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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 6, 2022 23:50:16 GMT
Molly Nilsson - “Serious Flowers” (2018 song / video)
I wrote about Molly Nilsson in the Favorite Female Pop Artist thread recently, - see below the line (below).
She can be really spectacular at times - creating Art outside my personal taste or even my area of general awareness - she is one of the most interesting and idiosyncratic music artists working.
She also is not afraid to turn listeners off - the music here is epic and soaring - but her vocal mismatches it like she can’t really sing the song “right or perfectly” to match that (it’s about a broken friendship) because she might break down and cry or it's too hard for her - it approximates genuine vulnerability and weakness.
Her singing is flat - but not in a bad way - but more “I’m in a really bad way” right now……
It doesn’t exactly please the ear at first but it challenges the ear - and the eye too……. On first listen it sounds like a botched first take - on 2nd or 3rd listen it sounds………….pretty devastating - not unlike when a singer’s voice cracks but more immersive.
So much thought goes into Nilsson’s skewed Pop presentations - that it’s both excitingly melancholy and seemingly devoid of artifice (though it is not of course - it’s conceptual - it’s all artifice).
Why do Pop singers never “mess up” anyway? When Molly Nilsson is on her game………she’s pushing those buttons - she’s just a beautiful bummer of little complexities.
Somehow all the elements here - song and lyrics, the swelling music, her calibrated vocal, this video too - which is sad and sweetly amateurish - make me want to ball my eyes out ……..um…….and Madonna, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston never did that to me.
Now if you’ll excuse me……..I have ……..something in my eye……
********************
Molly Nilsson who has never made a great album but regularly puts several great songs on each album - and she's made at least 10.......she's going to have an amazing "greatest hits / boxset" one day. She also made a Pop masterpiece this year "Pompeii" - and you almost never get those.
If you don't know her and you start going down the rabbit hole of her music you can kind of get addicted to her ……….
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 8, 2022 9:40:51 GMT
The Bobby Lees
Bellevue (album, released October 7th, 2022)
"Writing about Music is like dancing about Architecture" goes a famous quote - and while I do write about Bellevue a lot in 2022 - its appeal is outside of any words. There is no more primal, exciting Rock and Roll record this year - and only Australia's Amyl and The Sniffers “Comfort To Me” (my number 2 in 2021) rivals it from the previous year - or in recent years - in that specific way. It may not be "the best" album of the year in the way that term is traditionally applied - but I'm having a hard time seeing why it isn't tbh. It is just awesome, no further analysis seems necessary or appropriate really........every moment of this actually improves on their smoking 4 song EP - which is here again and is now expanded. ~ 30 minutes of frayed nerves and bad intentions - how the guitars sound, the bass rumbles, the piano or a carnival-like keyboard intrudes, the drums pound ...........and the singer - Sam Quartin - does everything except literally "sing" - induces an intense physical reaction .......... or multiple spastic ones simultaneously. It literally moves you - not in the way the word "move" is used in the thread's subject line - that too though - but more in the old fashioned sense of that word - it makes you want to run, yell, smash, jump, and kick. ....it sets me - and everything else - in motion: Bellevue has much of why I fell in love with Rock and Roll in the first place......it's the reason I still love it too......those in the know about that feeling - not a “critics analysis” will get it instantly - and those who don't get that will never get it.......it is moving simply because it even exists in 2022......and you start to wonder “why can't everybody do this”? It seems so simple...........but if it was then it wouldn't be so uncommon would it?  |
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 23, 2022 18:14:43 GMT
Dry Cleaning
