Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

I`m not exactly crazy for sci-fi literature, nor am I a fan of Michael Chricton. To be honest, I didn`t even know that he was some sort of a celebrity and had even written "Jurassic Park" and "Sphere". That doesn`t say that it makes him a brilliant writer. The biggest problem with science fiction quite often is the lack of depth in a book. You have to be truly great - like Bradberry or Vonnegut - to succed in this genre writing something trully outstanding. If you`re not - you can always have a good story but it won`t shake the world. "The Andromeda Strain" is a rather typical work of the genre. It does have some "bonus" points for adding diagrams and supposedly precise description of some technological equipment (one can`t deny that Chrichton did his best to convince the reader that this book is meant to be serious), yet his writing technique isn`t too bright. He ain`t no Azimov for sure. The andromeda strain is a deadly virus that has come to Earth from a space capsule and a group of scientists tries to find out how to fight against it. If I tried to find the ingredients of the Strain, I`d say that it owes some 50% to "War of the worlds" (in the original Wells incarnation, not the Tom Cruise film of course, which wasn`t a chef`d`oevre in the first place), then it has a component of typical Hollywood-ism including a time bomb that has to be dissactived in the last seconds, the closed environment of a laboratory with a group of scientists in it was later reused by Crichton himself in "Sphere", and it was also similar to "Evolution" in terms of the virus (ok, it`s a bacteria but I prefer calling it a virus) being capable to evolute rapidly in a nuclear explosion. A very forgettable book indeed.

I don`t really know what I expected it to be - since I had only heard a few MM songs before and never ever cared much about the band. The record itself is no big deal - it ain`t very heavy or any memorable but it isn`t very bad either - completely average - that`s what it sounds like.

Do you remember the band? The one that sung "I wanna sleep with common people like you"? I guess you do. And here it is. The best part of the album are the lyrics, while musically it`s sometimes a bit dull. Highlights include the already mentioned "Common People", "Disco 2000" and "Underwear".

Since USSR collapsed the Latvian cinematography has been struggling - there`s not enough money, there`s not enough ideas, there`s not enough anything. The expectations before watching the film weren`t especially high but the first minutes sent them below the ice mark. First, there was some shaky camera work, even if it was on purpose, it still looked like shit. Then, the actors - the leading male actor Regnars Vaivars who appearantly is a scandalous theatre actor and director wasn`t impressive at all, and his female counter part didn`t seem to be much of an actress either. Then there was Uldis Dumpis - quite a famous Latvian actor whom I never liked, and my attitude didn`t change during this film. What about the story - a poor guy from the country marries a rich girl but the day of their wedding turns into a nightmare for he employed an undertakers agency for the job. And in the end he sued the agency for not doing their work right. This is a comedy, so they say. To be honest - the jokes are there, and if at least 10% of them were funny it wouldn`t be such a disaster. But they are not, most of them are flatter than the Earth in the minds of medieval people, and much flatter than the singer of "No Doubt". Throughout the film only one idea constantly arose - how much longer is this nonsense gonna last. 80 minutes, if you want to know. But it`s very much.

I never thought that PJ Harvey was this good. Her songs aren`t catchy in the Beatlish meaning of the word, but she`s an extremely powerful and independant woman. Songs like "To Bring You My Love" remind me of a younger (and living) Janis Joplin and now I don`t wonder anymore how come she had that song together with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Of course Janis was much more of a band blues singer, while PJ is a typical singer/songwriter.

Since I`m in Andromeda state of mind I just couldn`t resist from reading another science fiction novel with the "A" word in the title that I found on by wife`s book shelf. It`s a book of her father`s, as I would presume, for she has never expressed much interest for sci-fi herself, as far as I know. In comparison with that "Andromeda strain" novel this one has some advantages. First, those two British fellows write much less "generic" than Michael Chrichton - of course, every sci-fi book has its share of cliche`s but this one seems to be in a better position than the other one. Then there`s another advantage - the story is organised in a more intriguing manner. Everything starts with a huge radio telescope detecting a signal from outer space. The signal is recorded and a scientist named Flemming decodes it as an instruction for building a huge computer that would be able to solve lots and lots of problems. The problem is that when the computer is created it starts taking over the people for they are willing to pay almost everything for the power the computer can give. One of the things He (the computer) does is creating a nearly human replica of a woman He has killed - a woman named Andromeda (or Andre). This Andre has much better capabilities than the average person yet she is a bit too human in order to work perfectly. Flemming tries to stop the machine for he realises that it`s only giving something to people, so it could take much more ir return. Flemming comes out as the winner in the end, while Andre dies, although she`s become almost 100% human in her behaviour and her death doesn`t come as a relief. One thing was very funny about this book, of course, for the super advanced computer used punch cards and teletype and communication with it was done by typing lots and lots of data through the binary code. That`s a thing most sci fi books suffer from - the employed technology becomes ridiculous quite fast, never mind how great it seemed at the time the book was written. Overall: the book ain`t bad at all, once again I can say that it ain`t no Vonnegut, yet it ain`t no Michael Crichton either - it`s better.

