Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

I didn`t really know that this fellow already existed back in 1965 but it seems that Donovan may be older than I thought him to be. This album has only one song that I knew previously - a cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie`s "Universal Soldier" which is one of the best folk songs I`ve heard in my life and certainly among the most impressive anti-war messages of the 1960s. Other songs include the moody "Colours" which sounds as if Donovan was at least 50 when he sung it. The lyrics to it are kind of dumb "Blue is the color of the sky when we rise. That`s the time I like best." yet it`s still a damn good song. Overall this is a nice little album that sure had no chance to change the world for it doesn`t strike the listener momentarily but is a record of well recorded and well produced hippy/folk music. Of course, in terms of lyrics he`s no Dylan or Cohen, but at least his voice is more likeable than that of Dylan and he`s guitar playing is more advanced than that on Cohen`s records.

Films rarely get sillier than this one - the story that the film tries to tell is at least as senseless as that of "Scary Movie 4", yet this film supposedly is a serious horror movie and not a parody. It`s directed by Edward Wood who`s mostly famous as the hero in Tim Burton`s "Ed Wood". Mr. Wood is considered by many people the worse filmmaker of all times. And he truly tris to convince everybody that he deserves his status. The story goes something like this - aliens want to inform the Earth that if people don`t change they will annihilate the universe (a bit similar to "The day the earth stood still"). But since nobody listens to them, they decide that the best strategy to convince people of their seriousity is raising the dead and thus prooving their power. So they make three zombies that start killing people. In the end the aliens have to flee, of course. Actually I can`t really imagine that this film was meant to be serious. It`s such an incoherent mess with zillions of goofs, mistakes, cheap props etc. that it seems impossible that Mr. Wood didn`t do this film as some sort of a parody. Yet everyone claims that he wasn`t. This film truly is a must-see for it`s badness. Actually, the rating doesn`t mean that it`s good - for it`s worse than you can imagine, but it reflects the fact that I quite liked it, nevermind how godawful it was.

Talkin` about - pop music. Talkin` about - pop music. Can pop music have real artistic value, provide you with wide emotional experiences and even change your life? Unfortunately this album doesn`t fall into the long lasting category. On the contrary it`s primitive pop that every Mariah Carrey or Celine Dion could do with her tongue tied to the chair and her eyeballs covered in ice cream. Why do I say that? Because after listening to this album for like two and a half hours there just ain`t anything to tell about it. There are probably a few decent songs on this record, but more than that you can`t ask from it. It just has no reason to exist.

This is the first record of the legendary "Move" - a band so legendary, that it`s almost impossible to find its albums anywhere somewhere these days. Like almost every record of its era it`s full of hippy weirdness, flowers, love and rainbows (not gay rainbows though). From the opening track "Yellow Rainbow" there`s no doubt that this is sixties music indeed. But the next track "Kilroy Was Here" which reminds me of Styx isn`t trippy at all - it`s much more similar to the Kinks than to Donovan. "(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree" is a pop song that Manfred Mann could never record due to his lack of pop sensibility. "Flowers In The Rain" is once again a merry hippy song. Overall it`s really a very good album with very nice songs.

Actually I can`t really say that I`m much of a fan of Remarque`s work, although he`s a very strong novelist indeed. His writing manner in "Heaven has no Favorites" hasn`t changed much from his first novels - it`s clear and quite simple (which by the way isn`t typical for German literature), and in his essence Remarque isn`t much of a German really, relying much more on the French heritage than that of a German. I have no problems with that, of course, for I`d choose frog legs over sauerkraut any day you choose (well, I may be lying but who gives a damn). As for the story: Lilian stays at a sanatorium somewhere in Switzerland where she is slowly dying of tuberculosis but when she meets a car racer who`s come to meet his sick friend, she decides to spend the last months of her life living and not dying. So she does.

An action movie - at least it`s what it seems to be. What can I say? Most of it was nothing special, actually I didn`t find it that entertaining but towards the end it changed in the positive way. It sure ain`t that simple although characters are divided into black and white which doesn`t really appeal to me but that`s the case for most of the movies. Note on the overall rating: till something like 15 minutes before the end I was thinking to give it a 4 but at the end I found that it was not so bad after all.

