Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Lately I`ve read a lot of books where someone tries to solve some mystery concerned with history. "The Da Vinci Code", "The Sect of Egoists", "Baudolino" - those are the first to come to my mind. And here is another one of those. Claude Wooldridge is a rich man in his early fifties, who owns a bookshop, a few bakery shops, and some shops of antiques. His life goes through a whirlpool when he finds among old books a hint that could lead to a lost diary of the most famous British poet - Lord Byron. But the diary is only the background to the real drama of his life - he has a very weird relationship with his daughter and his wife, it turns out that his wife loves his best friend and not him anymore, but what`s the worst - Claude begins to realise that his life is completely empty, there`s no sense in anything he`s ever done, even the diary which he buys for a lot of money turns out to be just a hoax, and the book ends with him commiting suicide. This certainly means that this book hasn`t too much in common with the ones I mentioned at the beginning of this review, but it doesn`t also mean that it`s better or worse. I can`t say that it`s particulary thrilling, but it isn`t also drowsiness evoking. Probably the problem lies in the fact that the adventure part of the book never seems to overwhelm the ever-worsening condition of the main hero, which never lets you really be happy about something.

Why are 3D animated, computer generated cartoons better than the ones that are drawn by hand? Is computer already better than an artist? Of course, not. But artists working for 3D cartoons receive more money, and that makes the difference. The Incredibles, for instance, despite being a cartoon about superheroes somehow manages to leave the impression of being quite fresh. First, we get a bit of reality when superheroes need to turn down their actions because they always get into trouble with lawyers. Then we join the life of a perfectly normal superhero family which has an incredibly strong dad, a very flexible mom, a dissapearing daughter and a ultra-fast son. By the way, just like it usually happens - the daughter is older than the son. What`s this supposed to mean? After being fired from his non-super job Mr. Incredible starts working for a stranger, which just happens to be the supervillain planning to take over the world. It sounds silly, doesn`t it? And it partly is, and partly isn`t. First, there`s perfect computer graphics. Then there`s enough of humour. And then - although the characters aren`t particulary deep they are easy to accept as what they are. If you`re not for something particulary "mind shaking" The Incredibles is quite a good choice for you.

I have never played the computer game "Resident Evil". I have never even seen somebody play it. I haven`t watched the first part of this movie because I thought it would be bad. And what do I do? I watch a sequel of a film that`s made after a computer game! And now you probably think that I`m gonna say - man, it was awesome, I never expected anything like this. But I`m not gonna say it. First, because I want you to feel embarassed, but that`s not the main thing. The film just wasn`t that good. It was no good at all, to be short. Milla Jovovic (calling herself Alice) is a woman that got "upgraded" by a virus (biological weapon) that kills people and then turns them into zombies. The bad company that runs the city where the virus is closes the city down and lets it go down. But Milla plus one another cool chick who looks like Lara Croft, a silly rap talkin` black guy and some others try to win the battle versus the zombies. And there`s a huge super zombie as well (named Nemesis). Well, if you want dumb action - you got, but on the other hand every action film can provide you with dumb action. And there`s nothing except that in this dissapointing film.

Can you imagine a thing like this - a band that was at their peak just two years ago now is a complete waste? I guess you can, because it happens to many bands. Still this is a perfect example for the situation - in 1972 on "Scandinavian Nights" Deep Purple truly rocked. There wasn`t a single boring song in sight, jamming was memorable and singing was as powerful as it can get. But by 1974 Ian Gillan (vocals) and Glen Glover (bass) had left the band taking up David Coverdale as vocalist and some other guy to play the bass. They play much of the material from their latest album "Burn" which isn`t necesserialy bad but it`s much weaker than the Gillan-era stuff. And what comes out of it? Nothing particulary good. Coverdale`s vocal power doesn`t nearly match the one of his precessedor, Ritchie Blackmore seems to be clueless what he wants to play in his solos - he`s sometimes even sillier than that "Spinal Tap" guy with his violin. They do play "Smoke on the water" which wasn`t included on "Scandinavian Nights" but the performance is somewhat uninspiring. And what do they do with "Space Truckin`"! It goes for 30 minutes and most of the time John Lord plays totally unlistenable stuff on the keyboard. Ritchie, on the other hand, suddenly crashes his guitar into a camera on stage and starts throwing things. Something goes on fire, but since the concert itself wasn`t on fire, even that doesn`t bring too much of my attention to the performance.

This is not the U2 gig at Slane Castle itself but a TV version of it - which cuts about half of the songs from the actual performance. But since I can`t call myself a particulary huge fan of the band I don`t mind that. On this version we get all the singles from the newest album at the date of the concert - "All that you can`t leave behind". I never liked those songs too much but in the live versions they certainly sound much better than on the album. Especially it goes for "Beautiful Day". "Stuck in a moment" on the other hand doesn`t work particulary well but it`s a dull song anyway. From the older stuff U2 do their first single ever, which they played when were at the castle for the first time, it`s ok, although nothing too spectacular. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" goes quite different from the studio version, partly for the best, partly for the worst. Then there`s "One" - it`s just too overplayed for me to enjoy it. But "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Pride (In the name of love)" both are very good. I gotta admit that on the big stage U2 are a very powerful force, even now when they can`t bring too much interesting stuff in the studio.

