Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Trey Parker and Matt Stone (if I remember correctly their names) are two real weirdos, that are fighting for human rights and freedom of speech all the time. Or it`s what I think they do. Nevermind that what they do is creating South Park - one of the cartoon series with the crappiest kind of animation ever. Nevertheless this kind of animation has its share of charme, and the film has its value. Of course, the language in it is very foul. What else could you expect from a musicle which has the song "Uncle Fucker" in it? Not much. But, first - the music is really good. Songs like "What would Brian Boitano do" and others are very nice. About the plot - when the film "Asses of fire" by Terence and Philip - two Canadian comedians makes the children of South Park swear all the time, their mothers start a war on Canada. Alec Baldwin gets killed (if you have interest for that), but the little boys - Kyle, Cartman, Stan and Kenny (deceased) do everything to save Terence & Philip from being murdered as war criminals and from Satan and Saddam Hussein (who happen to be lovers) to come and claim power over the world. Although this film probably cost less than 10% of what "Team America" required, this stuff is certainly better, it has lots of social critique in it and bears a very clear and positive message.

Frank Zappa was one hell of a composer, and he was one hell of a guy. A man who looked like a hippie and made fun of hippies; a man who played rock music and despised rock music. A man so crazy that you could say: "Please pork the granite monkey" to him, and he would still have something to say in return. And he wrote a book, how strange it may sound to you. This book appears to be his autobiography or something similar to that, although just the first part of the book tells us facts from Zappas life - his poor family, the first steps towards the world of music, etc. In the latter part Zappa discusses his attitude to life, the universe and everything. Amazingly, not being a huge fan of a big part of Zappas music, I found that I could accept most of his ideas, which once again proved to me what an intelligent person - a phenomenon in the branch of rock music. Quote: "Some scientists state that hydrogen is the main construction material of the universe, for there`s much of it in everything. I don`t agree. I can bet that there`s more stupidity in the world than hydrogen, and IT really is the main construction material of the universe." Apart from that Zappa makes fun of the American government, every other government, the purist church, hell, he knows how to make fun. Still I gotta admit that not all chapters of the book are particulary interesting, but it was a thing worth to read.

Woody Allen is a jerk! Now I can state that clearly! This happens to be his best film, according to the IMDB but it`s stupid, boring and everything that goes with it. Ok, I know that Woodie got his own style of comedy that nobody has ever tried to reproduce (ok, probably someone has, I really don`t care), but his style isn`t particulary good. Ok, it`s a bit odd seing a film that sounds like a documentary or an amateur film (I don`t have the right words to describe it), but there`s nothing special about it. Ok, I can probably say that this film depicts life as it is, without making you feel like you watch a movie, but as if you were watching life itself, but in that case - life isn`t very interesting, and so is the case with this film. Alvy (Woody) breaks up with his girlfriend Annie Hall, and re-lives their relationship in a series of flashbacks. Most of which are boring - rarely have I seen something this uninteresting. Ok, the Woody`s character is a bit funny but it`s the same character he has played in his other 30 films - a guy having problems in his sex life because there`s no harmony in bed between him and his woman, who`s a silly nerd, good for nothing, well, whatever, I don`t even wanna talk about. And how can fans and critics adore this utterless piece of junk - is a real mystery to me. The rating of 4.0 is too high for this film, but only for the originality of style it gets it from me. Heck, "A Midssummer Night`s Sex Comedy" was much better than this, and it still didn`t really ring the bell!

Actually there`s a real big-screen motion picture of tHGttG coming out next year, but until then I can settle for this BBC film. Not that it`s bad, not at all. The story goes basically through the first two books of the Guide (actually, it`s the 6 radio episodes, but it doesn`t really matter), where Arthur Dent`s house is bulldozed to make a bypass, and so is Earth dissintegrated to make a transgalactic bypass. But Arthur manages to leave the Earth together with his friend Ford Prefect who just happens to come from a planet somewhere in Beetlegeuse 5. On their space hitchhiking voyage they meet the bi-headed Zaphod Beetlebrox and Trillian, a girl Artur once met at a party. If you haven`t read the book or watched the film, or heard the radio program, it probably makes no sense to you, therefore I won`t go on raving about the story. I liked it, hey, I forgot to mention that it`s all by Douglas Adams! Anyhow, the special effects aren`t particulary impressive, but it`s a TV movie, for christssake! At least there`s nothing offensive about it, ok, maybe the look of Marvin is offensive, but never mind that. You gotta dig deeper - and if you do that, you`ll notice what a good comedy this is.

Welcome back to the amazing world of teen comedies. This dude, who`s name I have already forgotten, who`s the school president but overall - something between a geek and a dork, he notices a sexy chick that has moved in next door. And as he watches her undress, she notices him. And what do you know? Something remotely similar to a romance begins between them. But problems arise when the guy finds out that Danielle (that`s the chick. yeah, I remembered her name!!!) is a porn actress, even more than that - a porn star. And her producer who`s a cool and tough guy comes to town. And everything starts going wrong for the guy, as he does many things he shouldn`t have done. In the end though, as you could guess without even planning to do so, he gets the girl and earns a whole lot of money by making a sex education film for schools. And this is it. What about the value of the film? It`s one of those films that`s not too easy to watch, for the hero does everything to make you feel sorry for him - acts more than like and idiot, like an imbycile or even worse. The plot is stupid, of course, and for people that don`t like romantic teen comedies, this is not a film to watch. But what`s amazing - is that it features some of the best music ever written - I have no idea how a film of this quality managed to get "Under Pressure", "Sweet Home Alabama", "Purple Haze" and "Baba O`Riley" on the film. Not that these songs fit well in, but it`s still pretty cool to hear something of this kind in a film where most of the time you hear contemporary shite.

