Cheesecake (2008)

Do you want to see a really good film ? Film that will make you think – what is happening , why is it happening ? Film that will surprise you – an indie film …Yes ? Then you definitely should check out the new Russian film Cheesecake . Reviewing it i not an easy task as I would not want to spoil your experience . The first scenes you will see are related to the story – even trough you will discover this further in the film . What you have to focus your attention on is an add – yes an add – I know that you are used to skip those while they are screening on TV – but this add – this add is special and so are the people who act in it.

Meet Mikhail(Sergey Chonishvili) – he is a doctor . He works till late , gets tired – his mother is worried about him as he recently split up with the girl he lived with. The film director made sure that the viewer gets to know Michail – and decide for themselves if he is a good or bad man or just a man with many problems. Sergey Chonishvili is a well known actor in Russia and his performance in the film is nothing short of perfect.

Second meet Natasha (Olga Lomonosova) – she is an actress – stars mainly in TV adds , has a boyfriend to whom is rather attached , but this does not stop her to full around with the producer of the commercial. Her character is not as well defined throughout the movie as the one of Mikhail – but the actress Olga Lomonosova makes sure that we remember each scenes in which she appears.

Last – but not least – meet the 13-year old boy Alesha (Pavel Melenchuk). He and Michel are the lead characters in the film. He is a very smart and talented kid – he make his bad , cleans around the house , washes , cooks – studies hard at school and is extremely polite. But he has a problem – no father and an alcoholic mother who calls him names and is indifferent of his existence .

One day – a coincidence bring those thee character together – in a commercial of a Cheesecake. On the advertising shoot, they depict a happy family in Moscow: smile, drink tea. They don`t even suspect that the fate has prepared for them big surprises and twists…at least not until one night Mikhail discovers Alesha – on the floor Matt in front of his apartment . Alesha asks Michael to allow him spent the night at his house. Michal thinks about it – he doesn`t like the idea – as he hardly knows the boy – but after some thoughts he eventually agrees .

From that moment on the young movie director Eugene Zvezdakova takes the viewers of her film to a wild roller coaster ride – to a journey with an unknown end. Cheesecake is a thriller , a psychological drama or a coming of age film – or why not all of those mixed together- the film is not yet listed in IMBD – but if you know Russian you can learn a great deal about it at its page at RussianArt.com

Roman Mysteries

I was not going to write about the TV series ” Roman Mysteries ” – assuming that all of you have heard of it . However yesterday while I was chatting with Ikarus – when I mentioned that I was currently watching the series he told me that he never heard of them – so I decided that after all they deserve to at least be mentioned at theSkyKid.com. I must admit that I am not a big fan of TV series – but they do a fine job when I am tired or don`t have time to watch a full length film .

Roman Mysteries follows the stories of Flavia, Nubia, Jonathan, and Lupus, four young friends growing up in Ancient Rome. The TV series are based on the books by Caroline Lawrence. I haven`t read them yet – but would like to do that soon. The series were filmed in Bulgaria , Malta and UK with a budget exceeding 10 millions British pounds – which is probably why the overall image in the series is quite good. The casting is quite good for TV series – and most of the actors delivered good performances .

roman-mysteries

I have always been interest in ancient history – Greek , Rome , Visantian empire . I even took classes in Latin while I was attending high school and even I found it rather hard language I really enjoyed the classes ( much thanks to my teachers ) . Roman Mysteries could entertain – but I am not so sure if there is much of educational value in them. At the end I guess – my opinion on Roman Mysteries is a bit biased – as I myself am found of the popular “Rome” series – as they seem to be more intense and intriguing .

http://youtu.be/DsL_yria6Ew

IMDB page

Official web site of the book on which the series are based

If you have seen the series please feel free to leave a comment with your impression on them as this is sure to help people who hear for them for a very first time.

Uranya

I have wanted to see Uranya ever since a friend told me how good it was after seeing it at a movie festival. He called it a pleasant surprise and highly recommended it. I wanted him to review its for my blog since the film was coming of age flick – he never got to it. So instead – you are going to get yet another review from me – yeaaay ! ( :

Uranya is a comedy from Greece. I say comedy because the film has a lot of humor and comics scenes in it – but in general is rather hard to determine. The film has few elements of political satire, drama, and surrealism – but of course, what I loved it for is its coming-of-age value. Those of you who hear of it for the first time may think it looks like a Greek version of Malena. But in reality, is a whole lot different.

