Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

I have a book with some of this writer`s most famous plays (although to be quite honest I haven`t heard anything about this Edlis person), but I found it too troublesome to read all 8 plays included in the book thus I read just the half of it. First, there`s "Where`s your brother, Abel!" - a play for three persons where two of them were in a German concentration camp once, and one of them changed sides while the other one was the only honest person to survive - a typical Soviet piece of propoganda. Numero duo: "Mess for the Virgin" - a strange play where Joan of Arc wasn`t burned by the English but replaced by a different woman and after that got married yet she felt that a part of her was left in the fire and that she wasn`t herself anymore - a very strong play indedd. So is "The game of the shadows" - a dramatic piece about Cleopatra and her lovers. The last play I read was the "Solomennaja storozhka" - a silly Soviet styled comedy which doesn`t get too funny but serves its political goals. Therefore summary there are 2 good plays and 2 bad plays, so as a whole this is pretty average, although I admit that some talent from the author can be clearly felt yet the "obligatory content" doesn`t let him really spread his wings.

Now that`s one thing you`re bound to call a classic. Tennesee Williams is the author of the play of the same name. I really watched it only because it was a central theme in "All about my mother" but who cares about what I do and why? So, there`s Stella who`s quite happy with her husband Stanley Kowalski, despite him being a common person (but he`s Marlon Brando, so she has her reasons for that). But when her neurotic sister Blanche arrives, everything goes a bit bad. Blanche has a very bad relationship with Stanley, and he uses a whole lot of ugly moments from her past in order to show her where her place is. The ending is a very sad one, and a very appropriate one as well. The storyline is actually quite simple, but the film seemed to me being very powerful. I`m probably not such a fan of films made in the 1950s but this one truly was a very good film.

I wonder why is that - most of the writers who`s books I happen to read have Jewish origin? Still this novel hasn`t got much to do with Jews - "Before the mirror" is mostly an epistolary novel in the form of letters that Liza, a student at first and an aspiring painter later is sending to the love of her life - Konstantin, a man who wants to be a very important mathematician one day. At first the book is quite similar to Abbot`s "Daddy Long Legs", later on it covers mostly the subjects of emigration from Soviet Russia and of the hard life of an artist abroad. Sometimes it gets a bit preachy but at least it`s mostly free of patriotic gibberish (although Liza always has the urge to come home, she never does).

It`s really a shame for me to say this but I`ve lost something in my heart that I guess will never return - it`s the passionate and ever understanding love for everything each and every single member (or former member) of Pink Floyd has done in his life. Take this new David Gilmour LP for instance. Most of the experts say it`s nice but I can`t really enjoy it for I can`t find anything at least remotely fresh in it. If a musician has used the same musical ideas over and over again (and his name isn`t Angus Young) you have very little need to listen to his latest work if there`s plenty of better music in his back catalogue.

The first part of the famous trilogy by Krzystof Kyslovsky. Juliette Binoche who also played in `The Unbearable Lightness of Being` plays a woman who loses her husband and child in a car accident (just like in 21 Grams). After that she doesn`t spend much time around other people (just like in 21 Grams) and has her freedom. Of course, the similarities with the 21G movie end pretty fast for in a European movie it is not a strange thing by any means that she has sex with her husbands best friend just to tell him that he doesn`t need her. The husband was a composer although it seems that his wife was the author of most of his works. There`s also a strip dancer who lives in the same house as the central widow and gets scared when she notices her father among the spectators of the show. The deceased husband turns out to have cheated on his wife for a few years and his girlfriend is pregnant but the reaction of the Binoche character is nothing like what you could expect from a Hollywood movie (for it ain`t no Hollywood movie). The images are very interesting, mainly there`s focus on the blue colour for it`s what the title says. Another thing to mention - the ending is quite similar to that of Donnie Darko (as camera passes from one person to another). And it`s the blue of loneliness and only partly the blue of hope we`re talking about.

A film made by Tom Green can not be good. It is an axiom. And it proves to be just right. I didn`t manage to watch the film entirely for it is dumber than anything I`ve ever encountered before. A wannabe comic drawer works at a cheese cafeteria, spanks his crippled girlfriend and pretends that his father fingers his little brother. I guess even `Ali G in Da House` could be better than that.

Good ol` Stanley Kubrick is good at creating main characters that the viewer should dislike but sometimes likes him as well. And this is one of those movies. There might be a little bit too much nudity but on the other hand it`s completely in place therefore it`s no big problem. Yeah, and this movie has "Singin` in the Rain" in it.

Where can a modern love story take place? Of course, on the internet. And it`s the place where Beverly and Maximilian meet one another. The book consists of chat messages and e-mails - it`s just like a traditional epistholar novel with the slight change that each letter has a recepients address having the @ simbol in it and a subject. Otherwise it`s quite trivial - she`s married, he isn`t. She`s happy in her marriage, until she accidentally has a one night stand with him without knowing that it was the person she had been sending emails for quite some time. They try to overcome this misunderstanding, and the more they get to know each other the more they love one another. They meet one more time and later decide to stay together, but on his way to meeting her Max`s plain crashes and he dies. Romantic, isn`t it? In the first few chapters the form of the book seems quite fresh but while I continued reading after the novelty factor had worn off it turned out that there wasn`t that much in this book. Even if you write a trivial story in the binary form it still remains banal, no matter how artsy you try to be.

Hilarious, man! Ok, probably this isn`t the intellectual kind of comedy you would predict I would enjoy, but it`s just so goddamn funny! Shaun is the average man in town - he has a lousy job, a best pal who lives with him and pays no rent, and has no life of his own. Shauns girlfriend ain`t happy with him for he`s too boring and useless, so she dumps him. And Shaun doesn`t even notice that at the same time dead people have arisen from their graves and started eating the living. But when he finally realizes that he picks up Ed (his pal), Liz (his former girl), two of her friends and his own mom. So they start their own campaign against the zombies. Basically this film is about the little details - LPs you can throw at a zombie that`s going to kill you and LPs you would never throw at anyone, a zombie doing the refrain to "White lines", etc. I liked it - a very good quality truly British comedy.

I`m not sure whether this was recorded before or after the bands leader Robert Wyatt fell out of a window and got paralyzed from the waist southwards but he still doesn`t need much of his drumming skills on this album. The record is very quiet and absolutely uncommercial (which is no wonder knowing that Wyatt rarely has tried to become a charts favourite on the course of his quite long career). The album opens with my favourite Matching Mole song ever (which isn`t that much of an achievement though for the band with two albums) - "O Caroline" is a very heartfelt and beautifully arranged ballad. The following "Instant Pussy" is much more daring with quite a few mood changes and weird laughing sounds (a bit similar to that on Wyatt`s solo "The end of an ear"). The third song - "Signed Curtains" - has some of the greatest lyrics captured on a record ever, mostly it`s just a piano with Wyatt singing the number of the verse, including the following lines: "And this is a chorus / or perhaps it`s a bridge / or just another part of the song / that i`m singing". On "Part of the dance" the band suddenly learns to rock out and does that pretty well. After that follows another song with the word "instant" in the title, this time it`s "Instant Kitten" - quite a good instrumental. That is followded by "Dedicated to Hugh..." - now that`s a song I don`t like, for it`s somewhat head-ache inducing. And the following "Beer as a braindeer" isn`t very apalling either. And in the end we are treated with another "Curtain" song - "Immediate Curtain". What`s with the song titles anyway? Perhaps there`s some sort of a story behind the album although that would be strange considering that most of the pieces are instrumental. Anyhow, I really enjoy the first side but the second side is too untrivial for my dumb taste.