Liberty Log (song, 2022)"Art-Rock" - an utterly stupid name for a genre that is more broadly - gloriously - by its definition "Anti-Art". That name is usually reserved for muso wankery or misguided ambition or even worse - "elitism" in a genre built on the opposite - it's usually a dead end simply in its pretensions - as if it implies too good for "mere Rock and Roll". But the best "Art-Rock" songs: "Heroin" by the Velvet Underground, Roxy Music's "In Every Dream Home A Heartache", Pink Floyd's "Dogs", Sonic Youth's "Tunic" etc. - all sound vaguely out of this world while describing a world you know inside and out.........and they sound like maybe no one else might get them at all but you...... Dry Cleaning's excellent new album Stumpwork - the Art-Rock album of 2022 - and it's not close either because that genre is never strong anyway - relies on a cumulative effect - not specific "songs" that much. "Liberty Log" however is where this album "peaks"..........like a creepy soundtrack to a disturbing movie - reaching nearly 7 nightmarish comic minutes - it's detached and specific, frightening, ominous, humorous, and it builds until.......it starts to sound like the walls are closing in all around ........"staying in my room is what I like to do" or "I will risk slow death for Chinese Spring Roll" and other Lockdown non-sequiturs intersect and build and overlap - this may be the Pandemic Song of all-time .........words eventually get overwhelmed by noise and blips and static ..........until everything is just........... blurred...........out. It's a triumph of conception, performance, and state of the moment reporting.......I know exactly what they're describing so precisely and it's scary, puzzling, funny................more scary tbh  |
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Oct 23, 2022 23:46:19 GMT
"Art-Rock" - an utterly stupid name for a genre that is more broadly - gloriously - by its definition "Anti-Art". That name is usually reserved for muso wankery or misguided ambition or even worse - "elitism" in a genre built on the opposite - it's usually a dead end simply in its pretensions - as if it implies too good for "mere Rock and Roll". What would you consider to be "muso wankery"? Endless guitar solos and too much emphasis on technique and showing off? Or is there more to it than that? And what would you say is an example of "misguided ambition," and what makes it misguided? |
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 24, 2022 0:25:34 GMT
"Art-Rock" - an utterly stupid name for a genre that is more broadly - gloriously - by its definition "Anti-Art". That name is usually reserved for muso wankery or misguided ambition or even worse - "elitism" in a genre built on the opposite - it's usually a dead end simply in its pretensions - as if it implies too good for "mere Rock and Roll". What would you consider to be "muso wankery"? Endless guitar solos and too much emphasis on technique and showing off? Or is there more to it than that? And what would you say is an example of "misguided ambition," and what makes it misguided? One thing first: * One day somebody who likes Dry Cleaning's Stumpwork is going to agree with this post or - God forbid "like the post" ^ and my raving of that album and song ........but I don't know where those people are because when do I ever agree with an acclaimed "hipster" band - a Pitchfork band for the love of God - making a great work of Art? Several people might have fainted on here or possibly keeled over -  - it's going to make my top 10 ffs next to many albums far more "pacinoyes-y"............. Come on MAR ........geesh...... Yes, usually it's guitar solos but it can also be Wakeman in Yes or Keith Emerson - it's not limited to the guitar that's just more common. "Misguided ambition" is usually how I categorize things that become too portentuous .....in performance - like the way The Moody Blues sing "Tuesday Afternoon" like it's very profound............. when it's usually just the hours between 12:00 PM and 6:00 PM.  ELP did this a lot - even when they did Pop - they couldn't make it simple and effective Pop - this is a song about Love..........on a Beach......or something...........it's called Love Beach (um) - it's done in the manner of a Pop song but they can't stop tripping over themselves ......that's basically it - performance and intent not being in sync......this is a love song, that doesn't convey love, or sex, or passion, or anything you associate with love - other than the musicianship of the players. Maybe one day I'll try to come up with my "Best Art-Rock" albums .......hmmmmmm |
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Oct 24, 2022 4:14:06 GMT