"Love", "Love", "Love". "Love" is all you need. "Love" live, "Love" live. Life is "Love" and "Love" is live. "Love" me do. There`s lots of songs that one could interpret as praising this band from California, yet there ain`t much to praise it all about. I have no disbelief that the leader of this band - Arthur Lee - did have some sort of a musicial vision, yet at least this record seems to be rather disturbing to me. Lee`s voice totally turns me off, some cool guitar riffs are buried among piles of garbage and there are only a few memorable songs on this record that aren`t completely ruined by the singer`s performance. Why Love is considered to be one of the greatest "Lost" bands of the sixties, is beyond my understanding.

This film made a lot of fuss in Russia a few months ago. And not without a reason - I doubt you have seen many Russian films with pretty good special effects. And it`s a thing you can`t denie about this film. There`s this fellow Erast Fandorine who fights for the Russian against the Turks in the Russian-Turkish war of 1960s. After being captured by the fiend he manages to flee and it turns out that as an extra to his very solid skill as a soldier he`s also pretty good in solving crime. And the crime is an interesting one - there is a fellow in the Russian army who works for the opponent on a very high level yet Fandorine can`t really find out who this fellow is. One thing about it that you should know is that this film basically is based upon the method "The Usual Suspects" provided, if you want to find the villain. Apart from that the film is interesting to watch, it has nice colours and pretty good acting, but no lasting value at all. You can probably call it a Russian historical action film and a no-brainer. Still some no-brainers aren`t really bad.

This is a satirical novel about a rich peasant who wants to become even richer. It`s written in a manner that would presume the book to be funny, yet it doesn`t achieve much for the author`s humour is rather clumsy and sometimes even lame. I guess this thing could be also understood as some sort of left wing propaganda, making fun of the stupid bourgeous lard asses, but even as propaganda it`s rather weak.

Some months ago I tried to read the novel of the same name written by Jane Austen. I found it rather dull and boring and never made it to the middle of the book. I don`t like this kind of sentimental literature very much. By the way I have already almost perfectly forgotten what was happening in "Pride and Prejudice", another film version of an Austen novel. This film though has a few bonuses in comparison with that other one. Most of them lie in the casting department. The film is directed by Ang Lee, who has also brought "Crouching tiger" and "Brokeback mountain". In "Sex and Senility" he doesn`t choose to be daring, on the other hand there`s as little sex in this film as you can imagine. Still what this film has is a set of noteable actors including Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Imelda Staunton and others. Some of them became famous due to this film (mostly Kate Winslet), while others were already established in the world of films, take Imelda Staunton for instance. The story is as boring as it gets - a widow with three daughters has to leave the house of her deceased husband as everything has gone away to his son from the first wife. One of the daughters is still a child, while the others need to get married to rich fellows quickly. Elinor, the older one is the sense of the family, yet she developes a love story with Hugh Grant (known by the name of Edward Ferrers), yet he has to leave for London, so she remains broken hearted. Meanwhile Marianne (Winslet) falls in love with a southern type gentleman named Willoughby about whom the viewer would have no doubt that he`s going to be the villain of the book. He doesn`t marry Marianne, of course, for he needs money and she doesn`t have it, yet he doesn`t get her pregnant, so I can say that he just doesn`t use his chances. In the end both sisters get married, Elinor - to Hugh Grant, while Marianne marries colonel Branden, played by Alan Rickman (isn`t he a bit old for Winslet - he was 50 and she was 20 at the time the film came out, don`t you find it a bit too much?), who happens to be the good guy. You know the certain type of character whom everyone uses for the doormat but who marries the prettiest girl in town (or in the village in this case) in the end, when she`s impregnated, broken hearted and has no one but him to save her from total disgrace. And in the end she eventually starts to love him, for she`s such a pure character that she would never marry for money. Isn`t it pathetic? I think it is. Apart from the ugly 19th century costumes and brilliant acting there`s nothing outstanding in this film. First you watch it, then you forget it.