Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Dear God! What on earth made me watch this film made by Jim Jarmusch - the most crazy of them all American film directors? He never records anything in color and he never records anything with much action in it. And why did I watch this film? First, because it was pretty good. Of course, it wasn`t particulary full of action scenes (if you don`t count drinking coffee and smoking), but as a comedy based on sketches it worked quite good. Then there`s the actors - where else do you get both members of the "White Stripes", Roberto Benigni, Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Cate Blanchett, Steve Coogan and Bill Murray together in one picture? So, what`s the best sketch in this film? I personally liked the one about Elvis`s brother, the one featuring Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan was also good, but I still consider "Nothing`s wrong" as the best one. Of course, the camera work is minimalistic, so are the settings, but this film really has got something that makes it interesting, although I don`t really know why it didn`t bore me. But it didn`t! Probably that Jarmusch fellow isn`t as evil as I supposed he was!

Oh, boy, welcome to the horrific world of teen comedies! You know, the kind of stuff where you get two stupid jerks going on something like a roadtrip and encountering everything you can name on their way. There`s this Chinese dude Harold and his cool Indian pal, and they decide to go and have some burgers after smoking some weed. But it turns out that getting the right kind of cheap untasty burgers isn`t as easy as they would like it to be. So they get bullied by some assholes, they encounter a cheetah that has escaped from the zoo, their car gets stolen by a celebrity, one of them gets put into jail. Then there`s the problem of getting laid which is quite important to Kumar, and which is complicated for Harold for he loves a girl he has never dared to speak to. Of course, in the end everything turns out to be great, everyone is happy, hurrah! About the jokes: most of them are completely stupid, not in the league of "Dorm Daze" though but not much better. The plot is stupid, even for a teen comedy. The characters - not particulary interesting. I don`t really know what`s good about this film. Probably that it`s better than "Dorm Daze", but not anything else.

This film is subtitled as "The Rise and Fall of Britpop". That means we get to hear from such bands as "Oasis", "Blur", "Pulp" and "Massive Attack". Although I don`t find MA particulary britpopish. Well, whatever. The film is basically a documentary - it shows the guys from the bands talking, plays some fragments of the songs, has some videos in it. What do we learn? First, that Britpop was supported by the new Labour party (when Tony Blair was still in opposition) and that it got dumped by the politicians. Which was no particular wonder at all. What else? That Liam Gallagher is a complete idiot, but I guess that`s no surprise to anyone at all. What we don`t get is almost nothing about "The Verve" and "Radiohead" - two quite typical British bands of the 90s. The choice of music for the film is certainly superb, but the way the film is made isn`t. First, there`s close to no connection between what different people say in this film. Ok, it is chronological but there`s nothing really tying it up together - like a voice from the back of the screen saying: "And in December 1995 Liam got hit by a rubber duck." It`s pretty amateur I must say. Ok, probably it`s meant that way for the style of Britpop is quite amateur as well, but it doesn`t work well. And what also surprised me - is how can you make a film where you get so much talk about Oasis not mentioning that they are nothing more than a carbon copy of the Beatles? And to call them the best band in the world? You gotta be kidding.

Under normal conditions I probably wouldn`t watch a film like this one. But being alone in a London hotel room and having very little to do - little choice of TV, little to read and nowhere to go - I said: why not watch "Hollow Man" which was running on TV at the time. First, I must admit that I didn`t see the beginning of the film (it may have been quite a significant part in terms of minutes), but I guess, that I saw enough. Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) is a scientist that becomes invisible, and being invisible he slowly goes mad and starts attacking the people who were responsible for his becoming invisible. The special effects in the film were really good, that`s for sure but everything else didn`t really live up to it (and I didn`t have expectations set low at the beginning because I had no expectations at all). What was wrong? First, I maybe missed it in the beginning but this Caine person somehow had something similar to super powers - he succeeded very vicious attacks (although his male opponent was also made of something similar to steele), he wasn`t even hurt when he had been burning for a few minutes, etc. The reasons for him becoming mad - Linda had a boyfriend but he wanted to be her boyfriend, so he started killing everyone. As you can guess Linda and the other fellow were the only two to live this mayhem. Actually there`s nothing more to add, except that the film was quite boring to watch, very predictable and a bit silly. Although it`s probably just me who doesn`t like this kind of films

Just like Haruki Murakami who`s book I finished reading before switching to Sueskind, this here is one of my favourite writers. Having already swallowed the hook of the creator of "The Perfume", "Contrabass" etc., I didn`t expect these four stories to be something around average. And they really weren`t! First there`s "The Attraction to Depth" - a story about a young female painter that goes crazy and can`t continue her work after an art critic has said that there`s not enough depth in her art which he only said not to overrate the girl. And as she died from a suicide the critic wrote that all her works showcased attraction to depth. "The battle" tells a story of chess playing in the park, where the local champion (an old drunk) is challenged by a young charistmatic opponent whom love all the spectators. And only after the victory the champion understands that he had played against a complete fool and that his win wasn`t better than a loss, he decides to give up chess. The third story "Jean Messar`s Testament" tells us about a weirdos theory that the whole earth is getting overwhelmed by shells. And then there`s the observation - how a man reads a book and sees different notices on the sides and only in the end understands that it was him who wrote all the comments, and that he doesn`t remember anything he`s ever read. Like Sueskind usually likes it to be all the stories are both very funny and very sad at the same time. And you can surely say that it`s one hell of a recipe he has found.

