Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

We`re going alternative. Jim Jarmush my ass! A completely unknown Russian film having less than 20 votes at the IMDB is alternative enough. What would the English title sound like? I guess there is no right ford for "zapoy". Hell! In a Russian film you can guess what kind of theory to expect - theory of long term drinking! And here we have it - Vitaly, an airplane pilot leaves his wife and especially his mother in law when they have disturb him while he had a hangover. He goes to his friend - a drunken philosopher who lives the next door and starts a drinking party there. His wife meanwhile guided by her mother finds a new lover, but it doesn`t go very well with him either, since her mother wants to give instructions even while the couple should be making love. Some other moments are also good, and so are the songs by "Leningrad" - a very controversial Russian punk band. Acting kinda sucks - you can clearly feel that those guys got very little bucks for their work, but the screenplay seems to be ok - a fun comedy showcasing the Russian habbits of drinking in a somewhat different manner from "Osobennosti Nacionaljnoj Ribalki". A masterpiece this is not, but for underground Russian cinema it`s not bad.

Upon deciding to listen to this record I didn`t really know what to expect. I thought this would be some sort of indy-rock with a little bit of blues, but in fact "Laika" is a British duo doing something a bit similar to dance music. Since I`m no big fan of this genre, I can`t say that I enjoyed this sound very much. The highlight of the record for sure is a song called "Badtimes" because of its lyrics about some obscure computer virus that comes out of the computer and leaves its socks on your table. I don`t say that this music ain`t good, I can even imagine that I could be listening to this in some chillout zone, but this certainly is not the kind of music I like to listen to while being at work.

This is probably the best known post modern book in Latvian (or Latvian-Soviet) literature. It`s the same old story about Faustus and Mephistopheles but it has several differences. The so called Faustus is in fact a pharmacist from some minor city in Latvia, called Janis Trampelbahs, whilst Mephistopheles is a young and aspiring musician and writer who wants to get the rights for reworking a book of recipes that Trampelbahs has written lots of years ago (he wants to incorporate recipes in a book of his own and Trampelbahs` archaic style of writing suits him perfectly). When they meet Trampelbahs is sure that the servant of the Devil has come to him, so they have a deal: Cristopher Marlowe (yup, that`s the young fellas name) has to provide Trampelbahs with youth, whilest the pharmacist gives him all the rights for the cookbook. And Marlowe does return youth to the old fellow indeed (which he does by using lots of medicine), but after that everything goes a bit wrong - Faustus finds his Margareth, yet Marlowe also falls in love with her, Trampelbahs starts working for the Nazis, whilst Marlowe ends up being a bit of a leftist. Although the book has some soviet crap in it, it mostly seems to be a parody itself, like the novel is a parody of Faustus. That`s the perfect situation to quote Carl Marx: "History repeats two times. The first time as a tragedy, and the second - as a farce." The book is quite untrivial - it mixes different kinds of writing styles, incorporates recipes, jumps back and forth in time etc. I still am not sure that this is post modern literature though - it seems much closer to the modernism of E.T.A.Hoffman and (to some extent) Bulgakov. But this still is one of the best novels written by a Latvian writer.

What`s wrong with me? I suddenly find myself enjoying a film about lesbians even if it doesn`t show much of hot naked bodies. And I suddenly have nothing against a transsexual in a film. What has happened to me and where have my homophobic feelings for murdering Jake Gillengaal with a sledge hammer twice in a row? "Better than chocolate" may indeed not be better than "Chocolate" but it`s still a very good film. Maggie has just quit the college and taken up a jub at a Lesbian book shop when she meets a travelling painter named Kim whom she falls in love with, they move together and everything seems to go nicely, until Lila - Maggie`s mother - and her brother Paul come to live with them. Needless to say, that Lila doesn`t know about her daughter`s orientation and that she doesn`t make coming out with it particulary easy (not that she`s that agressive, she just always has to speak herself and she`s far from a good listener). Apart from her not knowing that her daughter doesn`t need or want to impress boys, Lila also doesn`t notice that her new best friend Judy Squires is in fact a transsexual named Jeremy. And this Jeremy who passionately loves Frances, the owner of Maggie`s book store, is the kindest transsexual I`ve ever seen on film. Not that I`ve seen that many, I dare say, and as far as I know I haven`t met a single one of those in person so far (at least I`m almost sure that there wouldn`t be any of them amongs my friends, for I`ve known them since we went to school together and I would have noticed, had for instance a fellow named Andrew been written in the class book by the name of Andrea. Anyhow, the place where those people live does seem a bit odd - I doubt that Vancouver mostly consists of gays and neo-nazis, but who knows. Still this is a very warm love story, never mind the gender question - and in some ways I find it better than Brokeback mountain (maybe because it`s women that are making out and not men; or because I liked the song "I`m not a fucking drag queen" sung by Judy/Jeremy at a gay club).

This isn`t a brand new feature film by Emir Kusturica about gypsies or Balkan wars. This is a documentary about the members of his band "No Smoking Orchestra" where Emir himself plays the guitar. What I didn`t really like about the film was that there wasn`t very much music in it. I`m not that really interested in all lives of all Bogdan Misinovices who form the magical 8 of the band. I`ve seen quarrels between band members in films before, and stylistically "Super 8 stories" surely isn`t groundbreaking. You see, I tried to watch it as another masterpiece from Kusturica, but I couldn`t achieve that - it`s not a bad documentary, but that`s all that can be said about it. Music is, of course, brilliant. Oh, the making of nude photos of musicians with their instruments was fun.