Achilles (Aris Tsapis) and his four friends live in a small village by the sea. As most boys, they are interested in girls , women …and being a teenagers with raging hormones they are looking for a way to release the tension crated by their new-found sexuality. Besides doing the things boys do as teens – they made a pact and start saving money to spent on a local prostitute . Achilles , dreams of becoming a pilot or an astronaut and after finding out of the Apollo landing on the moon and tries to convince his friends to use their savings to buy a TV so they can watch it. As he states ” The whole world is going to see it life , only we won`t because there is not a single TV set in our village “

Uranya is a very well directed movie. I was genuinely impressed in the way by which the characters were introduced – as slight hints showed their uniqueness throughout the movie. For example they all rode bikes ( similar to the one I had at 12 ) – which had accessories reflecting their influences and interests. In another scene – surreal and animated – the boys are seen like a small lilliputs exploring a women`s body .

The entire cast performed exceptionally well. An interesting thing I noticed was that the boys in the film were cast so that their group could resemble the boys from the well-known coming of age flick Stand By Me – of course, this made the Uranya even more appealing film to watch.

The camerawork and the overall cinematography in Uranya are pretty innovative. I loved the soundtrack – catchy Greek music that gets into your bones, and you feel ready for a Sirtaki dance. The overall atmosphere in the film is a bit nostalgic – or it was for me as I was able to remember a lot of my childhood experiences while watching the adventures of Achilles and his friends.

If you are up to seeing an engaging, funny, well-made film – Uranya will make your screen time worthy.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK9Z7wZYZMA

Lamb (1986)

I had plans to watch another movie first – but as soon as I received the DVD of Lamb and read the description of the film on the back cover knew that I have to watch and review it. In fact I am starting this review as a preview as I still haven’t seen the film – but its description reminded me of two others films – Song for a raggy boy and The fire than Burns.

4 am – just saw the film – admittedly I was wrong in my expectation and the film turned out to be more similar to Second Best, then the movies I outlined above. It begins in a documentary style – but soon the story evolves and the viewer is trough right into the action. ( a bit too fast for my taste as I was still trying to get to know the characters in order to understand the motives for their actions ) .

The blurb of the film is ” In like a lion , out like a lamb” – but one has to do some thinking in order to fully grasp the meaning of this sentence.

Begins like a documentary- in the first scenes we see a man – brother Lamb crying. This gives us some insight of the overall tone of the story – even though there are rare surprises throughout the film. The plot doesn’t have any high concepts: A boy is sent to a reformation school run my priest much to the will of his mother who can`t stand him at home and even tried to kill him once when he had an epileptic crisis.

The character development in the film is rather poor as we barely get to know enough details from the past of the characters that shape their current behavior and decision-making. Still, when the 10-year-old is published for something he hasn`t done – the idealistic brother lamb runs away with the boy in an attempt to provide for him a family.

The relationship of the young priest and the boy is a parent-and-son one. It in my opinion is the single most valuable thing in the film. The process of evolution from a pupil relationship to a father-son relationship somehow keeps the viewer interested.

The actors did a good job especially Liam Neeson in the lead role. However, to me – Lamb remained is a mediocre film – wasn`t bad nor good. Overall the story is a great example of things going terribly wrong for someone who has the best of intentions.

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This review would have not been possible without the valuable support of CVMC: The oldest movie rental service on the Internet — since 1998. Specializing in hard-to-find & rare films from around the world. I would like to thank them for supporting theSkyKid.com by providing rare films for your enjoyment.

Norman Rockwell

little_boy_writing_a_letter Recently I reviewed the book Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon – while I was doing the review I stumbled upon the art of Norman Rockwell . I was to choose illustrations for my the review of the book – I could hardly thing of anything more suitable that his drawings.

Norman Rockwell was a 20th century American painter and illustrator .His early works were produced for St. Nicholas Magazine, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) publication Boys’ Life and other juvenile publications.

The illustrations of Rockwell are easy to recognize – his sentimental view of the world is what attracted me to his art. Plus he lived and worked in New England – a favorite region of mine in the US ( the only one I have been in anyway ). I hope that you would enjoy his art as much as I do.

