Review:
Swing Rocks! Brian Setzer and his Orchestra prove that Swing Jazz and rockabilly is not dated music. They prove that good music is good music no matter what generation is listening to it. The music that Brian Setzer plays is as relevant today as it was in yesteryear.
The CD contains many cover versions of older songs. “Jump, Jive, An’ Wail” was originally done by Louis Prima. The Setzer covers the Elvis classic “You’re the Boss,” The Bobby Darin classic “This Cat’s on a Hot Tin Roof,” the great guitar classic from Santo and Johnny “Sleepwalk” and many others including a new twist on the Stray Cat’s “Rock this Town.”
While Brian Setzer is a great guitarist, the CD is not dominated by his guitar playing. It is well balanced with his orchestra’s horn section and some awesome stand up slap bass playing.
The track list:
1. This Cat’s on a Hot Tin Roof
2. The Dirty Boogie
3. This Old House
4. Let’s Live It Up
5. Sleepwalk
6. Jump, Jive, An’ Wail
7. You’re the Boss
8. Rock this town
9. Since I don’t Have You
10. Switchblade 327
11. Nosey Joe
12. Hollywood Nocturne
13. As Long As I’m Singing
This album will get your feet moving. “Switchblade 327” is a fast paced Brian Setzer original that makes one envision a dancehall filled with couples dancing.
This album is one that is easily enjoyed by all generations. The music is not dated, and younger listeners will not feel that they are listening to their parents music, they may even buy this album to enjoy with their parents.
ISBN: B000286RP2
Review:
Mean Streets is a gritty and raw American classic that features the breakthrough performances of master thespians Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel, and gave its writer/director Martin Scorsese the launching pad for a career that would see him become one of the silver screen’s most revered and popular filmmakers.
A semi-auto biographical crime tale, Keitel stars as Scorsese’s alter-ego Charlie, a young gangster driven by Catholic guilt and plagued by the threat of eternal hellfire. When his best friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) faces danger after he refuses to make his payments to his varied creditors, Charlie takes it upon himself to save Johnny from certain death.
Keitel is magnetic as the sad soul of the streets torn by feelings of loyalty to his friends, his family, the Church, and the streets. Equally stunning in a scene stealing supporting role is a young Robert De Niro who is simply electrifying in the most animated turn of his career. The lively exchanges between Keitel and De Niro feature these now legendary actors at their most raw and lively.
Mean Streets marks the first time that Scorsese would forego a traditional film score in favour of a vast array of music ranging from rock to classical. This in turn heightens several key scenes such as Johnny Boy strutting to the Rolling Stones’ Jumping Jack Flash, and a drunken party at the local bar which features Scorsese at his innovative best.
Scorsese also manages to effectively convey the sights and sounds of New York’s Little Italy despite the fact that the majority of the film was shot in Los Angeles.
The predecessor to Goodfellas, Mean Streets is essential viewing for crime movie buffs and general lovers of cinema.
Book Title: Life & Times of Michael KAuthor: J.M.Coetzee ISBN: 9780140074482
Review:
Life & Times of Michael K By J.M.Coetzee
(Review by Raja sir)
J.M.Coetzee,a South African born in 1940,has rewritten the the travail of Huck's insight (Major character in Mark Twain's novel), but from the black boy Jim's point of view. This time the story is set in a country which suffered indescribable pain and agony. It is the trail of a living bitter stonehearted place, where there was neither pity nor comedy.
Michael K is dull and slow, in a sense. The fatherless kid was born with a disfigurement-a harelip, and as a result he was unable to get nourishment from his mother’s breast. His plight is reflected in the scene when he needs some tools to make a kind of cart to carry his sick and dying mother to a hospital and he breaks into a locked shed to steal the things. It was the sole crime he had committed, and which remains undetected and unpunished but every moment of his life seems to be burdened with the thought that he was guilty of some huge and unrevealed crime. His sir name Kafkan presented as 'K' resounds it. Michael is sent to a state-run orphanage where afflicted children are taken care of. In that orphanage, K experiences the ultimate harsh realities of the South-African life: curfews, police permits, tyranny, patrols, guns,and the things which leave dark prints on the psyche of a child.
At the age of 15, he starts working as a gardener in a public park in Cape Town. His mother, worn but scrupulous, works as a domestic servant for a decent elderly couple in a posh residential area. Although Michael's existence is like that of a dust particle, he is in no sense a derelict. His mother has been provided an unused room in the basement of the master's house. She is totally dependant on the charity of the master and mistress.
Suddenly, the country is at war: the building is attacked, vandalized and the residents are driven out of their houses. Michael K loses his job. As Michael understands the purpose of war from a prison-master is to give minorities their dues. This is the sign of democratic idealism. But in a country like South Africa, it takes a dirty turn and the repression of the black majority by the White minority begins to shape. In the novel, however, Coetzee does not tell the readers who black and who white are, and who rules and who is ruled. Only through the names of the places like Cape Town and the physical and moral landscape do the readers realize that the story takes place in South Africa.
