Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Another musical has been seen through my eyes. It`s a romantic one, wouldn`t you know. Actually, every musical I`ve seen apart from "Jesus Christ Superstar" has been a love story. And this one is more a musical than most musicals - it`s about making a musical. Some parts of it are pretty cool - for example, when the main character jumps around in puddles or jumps on a lantern, but something like one hundred minutes of it is certainly too much.

If I should believe what They say it`s the last hand-drawn Disney cartoon ever. Not that there`s no computer animation in this cartoon. The plot goes around three cows trying to catch a villain in order to get the reward money for the saving of their farm. On their quest they team up with a silly horse named Buck and an unlucky one footed rabbit. You don`t need to be a rocket scientist to guess, if the ending was happy. Therefore let`s conentrate on everything else. The plot is ok for a wide audience cartoom, I would probably prefer a bit of adult humor, but if there`s none I don`t mind it that much. The voices are also in order, although the cast is nowhere as spectacular as in Shrek, but it`s not a big problem. What I didn`t like was the animation - I`m not a huge expert of Disney cartoons but this is certainly far from the best level of animation I`ve ever seen. The cows themselves are ok, but not more than that, pigs are absolutely silly, the background images aren`t too impressive as well. I guess it`s a good thing they gonna move completely to CGI, of course, if it`s gonna be inspired CGI.

I`m a real sucker for everything each of the MPFC members did. And how could I possibly forget to watch occasionally every of the films they did all together? Especially knowing that "Life of Brian" is my favourite film of theirs. Some people say it mocks Jesus, but actually it only mocks people that say that it mocks Jesus. Brian from Nazareth was born in a cowshed some 10 metres away from the real Messiah and at some stages of his life was mistaken for being one. He was just a normal patriotic Jewish fellow, who didn`t want to be no Messiah but who wanted to free Jerusalem from Romans. Every single scene in this film is a classic, starting with the three wise men and ending with crucified men singing "Always look on the bright side". I can`t even describe how great this film is, because otherwise I would need to quote the whole film. The late Graham Chapman is Brian, every other MPFC member plays a whole carriage of different roles, even Terry Gilliam who ain`t particulary talkative as you know. Anyhow if you haven`t seen this film you haven`t lived and you won`t know where your father put the little things that somehow get lost just the night before.

For most people Paul Simon is still the same Paul Simon that wrote "Bridge over Troubled Water", "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson" and other timeless classics that his old mate Art Garfunkel would perform with his voice of an angel. Still there are some other people who would know that Simon&Garfunkel ceased to be an exceptional musical duo more than 35 years back only to have several reunition concerts but that Simon never had an angelic singer for his songs anymore. That didn`t stop good ol` Paul from hitting it on the spot with his solo album "Graceland" in the 1980s. After that he`s remained in the shade most of the time, releasing world music or no music at all most of the time, and here: "Surprise!" he`s returned with an album of bran new songs and this album is wisely called "Surprise!!!" So, there may be no exclamation marks at the end of the title but who cares about such unsignificant details anyway? The album kicks of "How Can You Live in the Northeast" which has verses that almost make one cry (well, maybe I`m overdramatizing the effect, but as if you would know) and a rather optimistic chorus that could have also been found on a minor track on "Graceland". "Everything about it is a love song" is a song with heavy beats and close to no melody, reminding me of some songs on Sting`s "Brand new day". "Outrageous" is much more energetic, performed in a bit rapping manner and a chorus asking "Who`s gonna love you when your looks have gone?" On "Sure Don`t Feel like prayers" I have nothing to say. "Wartime prayers" is a war ballad. "Beautiful" is simple and beautiful. I believe that "I don`t believe" doesn`t sound much like Paul Simon. Meanwhile "Another Galaxy" would have been a typical song for a Paul Simon from another galaxy. "Once upon a time there was an ocean" is one more "Graceland" kind of song reminding of that hit he had together with that comic fellow. Maybe it has to do with Paul`s very limited singing voice that restrains him to singing about two or three different songs most of his life. On "Father and daughter" I think that I better like Paul when he performs those songs from Graceland, there`s nothing I dislike about that song, but there ain`t much to like about it either. Last but not least "That`s Me" is a song about Paul Simon that sounds like a real Paul Simon song, which it is, of course.

This is a film about a conspiracy theory, therefore I am completely aware that what the film claims to be absolute truth may be based upon misinterpratations of facts so they would comply to the message of the theory. Therefore I can not say that what Loose Change tells is close or any close to truth. What it presumes to be true is that the Attacks of 9/11 were initiated by the United States government in order to start a holy war. They show different videos, people`s quotes and other stuff to support the theory. On one hand I can see that lots of this stuff isn`t really solid, yet neither is the official position of the government. As a person with little belief in the greater good in people I can`t say: "The government would never do that to it`s people!" Yet I also wouldn`t believe entirely to Dylan Avery`s version, for I guess it would be much easier to let a thing like this happen and do nothing about than doing it yourself, including starting major cover-ups in a case when it would cost much less money simply saying to some Bin Laden fellow: "By the way, Os`, you probably know that our defence system against hijacked planes flown into buildings isn`t particulary strong." At least it`s what I`d do, or if were even lazier - I`d wait for Osama to come up with the plan himself and just sit on my lazy butt while everything happens. As a serious statement the film isn`t particulary serious, for there was too little resource involved in that, yet I can`t agree that this was interesting to watch.