What would you consider to be "muso wankery"? Endless guitar solos and too much emphasis on technique and showing off? Or is there more to it than that? And what would you say is an example of "misguided ambition," and what makes it misguided? One thing first: * One day somebody who likes Dry Cleaning's Stumpwork is going to agree with this post or - God forbid "like the post" ^ and my raving of that album and song ........but I don't know where those people are because when do I ever agree with an acclaimed "hipster" band - a Pitchfork band for the love of God - making a great work of Art? Several people might have fainted on here or possibly keeled over - - it's going to make my top 10 ffs next to many albums far more "pacinoyes-y"............. Come on MAR ........geesh...... Yes, usually it's guitar solos but it can also be Wakeman in Yes or Keith Emerson - it's not limited to the guitar that's just more common. "Misguided ambition" is usually how I categorize things that become too portentuous .....in performance - like the way The Moody Blues sing "Tuesday Afternoon" like it's very profound............. when it's usually just the hours between 12:00 PM and 6:00 PM. ELP did this a lot - even when they did Pop - they couldn't make it simple and effective Pop - this is a song about Love..........on a Beach......or something...........it's called Love Beach (um) - it's done in the manner of a Pop song but they can't stop tripping over themselves ......that's basically it - performance and intent not being in sync......this is a love song, that doesn't convey love, or sex, or passion, or anything you associate with love - other than the musicianship of the players. Maybe one day I'll try to come up with my "Best Art-Rock" albums .......hmmmmmm I can understand how extended instrumental soloing can be tiresome if it seems like virtuosic showmanship just for the sake of it without actually being musical... of course you can be both virtuosic and musically interesting at the same time, though it can be a difficult balance to strike. Tbh that ELP song just sounds like basic pop to me in terms of musicianship - no extended soloing, vocals stay foregrounded throughout with a simple and repetitive hook, standard synth background keyboards, conventional guitar, not much variation in the texture... the performance and intent don’t seem out of sync to me because the song is light in tone, and not really a “love song” in the sense that it doesn’t seem personal or serious… to me it’s just meant to be fun and goofy, using playful language, tropical tropes, etc. The musicianship of the players doesn’t really stand out to me here... but if it did - and if I thought that the performance and intent were out of sync - I don’t think my solution would be to make the musicianship simpler. Instead, I’d rather want to complicate the lyrics to match the quality of the musicianship by being about something less stupid than Love Beach.  |
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 25, 2022 8:47:47 GMT
The Third Lover - aka The Eye of Evil (1962) - directed by Claude ChabrolI have spilled a lot of words about the great Claude Chabrol on here and IMDB over the years - but I had only seen this in a badly subtitled copy and seeing it now on a newish DVD (2020) was something close to seeing a "discovered" Chabrol. In some ways I like this the best of his early films and he had made 3 great ones BEFORE this (!) Diving headlong into his pet topic - the life of the idle bourgeoisie - and how it breeds contempt, murder, misunderstanding under observation. This is a major Chabrol work that I never have thought twice about until now - delineating several themes he would later exploit to great dramatic effect starting with Les Biches (1968). There is a tremendous sequence in this movie that is sad, thrilling, unclear into exactly what is happening - it's masterful......the lead male - one of two Andre's (doubles are always a big deal for Chabrol) follows a woman ( Stéphane Audran - mesmerizingly modern and impossibly lovely) - yet is blocked from truly "seeing" her: Observed through reflections off store windows, phone booths, trolley cars, street crowds he can not actually penetrate her real world......photos only allow him an illusion of knowing. There's a common reaction to many Chabrol movies that is here too - the feeling of having seen the unexplainable and only grasping enough to want to know more .......early in the movie, the outsider Andre says a line that's very Chabrol - (paraphrasing) "I wanted to see their bedroom and bathroom but to trick them into it, NOT just to ask"That's one of the piercing lines of sociopath delusion and it gets to the contradictory heart underpinning all his best work - you can only know yourself - and anything else you think you know twists back on you with unforseen results. This battle of wits plays out in digressions on "battles" literal and metaphorical: War, language, countries, jobs (both writers, but not "the same") cars, bathrobes, chess, sex..........in one scene Audran sits, legs crossed between the 2 men while they engage in battle - that is a great visual image......everything is in dichotomy between dueling classes with dueling rewards ......   |
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 22, 2022 9:30:48 GMT
