Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Clive S. Lewis was a pal to J.R.R.Tolkien. And after the success his friend had with literature for children, he said to himself: "Am I cooler than JRR or not? I bet I can beat him with my left hand sewn to my butt." So he also wrote a series of 7 books for children about the happenings in a fantasy world. Probably, he didn`t sew his hand to his butt, probably he even started writing before Tolkien, and it was the Ringbearers hand that ended up in the anus, but you should be able to get my message. And this "Narnia" stuff was put on TV by the care taking BBC channel. I guess you can imagine what a low quality a TV movie might have if it has no possibility to recreate the talking beasts in another way than by dressing up people in stupid mouse costumes and stuff. Caspian is the son of a deceased king of Narnia, but his evil uncle has taked the throne (I guess most uncles are evil), but Caspian is a positive guy and he calls up the high kings of Narnia from the past, who are just children from our normal world, and together with them he returns Narnia to its original state where the beasts can talk, where satyres and centaurs eat grass peacfully near the rivers. But they wouldn`t have succeeded without the help of the godlike lion Aslan. That`s basically it. Don`t watch it unless you`re crazy. Wait until Peter Jackson or someone of his friends makes a big screen version of "Narnia". Until that - you can watch "Lord of the Rings" fifty more times.

For the third part of the Harry Potter series they changed the director. The first two parts were directed by the genius mastermind that was behind such a classic as "Home Alone" while for the Azkaban part Alfonso Cuaron (the latino who made "Y tu mama tambien"). Can you feel the difference? Mr. Cuaron knows how to create a really good movie, and he uses his powers to make something more serious than Harry Potter was before. The film changes into brownish colours, it features close to no cheeky stuff for your little baby brother, and the characters don`t look like they have jumped out of middle ages anymore. Harry Potter even wears a sweater with stripes on the side just like I do! And there`s a jah ghost in the bus! Certainly this still is a film targeted to a very young audience, but at least it can stand up to the opposing Hobbit saga. Although I must say that the werewolf looked like a rubber doll to me, but you can`t expect that a film whos previous part made me laugh could make me cringe from horror. I guess, something like the sixth part of the film will be a total masterpiece.

How much do you know about Harry Potter? It`s the coolest wizard for a pre-teenage audience. There are books about him, there are cups and cakes bearing his name,his own lingerie line: you name it. And there`s the first part of the film about him. After having already seen the second part (I usually choose a stupid order for watching everything), my expectations for this film were lower than the IQ of an average American. But I was proved to be wrong! No, this ain`t no Frederico Fellini or Benvenuto Cellini (the latter wasn`t even a filmmaker) but this is a good film for children. At least there are no silly flying cars in this part of the film. But there`s a stone that makes you live forever, and there`s an evil teacher who works for Volodja the wicked (not for mr. Putin, if you keep asking). And there are quite a few little children that manage to stop him from obtaining that stone. To be honest, I don`t really remember, why I preferred this film to the second part when I watched it, but it somehow seemed less silly. Oh, I remember - John Cleese can be seen for a bit more than half a minute and he even says a few funny things. If he had been the main star of the film it would have been a masterpiece. And Harry Potter could even appear in some scenes.

This is a movie based on a book based on a film called "Elvira, the mistress of the dark". Do you remember that black haired sexy witch with the curves that could drive you wild? Now that was one hell of a film! But what does that little dork Harry got to do with her? Did he screw her or what? Nah, she`s his sister, and that`s a certain thing. Ok, not a sister maybe, but a cousine definetely. Do you remember when her evil uncle killed her mother but she somehow survived and later was raised by some idiots? It`s the same here in Harry Potter, and even the sequence showing those days was if not an exact copy, then a cover version of this great (!) film. If you`re after plain and stupid characters, boy you`re in for a wild ride! There`s the evil dude living in a diary who seems to be a forever reappearing villain that`s bound to last a lunchtime, and there`s the little guy with his magic wand trying to stop him. There`s certainly not enought John Cleese as Nearly Headless nick to save this movie from being a useless cinematic cash-in. Ok, it may be not the worst film for children, but heck - can you name a film for children that seems stupid even for three year-olds? At least I can`t.

