Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

The get-up of Nikolai Gogols` play "The Inspector General" aka "Revizor" at the New Theatre of Latvia has got spectacular reviews in Europe and has won quite a lot of awards. So, going to watch this play my expectations were higher than usual. And no wonder - the play itself is a classic, and if the performance is that good - what could stop this from being an unforgettable experience? The fact, that it wasn`t that good. The scene has been transformed from the 19th century Russia into something like 1960s Soviet Union, with everyone looking Soviet to their bones. That isn`t a problem for me, I don`t look for blasphemy everythere, and I liked the artificial nudeness of some characters, but overall the whole thing was not too interesting. So, there were some chicken on the stage. Ok, no problem. So, Hlestakov is a little whiny loser, that`s still no problem. So, the actors do a "Stomp" impersonation, that`s still ok. But where was the magic they told there should be? It`s just professional, and nothing more. I gotta admit, it may be no deeper meaning to find, what turned me off, but still there was something missing - that wonder potion in the air that makes your knees totter after leaving the theatre. Something that makes art art. Otherwise I may read aloud the writing on the wall in the foyet of the theatre: "Fuck the art!"

Mr. Eich himself called the stories/essays he wrote "moles". This is the kind of book which makes you dizzy and raving. It`s whacky like nothing else you`ll be likely to encounter. You see, it makes very little sense most of the time, for the stories are weird. They are strange and very short. Like there`s this one guy flying in the direction contrary to the rotation of the earth trying to save up some time. Or a person capable of living only in a place starting with PA. Most of them have no story to tell at all, they are just absurd images. This would make a great psychedelic experience. Heck, it makes a great psychedelic experience! It has no point, or I simply don`t see one, but I don`t require it anyway.

Jim Carrey is a respected comedian on the other side of the Atlantic. But he still does pretty lame films. And if he does a good film - nobody watches it. MM&I was quite a popular film, which meens - it is surely dumb. But a film being dumb doesn`t always implicate it being also bad. Well, in this case it does. Charlie is a nice Rhode island cop, but his life is nowhere near as nice - his wife left him, his three kids are black, nobody except for the kids respects him. And he`s got a split personality - there`s this guy Hank living inside him, who unlike the always optimistic Charlie, is a silly tough guy. Charlie (and Hank) get involved with Irene, a former girlfriend of a mafiozo. But the problem lies in the fact that both of them (Hank and Charlie) fall in love with Irene, being jealous one on another. And there are cops following the whole three of them (the four, if you wish, as they pick up an albino guy called Whitey). Still, there are very little laughs in this film, and nothing except for laughs it even doesn`t want to offer. Oh, I almost forgot, that it`s a Romantic comedy. So, be it, it`s still boring, not funny and everything like that. Making silly faces doesn`t always work, just as its proven here.

"Night fever - night fever!" No, it`s not the film where you could hit the dance floor like a maniac to the sound of the Bee Gees. But it`s a film where you can see a young John Travolta. He`s a sound engineer for porn movies, but his life plays out an unexpected twist when he saves the life of a girl who was trapped in a car that fell into a river where a dude going to be elected for senator died. And what`s the coolest - Jack (that`s Travolta) was recording some sounds for a film and recorded how the car fell into the river and found out that it was an assassination and not an accident. So he wants to find out from Sally (that`s the chick) what happened. She acts as if she was a hooker but she was indeed just a silly little girl working at creating pictures for blackmail. But there`s a maniac on the loose - the guy who shot the car and who starts killing young women. What I liked about the film was that he did kill Sally in the end - at least there was no happy ending, this stupid chick wasn`t a particulary lovable character anyway. Oh, I almost forgot - this film was directed by Brian da Palma. Who`s the cat? - you`ll ask. I have no idea - I`ll answer, but he seems to be a really cool director that hasn`t made any really good films.

This is one hell of a scary book. First, because it is real - there`s no fiction which makes it even scarier. A book about KZ is not the most pleasant thing in the world. Not that I expected it to be. Basically it`s just a love story. But a weird one indeed. He`s a leftist fighter from Austria in the Spanish war, she`s a local radicalist. They fall in love, but have to flee from the country after Franco has won the war. They decide to go to Germany, which is a stupid choice, of course. He ends up in a concentration camp, she and her child stay outside. They can get married in the camp, which is a totally strange thing - for that camp is Auschwitz, and the wedding took place only as a PR shit. Anyway, he organises something similar to rebellion and dies as a hero. She finds a new man. That`s it. The narration of the book is quite interesting - as pieces of memories by different people who were with them - relatives and pals. In the end though it`s not too clear for the pieces ar not titled - you never know who tells what. The book is dark and depressive but not too hard to read. If I hadn`t read a lot of books on this subject already, it might have had an even better impression on me.