O Pagador de Promessas (The Given Word (1962)) About many things you should be thinking about this Christmas season - including God, purpose, exploitation - political and otherwise - and ritual..... 2nd viewing - but not for a long time - and like the Dekalog if you watch it at Christmas or Easter you're liable to become mesmerized by it.....if you watch it during the Oscar season you may fear the world has lost its mind.......both things can be and maybe are true Palme d'Or winner 1962  |
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 12, 2023 6:09:13 GMT
Wheel of Ashes (1968) - Directed By Peter Emmanuel GoldmanBy far my fave recent first time watch - this obscurity (a lost film in some ways?) made in France - IN Paris '68 and set there - which adds an unsaid political subtext layer - by an American who would soon leave film altogether (?) - this is one of those small time films that has ideas - philosophical and existential - that can rival many bigger masterpieces both in literature and film......of a very specific type: The despairing loner who is either truth teller, divine vessel, loser, madman, prophet. There are elements here of The Man Who Sleeps (full review of that landmark work, below - and that one is also in this thread separately too) because everything here is "like" that but not as fully realized.......if that film appeals to you this will too....... But also Wheel of Ashes touches on Malle's The Fire Within - I think this, like those two is "a dangerous" movie for some to see - so acute in its despair it tends to romanticize it and wallow in it........made in an offhand, almost amateurish way it reminded me of Cassavetes' Shadows and how it makes you feel you are picking up on key pieces of info - almost accdentally not as part of a "narrative"........some of the dialog free shots towards are so startling you start to think of other movies too - The Mother and The Whore for one .........another masterpiece this can't match but which it gets extra points for even getting close ....... At some point you watch this and either say ........."fuck, this is just a portrait of depression that's getting me depressed" or you think this gets so many details right you find other movies to be - even if more technically accomplished - to be dishonest..... themoviesinner , Javi , Mattsby who may like - or at least find it's place within the French New Wave of interest ......
Wildly underseen - 111 votes on IMDB; 3.6 Letterboxd off a few hundred seen - anybody who claims to like French film in the 60s should seek it out I think **********************
The Man Who Sleeps (1974) - 8.5 / 10 .........rewatch .............tbh this must only be seen in French with subtitles
A kind of genius but certainly not one that invigorates or is even healthy for you - instead it enervates you - neither the book or the film (which surpasses the book) work within their mediums - the book or movie I guess could have maybe influenced masterpieces like Taxi Driver and The Devil, Probably too - and yet is so bleak and insular it can't actually sustain as a book or a movie itself.
The language in the book is dazzling yet the effect is limited - the words suggest a visualization ............ and yet as a film with moving images (but no plot), with narration from the book - and punctuated by sounds...... not really "music" exactly, but technically........ I guess it is ..........and has no forward momentum at all - for the entirety of its 77 minutes.
But that also becomes its own motif - it is about not moving, not proceeding........stasis. It is too passive to even be mere nihilism (in total).......it is also not a romanticizing of despair (in total) - that's how carefully chosen the text is ..........and despite my desire to dismiss it as either of those things, that does not stand up to a critical analysis - it can't be so quickly brushed aside in that way.
Camus danced around this exact idea in The Stranger - the difference is that is connected to the world not simply removed from it - THAT is where The Man Who Sleeps underachieves - if you think it "equals" the seismic shift of The Stranger - well, that makes you both wrong and a potential suicide - and that's not a cruel joke, it's a truth............the writer (of the book and co-director of the movie) Georges Perec co-wrote the adaptation of Serie Noire (1979) - also a work of genius with a panoramic viewpoint of intersecting comedy, cruel horrors and knowing sadness.......... this however is an utterly uncompromising and suffocating film experience with no desire for anything panoramic at all - it precisely, explicitly avoids it - and as such it's exactly the kind of work that should be self-censored for some people for their own well-being:
.............it's a trip to Vegas for a gambling addict, it's whisky for an alcoholic, it's heroin for junkies.
Highly recommended for some .......and for some others.......to be avoided at all costs........