I don`t know what`s wrong with me - how come I watched another Woody Allen movie? I had already promised myself more than once not to give this absolute freak one more chance to seduce my mind with his very monotonous kind of filmmaking. But so I thought - maybe back in 1969, when he was still quite young, Woody hadn`t learned to play the same old shtick over and over again yet? Well, I was a bit wrong, but I can`t say that the film was an utter dissapointment. First, this was almost the debut for Woody as a director - he had done "What`s Up, Tiger Lily?" before that but that wasn`t really a film of his. For the Tiger Lily film Woody just bought the rights for a Japanese spy movie and changed the story by adding a new soundtrack. That`s it. But sadly back in 1969 he already was able to play the foolish and not particulary successful cretin that he has impersonated for quite a while now (like I learned from a review of this film, he had already been a known stand-up comedian in the States for years at the time, and I`m sure that even in the clubs he already had come up with his character). Anyhow, Virgil Starkwell is a wannabe criminal that hasn`t yet performed a successful job, but he`s perfectly able of getting behind the bars. And you know what - he falls in love with a beautiful woman that also falls in love with him! Man, do I hate all those beautiful women embracing that stupid little freak who`s so whiny and wimpy that he drives me crazy. The character itself would have been pretty good - the way he says that crime pays and that it`s an interesting career with lots of travelling, that`s cool but the film isn`t really a film but much more of a one man`s show in a club disguised as a film directed by Woody Allen. And he once again (or, to be precise, for the first time) uses the classical Woody Allen aproach to film making - where everything is done in some form of a documentary, with actors speaking in the camera and not behind the camera, with some stupid interviews with people that knew Virgil Starkwell etc. I say, it would have been a very decent film, had Allen not repeated this shtick many times over and over. I can`t understand how come people call him inventive, for he`s about as diverse as AC/DC, only he doesn`t rock so hard.

The latest at the moment film by J.P. Jeunet reconnects him with the biggest star of any of his film - Audrey Tautou whom he made really big in "Amelie". As it`s quite characteristic to Jeunet most of the other actors have also appeared in his films before, most notably in "Delicatessen" and "City of the lost children". "A very long engagement" is probably the most realistic of the major works done by Jeunet (I`m not counting "Alien: resurrection" as a major work for obvious reasons, for it`s merely a try to get more money). Five French soldiers are condemned to death in WW1 for trying to injure themselves in order to get away from the war. Those include an ex-carpenter, a former peasant, an ex-pimp, a technical worker and a young boy named Manech, who`s fiancee Mathilde is waiting for him at home. They are sent to no man`s land where they are bound to be killed either by the Germans or by the French. Now, when the war is over, Mathilda still wants to believe that Manech is alive and she finds to find any survivors from the group of five. She is being helped by being rather wealthy from the money her family`s lawyer got her when her parents died in an accident when she was litte. She is a bit limited because of her legs that don`t work really because of some injuries that she has suffered. And then she learns to know that she isn`t the only one looking for survivors - so is Tina Lombardi, a prostitute and lover of the pimp of the group. Could she be on to something? I don`t want to tell much, I only want to say that this was one of the best war movies I`d seen so far and that I would now even be ready to see "Cold mountain" although I have some belief that the latter would be a bit more patriotic than "A very long engagement".

Blimey! Hell! Yuk! Disgusting! I didn`t think that I would dislike it half as much as I did. If this sort of crap is erotical what the hell is porn in that case? If a fat ugly woman is hanged in some stupid chains and a whip is placed inside her you-know-what it ain`t sexy to my oppinion. I`d rather just not talk about it.

What makes days sleepless? If you are waking at the day, why should you worry that you don`t sleep at the time? Or are you some nasty pervert who works at night but still can`t sleep at day? This novel tells us about a teacher named Simrock who suddenly feels some pain in the heart while he`s teaching his students at school. When he comes home and tells it to his wife Ruth, she doesn`t treat that as a big problem. After that he decides that he has been living his life in the wrong way (btw., he`s a partly orthodox communist in East Germany). He leaves his wife having realised that there`s no love left between them - only routine is left. After that he finds himself a brand new lover Antonia. While he has his summer vacation he takes a job at a bread factory and even finds a friend there. Together with Antonia he goes to Hungary, from which she tries to flee to Austria, but unsuccessfuly. The book left a good impression on me, it was interesting to read and even had some nice ideas in it.

The title is very promising indeed. The legendary Minotaur is living among us until today, he doesn`t eat virgins anymore, he`s become a cook in North Carolina, he`s lonely and his life is miserable. I guess, if the same story would be told about some simple man it would sound pathetically boring and uninspiring (ok, losers are interesting sometimes, as they are in "Sideways"). Minotaur has problems communicating with his colleagues because he can`t speak clearly through his bulls mouth. He ain`t very smart, but he isn`t dumb. He falls in love with a waitress named Kelly with very big breasts. The novel has quite a lot of sex in it, at some moments totally pointless. Overall this book isn`t really anything - it`s neither funny nor dramatic, neither pretentious nor minimalistic. I`ve surely read worse but I`ve read better as well. With the idea of placing Minotaurus in the modern wold much better things could certainly be done. So it has become just a boring pointless experience.