Since I didn`t like the first part of the film there was no real reason for me to watch the second one. But since I did watch, why can`t I write about it? First thing that strikes you in this film by Quentin Tarantino is how little it has to do with the first part in terms of style. While the first one was ultra-bloody this one is ultra-nothing-happening. To be frank, it`s a bit boring. Beatrice continues her mission of killing Bill, encountering his brother Budd and a one-eyed chick who`s name I have already forgotten. And in the end she also finds her daughter. Some of the stuff is, of course, unimaginable to happen, but I don`t really care about that. As much as I can tell this film reminds of Japanese movies which I have never seen and am not sure whether I want to see. What was bad, was the music. Tarantino was once famous for having a perfect soundtrack to his films, but in this one except for a cover version of "She`s not there" from the Zombies catalogue, there`s nothing to offer.

Once again I have read an essay. If this goes on soon I`ll be a total elitist. Since I`m not one yet, let`s hear what this essay can offer us. I don`t have any information of this Enzensberger fellow but I gotta admit that he has his points. The essay speaks of the civil war on the atomic level that happens everythere all the time. This war isn`t a social one - it`s mostly the rich against the rich, the poor against the poor, the black against the black. And the society has become even more violent than it was in the time of the Cold war, for then most of the fighting was done for some weird ideas, but now it`s done without any ideas at all. And the civil wars everywhere in the world have become even worse than they were before. Another aspect is that most people don`t feel guilty - like most Germans didn`t feel guilty for Hitler although it was them who let him get the power and it was them who let them keep it. But in the end every criminal is the victim himself - because of his poor family, violent father, bad neighborhood or something like that. A person never is considered bad as such. And that, according to Enzensberger, is wrong. And I don`t really see why I should disagree with him

The master`s latest. Baudolino is an old man who has lived a life full of wonders. Born in a swamp, he became the stepson to the emperor Friedrich Barbarossa (you can guess that it happened in the 12th century). He was a very good liar and invented quite many christian myths. But his main quest in life was to find the king John who lived somewhere in the farest East and ruled over the three Indias and the mysterious people inhabiting them. Together with his friends Baudolino went on this voyage and almost got there. That`s strange about this book is that Eco unlike in his other stories about Medieval times gives us unbelievable things - like people who have only one leg or genitalia on their neck, etc. But you can`t be really sure what`s true and what isn`t since what we hear is the story Baudolino tells to a chronist named Nikita. The ending is a bit of surprise although not as much as it could have been. To be honest, I don`t really know why I rate this book that much lower than "Focaults Pendulum" but I still do it. Probably, it`s because there`s too much repetition in here, probably not. It`s still a very good book, and I honestly doubt that Eco would be able to write something not very good.

I guess I can`t call myself particulary interested in musicals. And I have my reasons for that: first, the music is usually quite cheeky and the singing - awful. Second, the storyline of the average musical is not more complicated than that of a Swedish porn movie. And last but not least I think that adoring musicals shows the person`s bad taste. Then why did I watch this one? Because I was told that it was good. I did have my doubts though - Nicole Kidman as the leading actress is a good thing for sure, but what else could a film about a French sluthouse offer? Ok, I know that the red Mill wasn`t exactly a sluthouse, but basically it still was. Now come to think about the film. The story is stilly quite simple - a young writer from Switzerland comes to Paris and falls in love with the best courtisane of Moulin Rouge. And she falls in love with him. But a rich duke who invests loads of money into Moulin Rouge also craves her, and it brings up the problems. The plot as such can`t score big points for the film. But as for the music - it rocks! Could you imagine a cabaret in early 1900s the people sing "Here we are now - entertain us" or a dude who apparantly has written "The One" by Elton John. Or a performance of "Roxanne" (The Police)? It`s totally cool, although I still prefer the original versions, but this surely is one weird musical.

I don`t really remember the reason, but this once was my favorite Disney cartoon. Now, watching it as a wiser and bolder person (haa haa!) I found out that I sadly don`t like it this much anymore. To tell the story I need to be a sillier person than I am. But what can I tell? First, that to my astonishment this cartoon doesn`t follow the book by Carroll at all - it has similarities with it but not much more than that. Then, that there still are a few interesting characters - for example, the Chesire cat is cool although he doesn`t say what he`s supposed to. And then comes the comparison to "Neco z Alenky" - a film by Svankmajer, also based on the same story. And what surprises me is that despite being a dark and dreary tale the Svankmajer version had some better characters - the Mad Hatter and the March Rabbit for instance there much cooler in that version. Still, "Alice in Wonderland" is a cartoon for little children, just like everything coming from Disney studios, therefore I can`t be too harsh upon it. Animation is certainly much better than in newer cartoons, and without doubt it`s also more inventive.