"A few books you no longer read......a few records you no longer play...........just to wait until there is nothing to wait for."  |
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Post by mhynson27 on Feb 12, 2023 13:21:26 GMT
The Last of Us 1x5
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 19, 2023 23:37:20 GMT
Cousin Jules (1972) - DocumentaryThis is an amazing movie - maybe the best - and certainly the most singular movie I've watched this year - I know Tommen_Saperstein is always looking for docs......but everyone should seek it out. I saw it on DVD - though I think it's streaming also (?) - it is mostly silent and very - very much a documentary precursor to Jeanne Dielman - but not in how you might think, in the way it concentrates on ritual, repetition, a kind of artistry in how they live their lives........I can't recall seeing anything else that just focuses on repetion and unquestioning purpose.......it's a beautiful, humane work...... This is how Wikipedia describes it : Benichetti's documentary "Le Cousin Jules" was produced over the course of 5 years (from April 1968 to March 1973). The film shows the everyday life of Benichetti's cousin Jules Guiteaux and his wife Félicie as they work on their farm in the French countryside. The film (unseen for several decades) was considered a masterpiece when released, showing at a number of festivals and winning awards. It was noted for the Cinemascope work of cinematographer Pierre-William Glen and its stereophonic sound. This long métrage obtained the Jury Prize at the Locarno Festival in 1973.
As of 2012, "Le Cousin Jules" has been restored and is once again being shown in film festivals.
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Post by pacinoyes on May 6, 2023 19:12:50 GMT
A Woman Kills (1968) - 1st time watchA Woman Kills can on some levels be read as the most culturally offensive movie with some artistic merit I've seen in a while. ........and that's part of - but not the only reason .............. it moved me ..........it also moved me as a representative of a type of artistic mindset......... Unreleased for 40+ years (?!?) - and I'm not sure it's even that good tbh - but what it is, is effective in the way that often only bad movies can be - especially bad horror. This film - set in Paris '68 like Wheel of Ashes (1968) - in this thread see above - is a Godard wannabe but like Wheel of Ashes - it predates several other movies. The setting of Paris '68 is the best setting - because implicitly in the air is revolution, and a kind of dangerous friction, possibly madness, hope and fear, and murder - of the self or otherwise. That is ripe for a movie and here too, there is blood in the air.......... Now that's giving A Woman Kills too much credit - but in this story of a female killer who is executed and then the killings continue - did they execute the wrong person? Is it someone imitating the first killer? Is it unexplainable, transferable evil? - This predates Cruising a lot .....and it follows Psycho and Peeping Tom in the psychology of victims and killers. Its style is something like Dragnet the TV show - matter of fact descriptive and direct like reporting - and mundane -but the details are lurid and self-important. The film turns more and more outlandishly offensive - if you look reviews up for this it is dismissed for having - and I quote "a transphobic trope ........which is just another way of saying it predates Silence of the Lambs too........and yet the movie is smart in its exploitative way too: At one point the townspeople blame the media for sensationalizing the killings.........and the "foreigners" for contaminating their pure, idyllic town.......in this way it reminds you of a giallo - and that Argento's philosophy "anybody can kill or be killed" applies - and sometimes it is just as simple and banal and as you think - its twist is a horrible given. Filled with several memorable horror images - including a striking opening down an alley (a pathway of the mind?) - several shots at low perspectives to suggest something "not normal" is bubbling underneath the "ordinary".....and an elongated chase scene at the end which is much better directed than what comes before it .........where the killer overexplains everything in a way that is a too much of a cliche ...............but quite sad too.........and sad in the context of what we saw before if you think back on it The train tracks suggest "normalcy" and order - the lack of normalcy suggesting trains gone off the rails A complex scene behind obscured images is a big clue - many grotesque depictions of the death penalty - couched in the context of sex and a post-sex casual meal.........the contrast is jarring..........in a good way and the score is constantly upending us too - abrasive and scary - interspersed with Pop songs that are either trite or painfully on point and horrific.........this idea of "contrast(s)" plays out in many ways kind of ingeniously It moved me in that way but also as a reminder that the "best Art" in Manny Farber's words are "Termite Art" not "Elephant Art" - and A Woman Kills achieves it - if only at its handful of best moments - it's an upsetting work and my labelling it "offensive" says more about the audience I know exists now than the intent behind it by the creator then .......which was to upset us but not persuade us to its personal politics.............it is not concerned with putting people in the best light.........rather the opposite An antidote to (stupid) "presentism" - that POV that sees everything - and I mean everything - through a warped 2023 cultural lens ....................this movie argues its killers motivation(s) is as old as time itself and our 2023 "feelings" are irrelevant to it ........ All that Good, Bad, Ugly stuff ...............in about 70 minutes! ( Mattsby )  |
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Post by Martin Stett on Jun 12, 2023 17:55:56 GMT
Although this isn't a new discovery, it is a piece of art that I keep coming back to. Yoko Kanno's 4 minute piece The Man in the Desert (from her "Song to Fly" album, which starts off as eclectic Kanno mayhem before turning into a selection of orchestral works in the second half) is one of the most powerful works of music I have ever experienced. I don't know what the title refers to, but I have seen the theory that it is based on Jesus's forty days in the desert and that definitely works as headcanon for me. (If it was indeed inspired by this tale, it wouldn't be the first time she used biblical inspiration - her album The Creation was based on various stories in Genesis and is one of her greatest achievements.)