God, is it boring! Ok,I know not all music is supposed to make you you get up your lazy ass from the floor and shake as if you were out of your mind but I really can`t imagine anything less amazing than the song on this album that bears the same name as the album itself. It goes on for 13 and a half minutes and it goes nowhere repeating one silly guitar fragment for the entire length of this song. Probably that fragment ain`t that bad but only if you don`t need to listen to it for some 100 times in a row. Luckily as we approach the end of the song the fragment is outshadowed by some other noices but it still is so idiotical that the only thing I can think about is some Brian Eno stuff where he plays the same four notes for half an hour. A perfect description to what this album is like can be got if you just jump some 30 seconds forward in any song you`ll most likely never notice the skipping because there will be no change of sound at all. Even watching your toenails grow can be more intriguing than this record!

The event was quite funny, of course, for the quality of music doesn`t really matter in an event like this, but it did have some positive sides. My favourites included the Lithuanians who performed a song called "We are the Winners of Eurovision" and who were booed by the sick viewers in the hall (in the end it gave Lithuania the sixth place among 24 contestants - not bad at all) and the rather crappy Finnish hard rock band "Lordi" who were memorable by two reasons - first, it played hard rock in an event like this yet wasn`t hard rock that made them stand out but their appearance. Imagine a band of monsters playing an event for grandmothers! I can`t really understand how come Lordi won, but that`s a fact "Hard Rock Halleluyah" became the first heavy song to win this silly competition. What`s good that at least they beat the crappy half naked girls with no voices but with silicon lips. In terms of pure quality this event was far from good, of course, but it was quite funny to watch it (I especially like the vote counting part of this event). This doesn`t presume, as you can probably imagine, that I`d watch this thing once again under any circumstances.

Millions of spears will be broken about this film and everyone has to have an opinion of his own. Why? I don`t really know. I watched "National Treasure" a year ago and at that time nobody said: "Oh my god! It`s a film that tells the truth about masonry!" This is a film of art and not a documentary, why would one believe that everything it tells is true? Do you believe that Tom Hanks is a professor of any sort? Do you believe that Audrey Tautou would understand a slightest criptological question? My answer would be: no. Then why would you believe everything around it true? And why does it really matter? As for what it`s known Jesus might have not been a real person at all, then should I care whether he preferred the sandal or the gourd? One can not prove anything that happened two thousand years ago, therefore everything about it is just a speculation. The film itself didn`t have enough motion imho and I also thought it wasn`t controversial enough. Basically the film didn`t make fun of any real Christian values at all, it didn`t even talk much about symbolic sex, then why would I care about it? If I made a film that stated that Jesus was in fact not executed upon a cross but became a travelling used furniture sales agent that would be a scandal. But this? This isn`t a great film of course, for Ron Howard tried playing it too safe with the film but it`s not a worthless either

It was the first commercial flop for the Beatles. And I don`t wonder why. While "A Hard Day`s Night" was a funny and not too typical comedy, while "Help!" was a silly B level comedy, those films still at least made some sense. This film on the contrary was directed by the Beatles themselves, and great filmmakers they were not. Especially it goes for the storyline - there isn`t a one. Ok, if you call "people get on a bus and they go for a magical mystery tour by bus where nothing really ever happens" a story line, then it is what you just read. Otherwise it`s just some crappy bus images mixed with some silly sequences without the bus. The only part of the film which I liked was the performance of "I am the Walrus" which despite being a bit strange was good. And the "Bonzo Dog Band" playing some Elvis imitation was also at least decent, although the strippers breasts were censored. But everything else is just a sloppy mess - there`s close no humour involved, it`s just psychedelic, and that doesn`t work for me at all. As for the music - now that is the biggest disaster - only the title song and "I`m the Walrus" from the great Beatles songs are present in this film, while everything else is either film muzak or simply not worth mentioning. Still I don`t rate this film particulary low since this film at least doesn`t seem very pretentious, it isn`t long, and I like them Beatles quite much.

It`s been almost ten years since I saw this film on TV. And now after a long waiting (I remembered about it something like a year ago but didn`t know what its title was), I finally saw it again... on TV! Actually on VHS which was recorded from TV but never mind that. The film is based on a short story by Kurt Vonnegut (which I hadn`t read before re-watching the film) and tells about the world of tomorrow where all people are equal both socially, physically and mentally (oh God, there`s three aspects and not two, what am I supposed to do about the word "both"?), and in every other aspect. To achieve that marriages are designed to have average kids and the best mark at school is C. But Harrison Bergeron is a very bad student he never gets lower than A+ and has to stay in the same class for several years. Since he can`t be cured with the help of a little antenna attached to his brain he has to overgo an operation. But if he doesn`t want that he can join the real masters of America and remain as smart as he is. Only by doing that he loses his family and isn`t allowed to have any private life. This film isn`t a big budget one, of course, but I liked it anyhow. Out the actors only one of them made it big later - the guy who played Harrison later became Sam in LoTR trilogy.