Isaak Asimov is not a Russian, and keep that in mind when you trash me to pieces with a pitchfork! He was just some Ami sci-fi writer that happened to be one of the best sci-fi writers ever. I guess it was just a coincidence that when Hollywood people wanted to make a brand new sci-fi film with Will Smith in the lead role they decided to call the film just like a collection of stories by I.Asimov. At least, there`s not too much of that book in this film. Ok, several characters have the names that have been mentioned in the book, but they don`t act in the way they should have, and neither do the robots. In the book robots never went on something like a war with the humans, and most certainly they didn`t have a red light to show when they were evil. But in the film we have a robot hating cop (the former fresh prince of Bel Air), a sexy shrink (which should be at least 60 according to the book) and an unusual robot fighting together to end the robots revolution. Yeah, and this film was inspired by "Who framed Roger Rabbit" and not by Asimov. There`s a human with a toon rabbit on one side, and there`s a toon villain on the other, and the good wins in the end. And everybody is happy once again.

Are you fast? Are you furious? Do you have a cool fast car that you know you can race to the ground? I sure don`t. And therefore I don`t need this movie. Is it cliches you want? Then you got it. Is it a good action movie you`re after? Then you got another thing coming. A totally cool dude has to work for the police in order not ending up in the jail together with his black pal from the childhood days who`s angry with him. They must help to catch a major drug dealer. And what do they do for that? Of course, they do drag-races. And those races are CGI! They can`t even make a decent race without using a computer for that. And there`s a pretty chick who`s the bad guy`s girlfriend, but who really is good, and not bad. And she`s in love with the main hero, and there`s crash! boom! bang! and there`s nothing you can remember about this movie when just a few months have passed after watching it. It reminds me of "XXX" most of the time, but I was never a fan of that movie with a porn title in the first place, and there`s absolutely nothing a dumb cover version of that film can attact my attention with.

Another record upon Boris Grebenshikov has done his share of work. This record isn`t yet from the time when Boris G. found an interest in reaggae. The lyrics are weird as usually and the music is interesting as quite often. The most interesting tracks on the album are "Don`t drink the wine, Gertrude", "Russian Nirvana" and the title track. Probably it`s a bit weird to sing "mon amour" about the Russian city of Kostroma but it`s a good thing to sing `mon amour` about this record.

Czech films are my passion, and I never meant to miss the latest film of Peter Zelenka on the big screen. Mr. Zelenka was until that day known to me as the scriptwriter for "Samotari" - one of my all time favourite movies. Intriguing plot, visual enjoyment - you got it. But "Rok dabla" is a completely different movie. It starts off quite slow as a filmmaker from Holland ends up in a hospital for alcoholics in the Czech Rep., and meets there the popular Czech singer-songwriter Jarek Nohavica. Later on Nohavica manages to come off over his sickness, but because of his best friend K.Plihal he joins a folk band that usually plays weddings and funerals and tours with that band "Cechomor" the country. Rock music - it`s what you get, but not only that. There`s the problem of alcohol, of belief in God, of happiness, of understanding thy neighbor etc., etc. What`s especially interesting is the fact that everybody in this film plays himself, incluing Jaz Coleman - the former leader of the punk-metal-satanic band "Killing Joke". But it isn`t a documentary, never mind how strange it would sound. It`s something like real people ar put into strange situations, where they encounter a world where normal things don`t happen very often. Cross-dressing, people exploding into little pieces, satanic rituals - it`s only the top of the iceberg what`s beneath it is what counts.

In terms of popularity Coldplay is one of the biggest bands in the world. In other terms it isn`t. Coldplay`s music isn`t overblown, on the contrary it`s a bit too slow and silent for me. With their new album they try to adjust to the modern world, but I can probably say that it`s not a thing they do particulary good. "White shadows" for instance is a bit too 80`ish for my taste, and on some other tracks silly synthesizers can be heard as well. Basically it is an album with no highlights, probably except for "What if", which isn`t that staying either. That doesn`t say that the record is bad, it`s just a bit too "nothingish" to be really good.

I don`t know anything about this band but that it plays some really relaxing music. At some moments it seems that the band has a bit flare for the ambient but at other stages I can think that there ain`t no ambient in sight. Probably the most interesting song on this record is "Theory of Ghosts".