Michael K does not understand color and power; he only knows what is obvious and elemental. Michael only cares for the things which are divinely ordered. He does not call any thing tyranny, or ideal. He cares for his mother, the earth, and later on he will learn that they come to the same in the end.
R.Coetzee is distinctly highly inventive and a man with translucent conviction. Like in his other novel "Waiting for the Barbarians", Coetzee describes the landscapes of suffering little by little with the art of moral disclosure.His stories are universal because they can take place anywhere and to anyone. He does not use abstractions in his stories; his stories are engrossed in the minute and the concrete. Through the minute details in his stories, it is possible to learn how to sow, how to plough, how to use a pump, or how to make a house of earth. His sentences are simple, direct and pure. They are so acute that the readers get the effect deep in their minds.
The hard experiences of the life take him through many experiences. He flows with the moments. Michael does not mould with the rest of the society. He sees, thinks, experiences, and to some extent reacts within himself, but finally, it is revealed that he is unique in his existence.
Coetzee's stories have the power to keep the readers lost in the world of which,perhap, they may have never imagined.Mr.Coetzee,the Nobel Prize winning author of some memorable novels, can be said to have provided a new vein to literature , to be read,explored,understood , interpreted and enjoyed by the posterity for the ages to come.
Raja sir
get free books from
http://www.raja-books.blogspot.com
http://www.rajasir.blogspot.com
Book Title: Life & Times of Michael KAuthor: J.M.Coetzee ISBN: 9780140074482
Review:
Life & Times of Michael K By J.M.Coetzee
(Review by Raja sir)
J.M.Coetzee,a South African born in 1940,has rewritten the the travail of Huck's insight (Major character in Mark Twain's novel), but from the black boy Jim's point of view. This time the story is set in a country which suffered indescribable pain and agony. It is the trail of a living bitter stonehearted place, where there was neither pity nor comedy.
Michael K is dull and slow, in a sense. The fatherless kid was born with a disfigurement-a harelip, and as a result he was unable to get nourishment from his mother’s breast. His plight is reflected in the scene when he needs some tools to make a kind of cart to carry his sick and dying mother to a hospital and he breaks into a locked shed to steal the things. It was the sole crime he had committed, and which remains undetected and unpunished but every moment of his life seems to be burdened with the thought that he was guilty of some huge and unrevealed crime. His sir name Kafkan presented as 'K' resounds it. Michael is sent to a state-run orphanage where afflicted children are taken care of. In that orphanage, K experiences the ultimate harsh realities of the South-African life: curfews, police permits, tyranny, patrols, guns,and the things which leave dark prints on the psyche of a child.
At the age of 15, he starts working as a gardener in a public park in Cape Town. His mother, worn but scrupulous, works as a domestic servant for a decent elderly couple in a posh residential area. Although Michael's existence is like that of a dust particle, he is in no sense a derelict. His mother has been provided an unused room in the basement of the master's house. She is totally dependant on the charity of the master and mistress.
Suddenly, the country is at war: the building is attacked, vandalized and the residents are driven out of their houses. Michael K loses his job. As Michael understands the purpose of war from a prison-master is to give minorities their dues. This is the sign of democratic idealism. But in a country like South Africa, it takes a dirty turn and the repression of the black majority by the White minority begins to shape. In the novel, however, Coetzee does not tell the readers who black and who white are, and who rules and who is ruled. Only through the names of the places like Cape Town and the physical and moral landscape do the readers realize that the story takes place in South Africa.
Michael K does not understand color and power; he only knows what is obvious and elemental. Michael only cares for the things which are divinely ordered. He does not call any thing tyranny, or ideal. He cares for his mother, the earth, and later on he will learn that they come to the same in the end.
R.Coetzee is distinctly highly inventive and a man with translucent conviction. Like in his other novel "Waiting for the Barbarians", Coetzee describes the landscapes of suffering little by little with the art of moral disclosure.His stories are universal because they can take place anywhere and to anyone. He does not use abstractions in his stories; his stories are engrossed in the minute and the concrete. Through the minute details in his stories, it is possible to learn how to sow, how to plough, how to use a pump, or how to make a house of earth. His sentences are simple, direct and pure. They are so acute that the readers get the effect deep in their minds.
The hard experiences of the life take him through many experiences. He flows with the moments. Michael does not mould with the rest of the society. He sees, thinks, experiences, and to some extent reacts within himself, but finally, it is revealed that he is unique in his existence.
Coetzee's stories have the power to keep the readers lost in the world of which,perhap, they may have never imagined.Mr.Coetzee,the Nobel Prize winning author of some memorable novels, can be said to have provided a new vein to literature , to be read,explored,understood , interpreted and enjoyed by the posterity for the ages to come.