This is the rare case when I had high expectations before starting to read the book, even without knowing anything about it. But I liked the cover and the subtitle "six seductions". I thought this could be something spicy and yet smart, but I was proved to be wrong. The first story is about a painter H.Bosch who drinks too much wine. The second story is about a woman that goes to holy place hoping to be cured but still dies. The third one is totally weird - there`s some guy talking about hyenas being nice or something like that. Then there`s the fourth story where two guys discover the life of Jean Paul (if I knew who that was, but it seems to be a historical figure). Then there`s the story "Pele`s Knee" which tells us about the youth of the footballer and how his knee hurts him still in the 90s. But the best story is the last, and it`s entitled "The Fear of the Matter" where we have a scientist named Szilard going to Einstein first to say - send a letter to the president that he should make an atomic bomb, and then later - that he shouldn`t use it. So? What was it like? Nothing spectacular, it`s just a book and nothing more. Don`t judge a book by looking at the cover, I can say, for this book didn`t turn out to be what I though it could be.

The name of the author seemed to be familiar. Usually I don`t go for plays. Or do I? I`m not really sure. Anyhow, the German project goes on. And here is a fine example of a diamond found in the huge pile of you-know-what. There`s this perfect girl/woman that was created by God just a few hours ago and now she has to be given to the only beggar in the world, named Akki, to help him improve his life. But everything goes wrong when Nebunakdnezar, the local king and tyrant dresses up as a beggar to convince Akki to change his lifestyle. What comes out of it is that Kurrubi - the girl - ends up given to the king. Which on one hand means that the king is the poorest man in the world and on the other - that he`s lucky. Only he doesn`t know of his luck and gives the girl away to... Akki. There`s lots of complicated problems in this short play, and it`s not only comical but also quite deep. For example, there`s a statue of the king in the garden which has exchangable heads, so no new statue should be made, when the king changes. From what I read, this was supposed to be the first part of the trilogy about the tower of Babel, but the author never wrote the next parts. But even without them this is a great play.

Sex, drugs & rock`n`roll? You bet. Not too much rock`n`roll though. "Trainspotting" was a cult book which I didn`t read, and it sure was a cult film which as far as I know not too many people have actually dared to watch. What did I expect to be? A totally gross movie about what drugs can do to people, much darker than "Requiem for a Dream". What did I get? A drama with elements of comedy, just like them British guys like it to be. By the way, they are Scottish, which is very important in the context of the film. Renton is a heroin addict who decides to dump the drugs, quite a few times. And there are his pals: Spud - the stupid one, Sick Boy - the cool one; Tommy - the physical one; and Begbie - the neurotic madman. Together they have their ups and downs, and together they deal with modern times. This film is certainly much more than an "anti-drugs" movie, in fact, it`s not even clearly anti-drugs, it`s not that easy to tell. Anyhow, I think this film was awesome, and definetely it`s not too scary for you to watch, although at some times it gets pretty dark.

A musical! Oh, luck, oh joy! Oh-bi-van-ke-no-bi! This musical is a parody, so they say. I`m not really sure parody for what, but a parody nevertheless. And it was made back in 1975. There`s this guy Brad Majors and his fiancee Janet Weiss that have to stay a night in a strange castle where weird things happen. Most notually - strange people happen. First, there`s the host Frank-N-Further a mad scientist who happens to be a bisexual transvestite from a galaxy named Transylvania. And he creates Rocky - a perfect loverboy for himself. Except for that Frank seduces both Janet and Brad - turning the first one into a sex-crazed person. And the action goes on. The plot is silly, of course, and it`s what you could have expected from a film like this. Sadly the music is also quite bad, and the singing - dull, like in most musicals. Frank himself is probably ok - his transvestite looks don`t really bother me, but this film may be funny as a historical document but a value as itself it doesn`t have.

Having already read a novel by this author I decided - why wouldn`t I read a collection of stories that was also included in the book of "Higher Hopes" I took from the library. And it proved quite a positive experience. Some of the stories aren`t particulary spectacular, I must admit that the most of them haven`t found a place in my heart to stay but because of a few perfectly atmosperical and very interesting stories this still deserves a high rating. The absolute pinnacle surely is "The mirror tale" which I remember having read at school. It`s about a young woman that dies and relives her life backwards. It`s something like the first time she meets her boyfriend is the last, her mommy gets picked up from the cemetary, she has to forget, how to read and to speak. Touching. Very touching indeed. Then there`s "Der Gefesselte" - a weird man who`s tied by a rope and performs like that in the circus, who`s afraid that his ties may be broken. And "Where I live" - a man suddenly finds out that his apartment has gone one staircase lower, and how he copes with that. Of course, there are other stories as well, but these are the most outstanding ones. My conclusion - if you read it, be ready to skip the boring stories, and you`ll be rewarded with the good ones.