The gritty axemen of Led Zeppelin are called the greatest rock band of the 70`s, the Beatles of the seventies, whatever you want - you can call them even Al if you like. And they were a pretty strong live outfit - with Jimmy Page flashing and dashing his fingers at the speed of light, with Jack Bonham dashing and smashing his drums like a mad scientist, with Robert Plant screaming the lungs right out of his mouth as if he was grabbed by the balls. Yeah, and they also had John Paul Jones - the base player, I don`t really know that much about him. And on this DVD you can see them still pretty fresh - with the material from their two first album being performed live along with something that could be covers of I don`t what or a live improvisation. Anyhow, the track selection could be better - only something like five of the 13 tracks are from the best the Zepsters ever recorded - I means stuff like "Communication Breakdown" and "Dazed and Confused", while on the unknown (to me) songs they do quite boring jamming, and I also am not particulary fond of "Moby Dick" - the ultralong drum solo. Still, Jimmy Page playing the guitar with a violin bow is totally cool (even if it`s a bit useless).

It`s nothing but a documentary about the Monty Python comedy group as they do their latest (at that time) film called "Life of Brian". If you don`t know the film in question, you don`t know nothing. But still this documentary is interesting for itself - it has interviews with all 6 members of MPFC - they tell about how they came together, what they did after the end of the circus and what they do about this film. As one can certainly think all six of them (ok, probably five of them, if we count Terry Gilliam out who can only say "a bunch of water" or "it really pisses me off") are very intelligent fellows with a nice taste for satire and comedy (that especially goes for Michael Palin who ain`t the most satirical fellow around). Probably this film ain`t technically perfect but it`s funny, it`s interesting and we get to see a lot of probably the greatest British comedians ever.

I find it quite funny when on the back of this book it`s mentioned that Forster was a coeval of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and other great British writers. From a passage like this the reader might conclude that Forster was a revolutionary in the field of literature who has left a very serious legacy for the generations to come. In fact he seems to be just another leftist realist. Lydia has married into a wealthy high class English family but she doesn`t really belong there, especially after her husband`s death she seems to be misplaced there. The relatives of her deceased husband tell her what to do and how to do, but she isn`t really a smart person or a reasonable person. At one point she decides to go for Italy for a year, and nobody objects to that for in fact most of the nobles want her out of their sight. Yet when they learn to know that the widow of their beloved relative wants to remarry in Italy Philip, her brother in law, is sent to Italy on a rescue mission. Still he arrives late and Lydia has already married Gino - the son of a dentist, a man with no job and no prospects for life. But he doesn`t need a job or a profession - he has got a pretty face and now he`s also got a rich wife. Lydia doesn`t have much fun living with her new husband for it proves that Gino ain`t much better than the high class society, he locks her up in terms that she can`t walk alone, she can`t invite people to tea parties, and so she slowly fades and when she gives birth to a son she dies herself. After that the English family decides to take hold of the child for Lydias daughter from her first husband Charles takes interest in her baby stepbrother. Philip is sent to Italy once again, but this time his religious sister Heriette is taken along as well. They can`t persuade Gino to give the child away for money (nor does Philip really want to succeed) but then Heriette steals the child and accidentally kills it (for she`s about as good at handling children as I am at conducting classical opera).

This is a story you may be already familiar with if you watch Simpsons regularily. You know the episode when the schoolbus crashes and the children are swept to a desert island and have to eat each other in order to survive. Actually I supposed this would be much more gruesome than it was. Basically it`s just a story for the kids where some of the kids are killed by other kids and the lord of the flies (Beelzebub in old Jewish) is just a pigs head on a stick and the Beast is a dead parachutist. The novel mostly revolves around the conflict between the positive hero Ralph and the negative one Jack with the chubby Piggy thrown in the middle of it. The whole thing is full of metaphors of course but I don`t give a damn about that, I only care that this isn`t particulary interesting to read, therefore I can`t say that this is the best shit ever.