Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

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.

Kādas ir tavas domas par cilvēku - orgānu donoru - audzēšanu? Vai tāda būtu vēlama vai nē? Vai klonēt cilvēkus, kas jau kopš bērnības tiek sagatavoti donora karjerai, ir humāni vai nē?

Boring stories.

Usually I`m not fond of romantic stories about knights and their quests for fame and love. And this is a perfect example of me not being fond. The creator of Mr. Sherlock Holmes could most certainly come up with something a bit more entertaining than a totally bland story about some squire with lots of physical power and very little of a character. The latter is a problem I wouldn`t expect to encounter in a book by Conan Doyle since nobody can deny that his most famous character is even a bit more real than most people are.

Do you know why Kafka is considered to be so cool? Because he never finished a novel. And despite that there are three novels of his that are put on the golden shelf of the 20th century literature. And America is one of those novels. It certainly lacks an ending but it`s not really that clear - did Mr. Kafka indeed plan ever to write one? We get to hear the story of a young boy Carl going to the States after he has impregnated a servant of his parents. Actually I chose the wrong word - she was rather impregnated through him, `cos the boy had no interest in her and she used him as a living dildo or something like that. Anyhow he met his uncle in the States who was a rich and influential fellow (and not an evil uncle, who would have predicted that!) but because of a silly misunderstanding he has to leave his uncle and start a life of his own. He teams up with two tramps - an Irishman and a French guy. He finds a job at the hotel as the elevator boy, but because of his so called friends whom he was trying to escape he has to leave the job and become a servant for a crazy fat singer that earns her money by sex. In the end Carl joins a strange theatre and goes on a train to start his work, but that`s where the story ends. And I don`t mind that, because it`s how life goes - could you really make a complete story about your life that would end with your death?

Trying to be living up-to-date and not in some imaginary world, I`m on my mission watching some of the films that are after this seasons Oscars. And one of them is this film here - "Ray" is a celebration of life of music genius Ray Charles. He was a blind black young man who went from the very bottom to the very top. Women, drugs, money, fame - he had it all. He almost lost his life to cocaine but was able to return back. He combined different styles of music together creating his own mix of r`n`b, gospel, country and jazz. And he died last year, that is probably the main reason for the success of this film. Ok, Jimmy Foxx is a very good actor, and I really believe him, so do all the other actors also seem very real. But the film has nothing more - it`s actually no different from "The Doors" - we get a drug addict who has lots of women, and still is a genius. Oh, no, we got one thing here - you see, all the problems with drugs came to him because when he wasn`t on drugs he had hallucinations because when Ray Charles was still a kid and was still seeing he saw his little brother die in a bowl of water. And this is it - the problem of childhood was the source of all his problems. And then - while the film about his life was made - he died, and - shebang! - a film that would probably never make no noise becomes a massive hit and goes for lots of Oscars! Isn`t that a bit silly, or is it just me?

This is the final novel Chapek wrote in his life short before his protest starvation induced death (he still had little chance to survive the German invasion in Czechoslovakia being the 2nd on their enemy of the state list). The novel contains various people`s memories about some unsuccessful composer. One of them knew him at school, other was his teenage love, some other - a critic to whom he showed his work. From the first part we get a feeling that Foltaine was a talented but a bit disturbed person who could eventually achieve something great. His first girlfriend doesn`t like his bragging for his sexual experience (which doesn`t fit particulary well with his behaviour). But later we find out that Foltaine not only doesn`t become a great composer but that he also doesn`t achieve anything simply because he`s unable to compose a thing. He starts to compose an opera but in fact after he`s married a rich man`s daughter he pays different unsuccessful young musicians to write musical pieces for him and he just somehow binds them together thus achieving a monstrous creating that jumps from one style to another never really going anywhere. In addition to that Foltaine`s passion for a repututation of a bohemian and of a great lover only evolves when he gets older but in deed nobody really wants him, nobody really loves him and he dies after losing his mind completely. The novel itself ends quite abruptly for Chapek didn`t have enough time to finish it and the last chapter was written by a different person. At first I thought it was just a trick done by the author (I didn`t know that it was his last work), but it wasn`t. The novel got published posthumously and I guess it was more than worth being released. A very good book. My impression of Chapek`s work gets better and better once again.

This is going to be an interesting observation. In late January the arrival of "Arctic monkeys" on the scene of popular music is considered to be at least as important as that of "Oasis". I wonder where the Monkeys will be in... say 5 years. Probably they`ll be lost on a dusty shelf next to the last LP "The Monkees" ever recorded. But perhaps they`ll be bigger than U2, bigger than "The Chili Peppers", bigger than the still living "Rolling Stones". Who knows?