Wikipedia entry Official website Wallpapers of Norman Rockwell

Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon

I have been always into reading in books . Some movies are awesome – but nothing can be compared with the insight that the book can give you nor to the fantasy world you can get to while reading it . Out of the hundreds book I have read some stuck to me – its the same with movies in a way – one of those books is Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon.

I got myself the audio presentation of the book ( some 12 hours worth of audio ) and departed for the world created by the Robert McCammon. ( I can also say that I departed back to myself – to my memories of being a boy – just like Cory ).

The narrator is the 12 year old Corry – and soon after I associated with him and his adventures ( the author associated with another character from his story Vernon – but I will let you see for yourself the reasons for that). As a protagonist of the story he was growing and changing throughout the novel in many ways. He learns that there are many dangers when one goes against the crowd, or has different beliefs. When I finished the book I was so impressed that decided that this coming of age classic could easily become a theme book on my entire blog.

The book is a prime example of a coming of age masterpiece – and it is not just the name that hints this to the reader. I don`t remember seeing , hearing, reading or watching anything else that was able to so accurately and fully describe this rite of passage period.

The books leads to to almost all aspects from the life of a boy. Best friends, bullies, evenings at the cinema and that brand-new bike. McCammon describes each of these themes in an unique way that takes you back to your own experiences. One example of that is a passage at the beginning of the story in which Cory sees Invaders from Mars at the local cinema. The impact that film had on him and his friends was so neatly described that you will remember those the moments spent in the movie theater after the lights went off and how you felt after seeing a really good movie. I was ready to sail away after seeing a movie with pirates, and was horrified to go outside in the dark after seeing Stephen King’s, IT. Things haven’t changed for me a lot.

While I was reading about the accident with Corry’s dog I saw myself, warm tears on my cheeks, holding my puppy in my hands screaming at the veterinarian that he has to save my dog. That whatever sickness got into it could be cured. Then as with Cory, I learned to deal with death. Death that McCammon describes as a lonely young boy.

I really got into the story and by the middle of it I felt like a resident of Zephyr, Alabama. Cory Mackenson was my close friend up to the point at which I screamed to Cory and his friends to wait for me as I peddled my bike.

I would like to borrow a quot from the review by Gene Lyons published at the author’s web site :

“See, this is my opinion,” McCammon’s narrator, Cory Mackenson, tells us: “We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us.” ^[3]

The book also provides some intense action, a murder mystery, a horrifying and dramatic flood description. It portrays the excitement, despite the ignorance, of youth. It also included the most amazing description of the feeling of having a new bike and riding it. In fact as an owner of such and influenced by the book I decided to give it a name “Grey Thunder” A item that earned me some odd looks from my mother when I announced it to her. She thought it was odd. But I knew…

The book taught me important life lessons . Such as :

You never know what a person can do until he has to do it.

or about the job of boyhood :

Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon – favorite #comingofage book #quote @LoganRocs https://t.co/rlkjrOP4n2 pic.twitter.com/EEJfwYOAoM

— theskykid.com team (@theskykidcom) December 17, 2015

and :

If this had been a television show, it would have been time for a commercial. But real life takes no pauses.

I say Boy’s Life is not about lost innocence, because I believe we all maintain the pool of innocence and wonder inside us no matter how far we get away from our childhood. I believe this pool can be revisited, and we can immerse ourselves in its healing water if we dare to take the risk of knowing again the children we used to be. A mixture of fiction and biography as mentioned by the author himself in his letter to the readers . ^[1]

In an interview the Boy’s Life author mentioned that while his book was not written for a young audience it found a huge audience among them. It is now taught in high schools across the country. This makes me a bit jealous of the American kids the same way I felt when I discovered another favorite book of mine – Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks while I myself attended high school in the USA.

I recommend highly, Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon and would like to finish my review with a quote from it :

The years of a boy’s life pass so fast, Cory. Boys want to hurry up and be a man and then there comes a day they wish they were boys again. No One ever grows up. They may look grown up, but its a disguise. It’s just the clay of time. Men and women are still children. Deep in their hearts they would still like to jump and play, but that heavy clay won’t let them. They would like to shake off every chain the world has ever put on them. Take off their watches, neckties and Sunday shoes and return naked to the swimming pool. They want to feel free . . . and know that there is a mommy and daddy at home who will take care of things no matter what. Remember! Remember everything and anything. Don’t you go through a single day without remembering something from it . . .