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jun 12, 2023 21:02:29 GMT
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 3, 2023 7:49:11 GMT
L'Immortelle (1963) - directed by Alain Robbe-GrilletThe directorial debut of Alain Robbe-Grillet after writing Last Year At Marienbad (1961).
I've seen a lot of his work - and read it too - and essentially Robbe-Grillet is a guy that to me had a few great ideas that he would then rework throughout his whole writing career - not a one-trick pony exactly but a very specific kind of craftsman. That's on full display here - but what makes it special is what he leaves out ths time: Much simpler and less pretentious than his other work - with nods to Antonioni and The Sheltering Sky (novel) - the movie is simultaneously, sexy, mysterious, elusive, impenetrable and fatalist. A story about a man who meets - and never knows - a female in Turkey where the two bond - and detach - over shared language and possibly shared delusions and fears. The language thing is crucial - as the audience is locked out much like the lead characters - especially the male ( Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) - and we have to "play detective" like him. The locations in this movie - rarely seen in a Western movie at this time afaik - are gorgeous, alluring and foreboding. Not nearly as difficult as Robbe-Grillet's other similar work and if you didn't know better you'd think this was his masterpiece, not the bigger, more famous movie. It also has surprisingly deft directorial touches - not his thing usually, he's a writer - but ingenious use of crowds, close-ups and compositional framing - faces, columns, wide open vistas, - in the forefront and also creeping in from the margins. He has multiple scenes where he positions his female lead (the lovely) Françoise Brion as a wide-eyed corpse - even creepily sexualizes her as a corpse - which ties into the "plot" - not unlike the great-ish short Juliet Dans Paris (1967) by Claude Miller ..........In L'Immortelle it is quite jarring - and links to the vampiric compositions in Last Year At Marienbad by Alain Resnais (Is every couple like this? Maybe......maybe.........). Not just incorporating The Male Gaze - it is rather on some level about The Male Gaze - and fixating on the other at your own expense. Misreading clues, seeing clues where there are none, misjudging your ability to process bits of information anyway..... A movie that sticks with you long after it ends......   |
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 9, 2023 1:23:37 GMT
L'Immortelle (1963) - directed by Alain Robbe-GrilletThe directorial debut of Alain Robbe-Grillet after writing Last Year At Marienbad (1961).