It`s a pretty rare thing to me - to read a book after watching the film based upon it. But since I really loved Tim Burton`s film, and this book ain`t no novelisation - it came out 5 years before the film - I decided to give Mr. Wallace a try. The story is, of course, similar to that of the film - Edward Bloom is dying and his son William is recollecting the memories of his father`s life. But there are some quite major differences between the versions. The film is a real fairy-tale, whilst the book has some dreadful moments in it. For example, the village that no one can leave. In the film no one can leave it because they must give up their shoes. In the book - an angry dog comes and bites off people`s fingers so they would be crippled like everyone else in the village. And Edward Bloom himself doesn`t have that great of a life as he did in the film. It`s less romantic, I suppose. But his death is a bit more interesting in the book - with four different endings of Bloom`s life. The actual ending is similar to that of the film but I still say that this is the rare case there the film has outmatched the book, although the book itself isn`t bad, it just isn`t that great.

This is the first film to come out of the great Stanley Kubrick more than 50 years ago. It`s not a real big screen motion picture though - just a 15 minutes long documentary. It shows us one day in the life of a professional boxer Walter Cartier and one of his fights. Not that the boxer was any popular even back then. It was just supposed to show what it was like to fight for a living. As much as I understood about this film it was probably a unique thing but that`s not too important to me. Specialists tell that by the movement of camera you can recognise Kubrick right away. Well, I couldn`t. I gotta admit that it was probably an insightful look at what boxing is all about, having some pretty neat sentences in the commentary, but if a film that goes on for only 15 minutes can bore me, it`s not a good sign. That doesn`t mean that I`m going to rate this thing low, for it`s a documentary and documentaries are rarely great peaces of fiction (cause they aren`t even fiction) and for 1951 it`s pretty solid. But not great by any standards.

This is a band similar to `the Coral` but the debut album by the Zutons left a better impression upon me than the latest disc recorded by their elder colleagues. This style of music is, of course, mainly influenced by British bands from the sixties, but I like the sixties, so it`s no problem for me. The arrangements on this album are pretty good, not too intensive, of course, but memorable. "Moons and Horrow shows" is something that you can listen to when being in your car on a country road and you don`t need to hurry but you can look at the landscapes slowly passing by. "Zuton Fever" has a very solid starting riff. "Remember me" is a partly rare kind of song - it`s about a guy who`s unhappy that his best friend doesn`t care for him anymore now when he`s got a girlfriend. I personally consider this album a very good one not only in terms of music but also in terms of music. "Railroad" is nice. So is "Pressure point". There`s surely this thing that most of these songs remind me of something, seem familiar, but they still sound good, even if this isn`t a breakthrough in the world of music. By the way, "Pressure Point" has something from "Deep Purple". It`s probably the best thing I`ve heard this year that has been recorded in 2004 (although I haven`t been following the music industry too tightly). And I certainly must change my position that there`s no new good music in the world. You just have to look for it in the right places.

This is one of the relatively new bands coming from Liverpool, with a style of something like British garage rock. They are apperantly quite big but I don`t care who`s big and who`s not. And the Coral aren`t particulary interesting (at least judging by this record). Not that it doesn`t try to be diverse but it`s plainly not too interesting and not too listenable. I read somewhere that the band tried to be a bit more alternative than it had been on the previous records, but I don`t think that it did them much good (not that I had heard anything else by them). For example, "Venom Cable" almost made my ears bleed with some silly unlistenable sounds. "I forgot my name" on the contrary is fairly good, reminding me of "The Monks" - an obscure sixties band. "Sorrow or the Song" is a nice romantic piece. But "Auntie`s operation" is a fest of bullshit. It`s something like an easy version for "Catholic Schoolgirls Rule" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers mixed together with some song that the Kink could have done in the sixties. "Grey Harpoon" with a rhythm coming from the hip hop world is something quite amazing. But the biggest problem of the album is - it`s just too short to have the amount of bad songs it has. If there was something like 10 minutes of nonsense on an album with the lenght of an hour it would be ok, but this album goes on for only 28 minutes.

I have never been a huge fan of Blur - the band that brough Graham Coxon money, fame and glory. And that`s the reason why I didn`t fall extremely fast for his latest record. What can you expect from a guy from a band that you don`t particulary like? Probably a record that you will find ok, but certainly not much more than that. Probably it would be just the case, hadn`t I recently found some interest for Britpop and similar kind of music. I don`t really know whether this record had any hits, but for good ol` me it`s a nice 45 minutes of easy listening mostly upbeat rock music. "No good time", "Hopeless Friends" and "Freakin` out" are the best songs on the record to my bet. This album probably can`t shake no big ground and make Graham Coxon the coolest guy on the planet Earth (this title already belonging to Vanilla Ice), but I can`t make me say that I don`t like this kind of music. So, it`s probably nothing terrific, but I like it, and why shouldn`t I?