Raja sir
get free books from
http://www.raja-books.blogspot.com
http://www.rajasir.blogspot.com
ISBN: 1424883202
Review:
Very intense and sad,This Movie is about two brothers ( Marl Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix )on opposite sides of the law. Robert Duvall ,who plays their dad and a very loyal one at that. Eva Mendes also stars in this film her role as the girlfriend of Joaquin Phoenix and a . For me this was an adrenalin rush to watch this family seek justice.
ISBN: 079077822x
Review:
I loved this PG-13 Movie Starring Nicholas Cage , Like all of the movies he has starred in playing a cool con man never missing a beat, until his 14 year old daughter(Alison Lohman) steps into his life and decides to learn the art of con.This movie is very funny and just when you think you have it figured out you don't. I liked this movie enough to add to my library.This is a 2003 movie.
ISBN: 1417069643
Review:
If you like Comical Musicals you will like this Movie.This movie starring Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane ,UMA Thurman along with Will Ferrell.They discover that under the right circumstances they could make more money by producing a Broadway flop than they could with a hit.But their sure-to-offend Musical becomes a surprise sensation.This movie was funny and I did not expect the out come of this movie.I have always liked Will Ferrell that is the only reason I watched this movie to begin with. This is a PG-13 movie with Sexual humor.
ISBN: 0767881958
Review:
This "Creepy" Movie with Richard Gere and Laura Linney is based on actual events that took place in a small west Virgina Town .Richard Gere plays his part as as a journalist
for The Washington Post very well. He finds himself drawn to this small town in West Virgina He becomes Obsessed with the supernatural Moth like being. laura Linney who plays the local Police Sergent tries to help Gere get to bottom of these strange and bizzare sightings.This movie makes you really think about what's really out in the world around you with unseen forces and where they came from .I recommend you watching this rated PG-13 movie made in 2001.
ISBN: 141705784x
Review:
Tom Cruise in this rated PG-13 movie really out did his self in this Steven Spielberg movie. This movie kept me on the edge of my seat because you never new what in the world that
Army of Extraterrestrial were going to do next.Even if this
is the contemporary Retelling of H.G. Wells's classic.
I watched the H.G. Wells's version as a child and it really scared me. This Movie is A must see and even if you have already seen it ,Then this should be a must in your DVD Library.
Book Title: Soul MountainAuthor: Gao Xinjian ISBN: 0007119224
Review:
Soul Mountain (my views)
Gao Xinjian is the only novelist from China who has the honor of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature for his memorable novel ‘Soul Mountain’ which has set a new trail for the Chinese novel. It is an autobiographical social commentary that has significant place for the supernatural in its plot. It describes the self-imposed exile in Sichuan Province from where the author draws elements of the plot. Had he been in the central China, he would have definitely faced persecution but the seclusion provided him time enough to set out for his spiritual pilgrimage.
The story takes the readers into the remote and past world of Oriental Spiritualism and philosophical abundance. Soul Mountain is , in real sense, a whole world in itself.
Shamanistic customs and traditions are still practiced in Sichuan Province. Xinjian incorporates into the novel his experiences with monks, folk-singers, and recluses, and so portrays the history and mythology of the people around him. Through Xingjian’s writing, history and reality blend with mythology and the natural distortion of time, and perceptions of the past and present blend with history and folklore into one experiential moment.
Xingjian’s writing appropriates Taoist concepts, according to which one pursues pure wisdom by exploring the paradoxes of truth. The contrast of truth and wisdom appears often in the book, especially when Xinjian discusses his earlier disillusionment upon discovering that his immersion in books did not endow him with wisdom, but rather prevented him from truly living.
The novel’s perspective changes rapidly, the narrative voice shifting among first, second and third person. Each character’s viewpoint reflects aspects of a single, fractured consciousness. Xinjian thus blurs the distinction between personal and social identities; his young female companion represents not only his desires but also the emerging sexual freedom that began to appear in the post-Mao era. Yet Xingjian’s prose is enigmatic, and the novel’s shifting perspective and style force the reader to search him in interpreting the story, and to question internal and social mores.
Despite its ambitious philosophical premise, Soul Mountain has a very straightforward plot, which centers on a spiritual journey that mirrors Xingjian’s. The protagonist is meant to be a universal character, taking the forms of "I," "you," "he" and "she." By alternating the personal perspective from chapter to chapter, beginning one with "I" and the next with "you," Xinjian forces the reader to compare and contrast these two different facets of one self.
Undertaking its own Odyssey, this tale provides a detailed account of a modern journey. The main protagonist takes crowded trains, hitchhikes and travels on foot. He travels the hard way into the interior of China, often blown off of his path or staying longer than necessary in one place.
