Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Theoretically I should have disliked this film from the very first moments of it - you see, I`m not exactly fond of the Japanese culture and neither am I a huge fan of Hollywood takes on different cultures. But surprising it proved to be a very worthy film. I still can`t say that I can identify myself with geishas perfectly - I`m not 100% sure that I understand what`s so cool about them. And - why do Japanese make those cardboard houses that I could accidentally destroy after having slipped on a wet floor and crashed through the wall? Neiter do I get what`s so cool about wearing dressing gowns (I don`t care that they call it kimono - it`s still a gown to me), putting on lots and lots of makeup and - the part that bugs me the most - what`s about those shoes? I suppose Japanese people think that wearing ugly sandals with the sole a whole foot thick as the greatest idea ever, but I`ll quote Edmund Blackadder here: "It`s the worst idea since Abraham Lincoln thought to himself - I`m bored from sitting at home, I think I shall go to see a show tonight." The film itself though is good, a bit depressive of course, for there`s not much funny in being sold by your father to be a geisha (although geisha is not a prostitute and it`s very cool to be a geisha and everyone envies you if you become one) and your virginity is put on an auction after you`ve given rice puddings to the contestants, and you end up with your first sexual experience being offered by a fifty year old doctor called Dr. Crab. But that`s life I suppose. The dreary content doesn`t change the fact that the film is astonishingly beautifully directed and that there`s lots and lots of breath taking scenes in it (yeah, and there are no silly folks with blades in sight, just a couple of funny sumo warriors).

Since I had already seen all the contestants in the semi finals (or nearly all), they could offer little surprises. Maybe I was a litle surprised how Mr. Kivics changed his brilliant line "every mother, every children" to "every mother, all the children" but that was all. The winners - the boy band/a capella band Cosmos - could be predicted before the show, of course, so was the case with the second placed "Melo M", but Jenny May that got into the third with the catchy "I`m alone" was quite a surprise. I was kinda dissapointed though for the hostess didn`t shake her breasts quite as much as in the semis (and her dress was far from good as well).

These stories are supposed to be funny. Maybe I`m a twisted weirdo but I didn`t find them to be like that. Some of them are some mock-biographies of people that never existed. Only one of them still comes to my mind - about a guy who was a great artist in the form of art where nothing remains after the man`s death - he persuaded different artists not to do something - for example, he told Brahms to stop writing music, he insisted that Chopin wouldn`t wear woman`s clothing just like George Sand wore man`s clothes. And he also wrote some letters, most of which are analysed and quoted until today (most of those letters are about as brilliant as "Hello. I`m fine. How are you?") That`s all I can tell about this book.

"Did you know that the memory of a goldfish is only three seconds long? Every time they turn away and see each other it`s like the first meeting. Aren`t humans when they fall in love the same?" That`s a very imprecise quote from the film, that stills gives the main message of the film. What is this film all about? It`s about how fragile relationships are and how stupid people are that just fall out from one relationship to be dragged into another? There`s quite a lot of heroes in this film, so it was a bit hard to keep every one of them in memory even during the film and it`s even more complicated now. Tom has a relationship with Clara, but starts cheating on her with Isolde. Rosie is David`s girlfriend but he doesn`t seem to care for her much. Instead he turns out to be gay and falls in love with a man named Red. Red is Angie`s best friend and a gay, Angie is lesbian and she has a crush for Clara so she turns Clara into a lesbian (oh, and that doesn`t stop Angie from making love to Red once - who cares that she`s lesbian and he`s gay). After Isolde has had an affair with Tom (and Clara has dumped him therefore) she has sex with Tom`s colleague Larry. When Tom finds out he`s a bit angry. Meanwhile Angie and Clara split up for Clara isn`t ready for a monogamous relationship. So she teaches Isolde the pleasure of womanly love. But Isolde isn`t ready for a monogamous relationship and has some sex with some one named Shane, and that lead to the collapse of this lesbian relationship (although Clara has something with her friend Conzo as well). Tom meets a college teacher named Renee that tries to change him. Tom learns to know Rosie and they nearly got married, but on the night before wedding Rosie has sex with another man and decides that she may not be quite ready for that. Angie has found a new girlfriend - a certain Kate and they decide to have a child but their plans go wrong when Angie founds out that she`s pregnant from Red. Nevertheless they decide to stay together and keep the child. And as a bonus they have two fatherly figures - Red and David who have formed quite a strong relationship. Oh, and Clara starts a relationship with Isolde from the beginning, whilst Tom has given up his dirty activities - he doesn`t tell anyone about goldfish anymore and he doesn`t offer women to read Rilke out loud for him, he marries Renee instead. And the film ends with Clara and Tom getting together and Clara giving him the goldfish speech.

It`s a wonder that I hadn`t seen this film before. You wouldn`t guess - but this film is about sex, and it`s about Sharon Stone having sex with Michael Douglas, and that`s a thing they do quite enough. And, since Stone`s character is a bisexual murder she also has sex with some other people of both sexes and kills some people as well. Douglas` character is a cop who has some drinkning problems but his psychiatrist is helping him out - both mentally and physically, still she gets murdered, but that doesn`t mean that Douglas and Stone can`t be together anymore. Quite a nasty film I dare saying with enough erotics, but otherwise a bit too much of the crime/thriller shtick for me.

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.