If you are reading Boy’s Life for the first time, I hope you enjoy it. I hope it takes you to some places you never knew existed . . . or to places that you may have forgotten ever did exist.[2]

[1]A Letter FromRobert R. McCammon link

[2]Why I Wrote Boy’s Life R. McCammon link

[3]Entertainment Weekly, Book Reviews, August 30, 1991 link

PS : I may never get a chance to write personally to Robert McCammon, like many of his fans do. But I hope that this review would serve as an open letter of invitation to him. And if he ever stumbles upon this, there is one thing I would want to say to him.

“Thank you for taking me back ! “

Wiener Sängerknaben – March 22, 2009 Concert

Wiener Sängerknaben (Vienna Boys Choir) – Schubertchor

Andy Icochea Icochea, Conductor

March 22, 2009
Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Nashville, Tennessee (U.S.A.)

Synonymous with country music and dive bars, Nashville, TN, seems a contrariety with the worldly classicism of Wiener Sängerknaben. Arriving early in the evening, I strolled about downtown admiring the street performers if not for their talent then for their gumption. Those who reside in the city say you can’t throw a nickel without hitting an aspiring musician. Nashville’s vivacity is contagious, and the creativity can be seen in many styles of art and performance. However, a culture permeates the city, and that recoils all things to country music and dive bars.

At about half-past six, I entered Schermerhorn Symphony Center (pronounced Skermerhorn) and waited for Laura Turner Concert Hall’s doors to open. My seat was front row but slightly stage left. It’s relatively easy to get great seats if this is a great seat, more to come later – if you order tickets the day they go on sale. Having not been here before, I was surprised at how small the venue was – granted, it is still a concert hall.

The choir of 23 boys donned in their “whites” entered from stage right performing Alleluia Video caelos apertos (I See the Open Heavens). After taking their places, the crowd greeted them warmly. I last saw Schubertchor in the fall of 2006. Andy Icochea Icochea had much longer hair at that time, and I don’t recall his English being so difficult to understand. Nonetheless…

Continue

Support theSkyKid.com

If you like TheSkyKid.com – there are several things you can do to help us out and make it an even better place. In this post we will outline few of them – but would appreciate if you came up with your own ideas as Michel did ( you will find more about that soon )

1. Leave comments – meaningful comments to the articles on the blog really make a difference. They offer different perspective than our own and enrich the community. When we review a movie or a music performer – you get to see only our opinion on it – so leave a comment and make your views count.

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Apollo 3 – will rock your world

Read about Applo 3 in Russian – thanks to Apollo 3 Russian Support

Apollo 3 is a rock band from Germany that can really rock your world. After hearing their first single “Superhelden” I got totally addicted to their music . Now I have the clip on my phone and play it quite frequently. I sing along too – which is an achievement for me ( having in mind that my German skills are still pretty basic ).

The members of Apollo 3 are Dario (12), Henry (11) and Marvin (11) , and they recently got a record contract with Sony . They did not achieve that straight away as they formed the group back in 2007. From the time I was a fan of Gil Ofarim I know that Sony in Germany keeps an eye on the young talents in the country – I could only congratulate them for that.

Their first single is chosen as a theme song for the new German movie Vorstadtkrokodile ( Suburban Crocodiles ). It`s quite interesting that Super RTL had their video censored ( I could not imagine why ) – however you just saw its full version. ( the information is from their Twitter account ) .

The first album of Apollo 3 will be released on 24 April 2009.

Apollo 3 Official Web site / Appolo 3 My Space Profile/ Apollo 3 Twitter account/ Applo 3 Youtube account

Apollo 3- новый юный и талантливый рок-бэнд из Германии.

Трое парней из Кёльна: Генри (11), Дарио (12) и Марвин (12) уже покорили слушателей, став исполнителями саунд-трека к фильму “Крокодилы пригорода”, вышедшему 26-ого марта в Германии.

Их музыка- совмещение противоположностей. В своих песнях ребята соединили такие альтернативные стили, как рок и реп. Их дебютный сингл “Superhelden” выйдет 3-его апреля, а альбом увидит свет 24-ого. Так же в ротации на Super RTL TV вы можете увидеть первое видео ребят на песню “Superhelden”. Все свои песни группа, к слову, сформированная в 2007 году, исполняет на родном немецком языке.