Further complicating the journey, the protagonist has a series of short-lived relationships with a series of women, always referred to as "she." The relations range from ephemeral to platonic to carnally real. Yet the sexuality that Xinjian explores in Soul Mountain has overtones of misogyny. Xinjian described one of the "she’s as a "struggling wild animal" who "suddenly turns docile" with him. In Soul Mountain the understanding of women’s sexuality remains undeveloped and so every "she" is objectified and thereby distorted.
Many images are culled from the protagonist’s consciousness: "Ponds with floating duckweed, small town wine shops, windows of upstairs rooms overhanging the street, arched stone bridges, canopied boats passing under arched bridges and a dried up old well." In order to enhance his consciousness of his origins, he gains a sense of wisdom through childhood memories and through the collection of traditional lore, ranging from tales of bandits to an account of a monastery raid.
Just as the protagonist visits the past, he also ponders his fate. An enlightening encounter with death resonates with a personal crisis in Xingjian’s past. In 1982, Xinjian was falsely diagnosed with cancer, which compelled him to reevaluate his life, seeking solace in the classic Confucianism text I Ch’ing or The Book of Changes. With personal insight, Xinjian vividly captures his protagonist’s fearful wait for a fateful X-ray: "While awaiting the pronouncement of the death sentence, I was in this state of nothingness, looking at the autumn sun outside the window, silently intoning Namo Amitofu, over and over in my heart." The emotional and spiritual upheaval Xinjian underwent pushed him to question the very nature of his existence and the fruits of this journey are displayed in Soul Mountain.
Many stories collected along this journey involve cruelty. The first woman that he comes across describes her nausea before love, her constant suffering and her desire for a death that will cause others to pity and admire her, martyrdom. Hostile encounters in the novel seem to allude to Xingjian’s experiences with the Chinese government. One story that directly addresses the Cultural Revolution involves the savage execution of political enemies of the radicals. However, the underlying currents of violence are oddly juxtaposed with the theme of spiritual growth, and the author never resolves whether any character can ever truly move beyond these atrocities. By refusing to tell his own story and simultaneously trying to relate universal themes, Xinjian exceeds the limits of his fiction. Constantly wavering between a quest for an individual enlightenment and an attempt to stir social consciousness, the story seems adrift. The story has the enigmatic power to enthrall the readers and keep them absorbed right from the beginning till the end, for the majority of the non-Chinese readers will remain submerged in exploring the mysteries of the unseen world.
Raja Sharma
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http://www.rajasir.blogspot.com
Author: Lorna Freeman ISBN: 0451459806
Review:
If you love Fantasy as much as I do, this is a must read book.
It has something for everybody, dragons, fae of all types, ghosts, murder, mayhem and of course magic, lots of magic.
The story centers around a young man with the cute name of Rabbit, who runs away from his humble farming background to become a soldier and in his words *see the world*. The world however is full of things that are not at all what they appear to be. Every page seems to reveal yet another twist, turn or surprise that will keep you reading far into the night. And the one with the most hidden secrets of all may just be Rabbit himself!
Reading this book was a rollicking journey that had its share of gasps, anticipation, chuckles and a few honest belly laughs that had my cat looking at me like I was crazy. I highly recommend it to all Fantasy lovers.
ISBN: B0000A2ZNK
Review:
This is an incredibly awesome movie. It makes you remember all the hard things about being in high school, and it forces you to face the bad things. It makes you almost understand school shootings.
Ben Foster is really great in this movie!
ISBN: B000Y7U93C
Review:
Chuck is a guy who was hexed at a young age. The hex put on him has caused him to become a "Lucky Charm" for girls. Any girl that sleeps with him is nearly guaranteed to find their true love in the next guy they date. This is a raunchy movie, no doubt; however if you can get past that, it's a good one. I enjoyed the movie, it kept me interested. It has the racy romance for the girls, and the funny factor for the guys. Appealing to both audiences. Add this one to your collection!
Book Title: Ghost Rider: Stories by JonathanAuthor: Jonathan Lowe
Review:
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Book Title: Things Fall ApartAuthor: Chinua Achebe ISBN: 9780385474542
Review:
" This story revolves around the life of Okonkwo, an up and comming leader of an Igbo village in Africa. He is willing to do anything to maintain his social status,indifferent to the suffering that it causes himself and those around him.
An accidental shooting changes everything that he loves. Okonkwo must flee with his family from his beloved village for seven years, losing the life that he worked so hard to gain.
He gets through his seven years of exile only to go back home and discover that everything has changed. White missionaries have come to convert Africa to their ways.It is definitely an absorbing story which gives a very detailed insight into the colonial African society.
The tone is quite thoughtful. It covers the era of 19th centurey.The main character is black.Internal struggle is major element.Clash of cultures is noticeable. It can be assessed as adult or young adult book.A small town of Africa is the main setting.