Can you imagine the days of the feodals when you kissed your masters hand and let him have sexual intercourse with your wife, daughter and even your dog? I guess, you can`t. Neither can I. But P.Merimee could. And that`s why he wrote this play. There`s like this village somewhere in France where those aristocrates do what they want, then there`s monks who also do what they please to do, and last there`s the working class slob. And this guy named Jean, who happens to be a monk himself, leads the mob to rebellion against their masters. It all turns out to be a blooshed, and even the purest of hearts turn sour at that (like Jean himself). He got his left and right hands - there`s Pierre who`s in love with the local aristocrats daughter (who by the way considers him as a man of low origin worse than a dog), and a rebel living in the woods calling himself Werewolf - a nice fellow, imho. This seems to be historically very acurate, and even interesting to read. A bit too old-stylish for me, but nevertheless a good play. Although I have absolutely no idea how this could be shown on a stage. A film version would certainly make more sense.

It`s been ages since I read a book this big in German. And I mean literally ages - at least since my previous life. A modern version of Hamlet, you ask? Gotta have lots of perversion in it, you know what these modern versions are usually like. Strangely this isn`t the case. Edward Allison comes from WW2 with only one leg, and has to remain at the hospital for his mind isn`t really well, but his mother persuades the doctors to let him stay with the family. Everything would be ok, hadn`t Edward due to some strange reason decided that he should solve the mysteries in his own house. Which means - unfold his fathers secret. While he tries to find the truth within himself, his relatives tell him weird stories - for example, the one about the princess of Tripoli that lived from men`s life and managed to remain young for a very long time, and a version of king Lear`s life where he isn`t a hero but a tyrant. Gordon (Edwards father) is a writer and his marriage to Alice collapses when Edward drives him out of his home because of the past. Alice tells Edward, that he isn`t his father`s son and goes on the search for her true lover. While his father (who is Gordon) dies in the hands of the mother who has once again accepted him, Edward slowly comes back to himself, understanding that he isn`t a Hamlet, no matter how he tried to be one. What do I say? Despite the length, it`s an interesting novel, showing the confusion of modern times, having quite a few interesting stories told by the characters on their way coping with themselves.

Now that is one hell of a long title - just like them Germans like them to be. To be honest - it`s almost longer than the book. Peter Bichsel, you see, was a poet who died young (actually he didn`t die young, but that would sound more impressive). And he also wrote this compilation of 21 stories which have more to do with poetry than with prose. They are extremely short and rarely have a real story going on in them. There`s a one called "The Men" - it`s a tricky one about a woman sitting in a cafeteria. And there`s another one about a guy imagining a conversation with a girl selling flowers. And a good one about a granndad who died but wanted to tame lions. And then there`s the title story - this Mrs. Blum gets milk from the milkman every day but never sees him for he comes too early in the morning, still the milkman considers that he knows the woman for he knows how much milk she buys. The stories are made up from very short sentences, and they are rather bizarre images than anything else. I doubt that there`s a need to try to find what Bichsel wanted to tell, what were his ideas. It`s not that important really. I do like poets writing prose, and this is a good example for that. Books like this one don`t make you change your lifestyle, shave your head and go to Tibet; they are too unimportant, unpretentious for that. But does everything have to be immortal to be good? I don`t think so.

For some reason unknown to me I consider Mr. Boell to be an important modern German writer. I may be wrong, but something tells me I`m not. This novel though is not a modern German classic, at least it`s what I think it to be. So, there`s this important family of the 20th century Germany, and there`s nothing particular to tell. There are three generations of those people, but not much going on with them. The granddad was once a dynamite expert at the war, but I don`t really know anything about it. To be quite honest, I didn`t read the book too honest, for it bored me to death, and beyond. There`s a bad guy also participating, and he doesn`t do anything as well. Ok, he was a villain at WW2, as far as I understood, but to be frank - I don`t give a damn about the heroes of this book, what they did and why. A wasted time. Full stop.

Rarely have I encountered such problems writing a review of a book as the ones I have right now. And why is that? Because the book in question is not only a worldwide bestseller that has left quite an impact on zillions of people but mainly because my attitude towards it isn`t really determined. There`s this professor Langdon who tries to solve the mystery of a French guy who did some important work in the Louvre. He`s wanted for murder of that fellow by the French police, but there`s the dead man`s granddaughter helping him. Together they try to solve both this mystery and the mystery of the holy grail itself. The ideas of the book? Not too many of them, I must say, basically it`s the holy femininity that has been hidden by Christianity through the ages, and now has to be revealed. The writing is pretty plain - Dan Brown is surely no great literate - his writing style is simple and clichesque, the tension isn`t especially high and the riddles are not too inventive. You see, I like the message, but I don`t like the letter, that`s something like that. In the hands of a better writer this could have been a great book, and a great film could be made from this, but as it is - it`s not much more than a good video game, something between "Broken Sword" and "Tomb Raider".