the notes. The biography of the writer is probably more interesting than the book itself. Why? Because Bienek was arrested as a student in 1951 in Eastern Berlin (at the same age I`m in right now) for telling an Anti-Soviet anecdote. After spending quite a lot of time in a cell for one man he was sent to Vorkuta in Syberia and remained there for 4 years. In the book though all we get is sitting alone in a cell and going nuts from that. The hero has an imaginary inmate in his cell named Alban. He truly believes that Alban really exists until he notices an ant on the floor and then he understands that in fact as he had created Alban not to be lonely, so has Alban imagined this ant on the floor. And then comes the most significant part - he ain`t sure anymore that he himself isn`t an imagination of the ant.

If I believed what some people say, this band`s got lots of potential. It`s considered to be an English reply to Franz Ferdinand. I`m not sure whether it really is or not, but it`s still not even half-bad. Probably this sort of Brit-Pop isn`t particulary entertaining but at least a big part of thos songs is memorable if not great, and they have nice melodies. Lyrically this band doesn`t go particulary far, but it`s still a pretty decent effort. I personally found "Oh my god" with its a bit funky groove to be the best track on the album. Most people still say that "I predict a riot" is the best one. I also liked the opening track with its not particulary romantic lyrics - "Everyday I love you less and less." Probably this record isn`t the best I`ve heard in ages, but it`s good enough to be considered good.

Them French never change. It`s been 50 years since "400 blows" came out but they still do films about the cruelty of school. Of course, this film has nothing to do with "400 blows", but I still thought it a good situation for me to shine with my exceptional high IQ level. A middle aged unsuccessful composer ends up being a prefect in a school for children with problems - not mental or physical, but in terms of behaviour. Being a good fellow he doesn`t try to help them by hitting them with a big mallot on the head but making them sing in a choir. And there`s one child who`s exceptionally hard to handle but who happens to have a voice an angel. But the director of the school doesn`t support anything like this, because he`s an old fox and an old fart. This film doesn`t try to go particulary deep, there even ain`t no sexual abuse of the angelic singer in the film, which seemed to be a coming up thing. But someone this director ain`t no Pedro Almadovar (I don`t really know what`s the name of the director). It`s a nice French film, with some good choir singing, if you want to go psychological you`re knocking at the wrong door, but it doesn`t mean that the film is half bad.

Martin Scorsese is a total loser. Even that guy in the film "Loser" was luckier than him. He at least got this hot chick that was featured in the video of the band`s Wheatus only hit. Of course, I don`t remember anything about this film, because I never watched it. But still - Scorsese has got so many Oscar nominations and not a single award. And even the films of his rarely receive many significant awards. So this year the Aviator had something like 11 nominations and got only 5 of them, the best one for a secondary female role. Still, this film isn`t that good so you need to start raving for it failing to impress the academy. The film is about Howard Hughes, a supposedly legendary person, I never bother to know about until this film came out. Apparantly this Hughes fellow was an amateur film director and an amateur plane builder, who succeeded much at that thing at the beginning. He was also quite good at screwing underage actresses. And he got made for hygiene and stopped washing and shaving because he thought that even in watter there were germs. Leonardo di Caprio of "the Titanic" plays him. I bet you hate if this fellow is considered a titanic-one-trick-pony, but I don`t care, `cos I`m listening to the White Stripes right now, and I don`t care. Oh, I already mentioned that once... This is probably not Scorsese at his best, so they say. The film is a movie for the oscars and not for the heart, at least I think like that. Actually his probably best movie - "Taxi driver" - didn`t impress me much as well. But Scorsese is a living legend, and he will never receive an Oscar, if only for being a legend...

I was just too lazy to review this earlier, for I had worse things to do, but no I can state my case clearly, if you want to listen. This film is done by Clint Eastwood, and he got a very good actor to play the leading male role in his film - a guy who once was popular in westerns, you know - shooting dice, taming wild horses and loving them big breasted women of the wild west. You want to know who this fine fellow is? It`s a guy named Clint Eastwood. Oh, he`s got the same name like the director! It`s so cool, man! Oh, no, it IS the director! Anyhow, Hilary Swank is a young (almost) wanna-be boxer and Clint Eastwood starts training her, despite the fact that he never trains girls. And Hilary almost becomes the champion of the world, but after an illegal punch by a german prostitute she falls into a coma never to fight again. By the rules of boxing in movies she is called the loser of the final battle, by the way, and the chick that delivered the illegal punch retains the title. You know how it goes. If the ending were a lucky one, you could say that this was a remake of Rocky. Although Eastwood does dig deeper, and he has Morgan Freeman on the cast. But even if Hilary Swank never became world champion she at least got her second Oscar in 5 years, despite the fact that she still holds only two good films under her belt. But the Academy works in mysterious ways, you know. By the way, this film is quite good but certainly not exceptional.