Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Eric Idle, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman and Michael Palin. Do you know who these people are? Do you at least know where you are? You`re lost in America. But these people were once known as the "Monty Python`s Flying Circus". That was way back - some 30 years ago they disbandoned for different projects only occasionaly performing the good ol` Python stuff. And this was one of the occasions. In lates 70`s they played the same arena where the only official Beatles concert album was made. And boy did they know how to make people laugh! The "When we were young we had it tough" sketch absolutely makes blood in my veins turn to wine, and so does "the ministry for silly walks". At some parts video material is shown to the audience, for example the majestic soccer final between Greek and German philosophers, where Greeks become the champions thus predicting the victors of the 2004 European Championships. Still some of the sketches aren`t particulary entertaining but you can always skip them for the best stuff.

Aki Kaurasemaki is the most respected Finnish film director. Does that say a much? What do you know about Finland? Have you heard the song "Finland, Finland, Finland - the country where I want to be"? Probably you have, and that`s a good thing. But apart from being Finnish Mr. Kaurasemaki is one hell of a director. In this cinematic masterpiece (I dare to say that!) he shows us the story of M - a middleaged guy who has just come to Helsinki when some crazy young assholes hit him in the head and steal everything he ownes. When he returns from his wounds to the real world M has lost the entire memory of himself. Everything else seems to be in order with him. He gets picked up by some poor people who try to help him get back on his feet, which he does. He gets a job at the Salvation Army and even falls in love with a woman working there. There`s quite an interesting part of the movie when M is in the bank and its robbed by a man who wants to get his money back from it to be able to repay his workers, for which he later hires M. And there`s also a man who has a vicious dog named Hannibal, but it turns out that the dog isn`t a slightest bit vicious, and it`s a female dog bearing the most masculine name. The film is positive, despite it showing the lowest parts of Helsinki. At least I enjoyed it a lot, and so would you, if you knew the finnish language or at least like I didn`t mind watching the film with subtitles.

MASH is one of my favourite sitcoms, it was made in the 70`s and told us the stories of Trapper and Hawkeye Pierce - two surgeons trying to have a good time while staying at a mash in the middle of the Korean war. They drank their booze and they loved their women, and they harrased major Frank Burns and his devoted lover, crazy patriot major Hotlips (that was her nickname and I never knew what she was really called). But the film that inspired the tv series isn`t that good, and it dissapointed me bitterly. The characters are the same, but you can`t really feel the pacifism of the series in the film, and the jokes fall flat most of the time, although there aren`t that many jokes in the entire film to speak about the majority of them. But there was a thing I liked about this film - and it was the leading song, entitled "Suicide is painless" - it`s a real beauty, and it`s sung to a dentist called "Painless". "Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes, and I can take or leave it if I please". I don`t want to try suicide, but the feelings after watching this crappy work of cinematography nearly made me want to.

There was a festival of fantasia films in Riga, and one part of it was this collection of short films. Some of them there good, some of them not so good. Among the best was an Austrian film about a man working in a copy central who suddenly notices that he himself has been copied and is still being copied. "Nosferatu tango" is a weird cartoon about an insect falling in love with Dracula - the coolest thing about this cartoon is certainly the weird kind of computer animation. And last but not least there was a film called "Paradisiak" about an alien coming to earth and being killed by duck hunters.

It`s popular for rock bands nowadays to choose obscure names for themselves, since all the normal ones are already taken - names like "The Band", "The The" - are no longer at hand, so they come up with Kloot. On a completely different story the music of I Am Kloot ain`t bad at all. The band isn`t particulary wild in the Dead Kennedys style, it doesn`t rock as hard as "AC/DC" with Angus Young in coma, but they have decent melodies and catchy everything else. For example, "Over my shoulder" is a nice one. "Sand and glue" is the best track on this album for me with its power combined with its gentle vibe, it provides the best from Kloot.

There probably ain`t very much I can say about a record like this one, not being a guy who lives and dies for jazz. To a humble person like me most of music this genres produces seems to be somewhat boring, and so is the case with this record. I have no doubt that Mr. Hawkins and the people he worked with there professionals of the best quality but if a record makes me sleepy there`s no way I can really enjoy it, because I don`t remember anything else after passing out on the floor. And so is the case of "Desafinado". I may be a silly person, but I don`t get it.

Do you know much about the band called "Spinal Tap"? I bet you do - it`s the one and only 80`s metal band that you should know everything about. They did "Sex Farm" and they did "Big Bottom" - that`s intelligence par excellence. And what big special parts they had! The girls went absolutely nuts when David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel hit the stage and rocked it like devil`s own soldiers. But what really counts - that band never, ever existed! It`s just a mock rockumentary about an imaginary band combining different hilarious episodes of other rock bands history. I personally like the part where St. Hubbins plays a guitar solo using a violin just like Jimmy Page (only with a slightly different touch), but the top of everything else is his beautiful composition for the piano in a mellow key bearing the majestic name "Lick my Love Pump". The plot - while touring America that band collapses because of the crowd not caring for them, the manager and the guitarist leave the band while the singer`s girlfriend takes the charge over the band and leads in to new lows. The film is funny, that`s a sure thing to say, and I really like funny movies about rock music! Lasting value? To hell with it, bizarre gardening accidents is what I want!

"Once there was a king of Paris, there once was an emperor of Brazil...." This is a song by Roger Waters, and it has absolutely nothing to do with this film. Ok, there once was a high rabbi of Prague but it still has nothing to do with the higher mentioned song. When the king of the land -I guess it must have been the Austrian emperor told that jews needed to leave their gheto in medieval Prague, the rabbi created a monster from clay that became the servant of jews and their protector from the emperor. This golem was running on a chip inserted into his body - that rabbi was one cool dude, if he knew that much about chips in the middle ages! But there was a problem - his daughter`s secret admirer and probably even a stalker didn`t like that she made love to an emperors servant and he unleashed the golem upon him. Everything would be good, except for the servant, if there wasn`t such a thing that after he had completed his work the golem should have been never used for otherwise he could go berserk. And that`s just what he did. But as you could guess in the end it was still possible to turn that damn thing off, and lock it away. Oh, I almost forgot - the film is not only black&white but also silent, and if it was running on the same frame speed like modern movies it would have been one hell of a bore, but for a silent film it`s still fairly consistent.

When Shrek episode One first came out, it was a hit, and now it`s back and not in black. Shrek is a green ogre who rarely is in a good mood, which is no surprise for someone looking like him. He`s a mean bone crushing machine, but he has married a princess who has given up being pretty just for him. But everything isn`t that simple for princess Fiona has her parents that want to meet her newlywed husband but aren`t informed about his looks. Fiona`s father is played (or let`s say - spoken) by John Cleese. I totally adore him, but in this movie he`s nothing special. Probably, it`s because you never actually get a chance to see him (although the king does resemble Mr. Cleese`s appearance). And there`s a donkey in the film! And an evil fairy godmother! And Puss in Boots who sounds just like Antonio Banderas! What more can you want? Not that much. If this wasn`t a sequel and the funny usage of characters from different fairy tales wasn`t already a familiar thing to me, I would rate this thing higher, but you see - you can`t milk the same fairies more than once. Although I do like the fact that both leading characters don`t use the possibility to become good looking, `cos they don`t need that to be happy.

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.