По словам Марвина, название группы произошло от имени американской ракеты, которая первой высадилась на Луну. “Ракета управлялась тремя людьми- нас тоже трое”- говорит он.

Сами ребята являются учениками одной из гимназий Кёльна и ходят в 6-ой класс.

Дарио.
Дата рождения: 5.1.1997
Цвет волос: коричневый
Цвет глаз: карие
Рост: 164 см
Вес: 48 кг
Хобби: playstation, кататься, Интернет
В группе: гитара

Генри..
дата рождения: 25.6.1997
цвет волос: блондин
цвет глаз: карие
рост: 160 см
вес: 48 кг
хобби: Интернет, чатиться
в группе: вокал/гитара

Марвин.
дата рождения: 25.8.1996
цвет волос: тёмно-коричневые
цвет глаз: тёмно-карие
рост: 158 см
вес 39 кг
хобби: баскетбол

в группе: МС/ клавиши

Soft Like Me (1996)

When you think disturbing movie – think Soft Like Me. After seeing it yesterday, I could only say that a film can hardly get more disturbing than that.Even its tagline,” With hope comes punishment” sounds quite weird, surreal, and depressing.

On a prairie wheat field in a mythical past or fantasy future, boys are enslaved to harvest wheat. They hope to escape, but with hope comes punishment —firm and final punishment. In an article titled Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Canadian Film^[1] the film is said to deal with the intersections of the prairie landscape and childhood…and while that is not a very detailed or accurate description – I am guessing that it’s shows some insights of what the movie is about. To me, it also seemed like a horror film.

While researching for the review you are now reading, I stumbled upon an interview with the film director says :

For example, in Soft Like Me, I wanted to recreate the Canadian prairies at the turn of the century, but the one that no one talks about. It’s the one that isn’t in the history books because history is obsessed with blunt objects like facts.”^[2]

Some of you are familiar with the rather popular The Nature of Nicholas. Soft ike Me (1996) – a 24-minute short film directed by Canadian director Jeff Erbach. I am having trouble following the movie he directs – or even understanding them – but at the same time, he has a unique style that can hardly be mistaken.

Sample Clip

The movie can be seen online on the Underground film website, but be warned that it contains violence and mature themes. Soft like Me is one of the bleakest, most chilling visions you’ll ever encounter.

Best Coming-of-Age Movies according to Dustin Rowles

I stumbled on quite an interesting article about coming of age movies at the pajiba.com web site. The article was written by Dustin Rowles. He had a quite an interesting definition to the coming of age genre that I would like to share with you :

“Indeed, the best coming-of-age movies are almost always fish-out-of-water films; the water is our youth, and coming of age is how we acclimate ourselves to it“

What follows are 10 trailers of movies that he consider best of the genre. Only three of his 10 would make in at my own top 10 list – but honestly I admire him for being able to pick some – as selecting a limited numbers of the gems out there is not an easy task at all.

The best thing in this article are definitely the comments that the readers of his article left. I admit that I am a bit jealous at him for being able to attract so many comments – which is something I am not as successful yet. The people who read the article noticed as many of you had that most of coming of age movies are about a boy`s experiences – I have addressed this intriguing issue in my article Coming of age films – boy`s or girl`s thing. A person nicknames Koolickle left a comment in Dustin`s post outlying female leads that in some great coming of age tales you may be interested in reading. Several more titles are provided by Alabamapink and Inaras and Lucy just few comments below.

You can find the article I meantion in this post and its respective comments at pajiba.com

Yours,

SkyKid

10 minutes by Ahmed Imamovic

10minutes Just opened my RSS reader and stumbled on a post about the short movie 10 Minutes. My opinion is that the movie was quite well filmed – showing how much can 10 minutes be for someone and how less of a time for another. I would like to get your feedback on this film – do you think it deserves its high rating at IMDB ( 8.4/10) ?

Similar film : Savrseni Krug

TheSkyKid.com

TheSKyKid.com

Wiener Sängerknaben (Vienna Boys Choir) – Schubertchor

Andy Icochea Icochea, Conductor

Apollo 3- новый юный и талантливый рок-бэнд из Германии.