I've seen a lot of his work - and read it too - and essentially Robbe-Grillet is a guy that to me had a few great ideas that he would then rework throughout his whole writing career - not a one-trick pony exactly but a very specific kind of craftsman. That's on full display here - but what makes it special is what he leaves out ths time: Much simpler and less pretentious than his other work - with nods to Antonioni and The Sheltering Sky (novel) - the movie is simultaneously, sexy, mysterious, elusive, impenetrable and fatalist. A story about a man who meets - and never knows - a female in Turkey where the two bond - and detach - over shared language and possibly shared delusions and fears. The language thing is crucial - as the audience is locked out much like the lead characters - especially the male ( Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) - and we have to "play detective" like him. The locations in this movie - rarely seen in a Western movie at this time afaik - are gorgeous, alluring and foreboding. Not nearly as difficult as Robbe-Grillet's other similar work and if you didn't know better you'd think this was his masterpiece, not the bigger, more famous movie. It also has surprisingly deft directorial touches - not his thing usually, he's a writer - but ingenious use of crowds, close-ups and compositional framing - faces, columns, wide open vistas, - in the forefront and also creeping in from the margins. He has multiple scenes where he positions his female lead (the lovely) Françoise Brion as a wide-eyed corpse - even creepily sexualizes her as a corpse - which ties into the "plot" - not unlike the great-ish short Juliet Dans Paris (1967) by Claude Miller ..........In L'Immortelle it is quite jarring - and links to the vampiric compositions in Last Year At Marienbad by Alain Resnais (Is every couple like this? Maybe......maybe.........). Not just incorporating The Male Gaze - it is rather on some level about The Male Gaze - and fixating on the other at your own expense. Misreading clues, seeing clues where there are none, misjudging your ability to process bits of information anyway..... A movie that sticks with you long after it ends...... Btw this is available for streaming through Metrograph - I saw it on DVD myself - but this is a really interesting, niche and curated site worth checking out if you have adventurous, offbeat tastes - no free trial atm - but I'm sure they do that from time to time and they have partnerships also. You can get some good ideas by checking out their library as I'm sure not all of these are exclusive (?) metrograph.com/at-home/ |
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 20, 2023 7:47:10 GMT
On the genius of Richard and Linda Thompson's "The Great Valerio" (1974)
Watching the trailer for "Anatomy of a Fall" reminded me of this song - the last song on one of the greatest folk albums ever ........that is both simple and complex simultaneously........ I have heard the song many times over (too) many years.........and I always return to it........sometimes in the most painful ways actually. It chills in a way Pop music often doesn't because its form and content both contrast - the beauty is horrible - and complement .......the song is fully realized in a way that seems like a foreshadowing and ancient.......predicting an endless parade of sad fools...... Once I saw someone cover it in a way that completely misunderstood - or de-emphasized at least the song's darkened heart......which is kind of like someone not getting the ending of The Graduate or something - something you see as profound but is taken as "merely" perfunctory without subtext at all......... I often (sometimes jokingly, sometimes not) talk of this idea of simplicity in musical performance but The Great Valerio is - in its performative elements quite dauntingly complex: Do you sing? Try singing it.........Do you play guitar? Good luck playing it........Do you write or keep a journal? Try to match the economy of the verses........a song that can be heard a thousand times in a thousand different ways......... Flagging a few people here who may know it - stephen is a Richard Thompson fan iirc, Martin Stett who is a folk fan, and TheAlwaysClassy , TylerDeneuve and Mattsby who may or may not know it but could see a whole movie - or several - that's never been shot ............existing within it High up above the crowd
The great Valerio is walking
The rope seems hung from cloud to cloud
And time stands still while he is walking
His eye is steady on the target
His foot is sure upon the rope
Alone and peaceful as a mountain
And certain as the mountain slope
We falter at the sight
We stumble in the mire
Fools who think they see the light
Prepare to balance on the wire
But we learn to watch together
And feed on what we see above
Until our heart turn like the seasons
And we are acrobats of love
How we wonder, how we wonder
Watching far below
We would all be that great hero
The great Valerio
Come all you upstart jugglers
Are you really ready yet?
Who will help the tightrope walker
When he tumbles to the net?
So come with me to see Valerio
As he dances through the air
I'm your friend until you use me
And then be sure I won't be there
How we wonder, how we wonder
Watching far below
We would all be that great hero
The great Valerio
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 25, 2023 10:35:28 GMT
On the genius of Richard and Linda Thompson's "The Great Valerio" (1974)
Watching the trailer for "Anatomy of a Fall" reminded me of this song - the last song on one of the greatest folk albums ever ........that is both simple and complex simultaneously........ I have heard the song many times over (too) many years.........and I always return to it........sometimes in the most painful ways actually. It chills in a way Pop music often doesn't because its form and content both contrast - the beauty is horrible - and complement .......the song is fully realized in a way that seems like a foreshadowing and ancient.......predicting an endless parade of sad fools...... Came across this version just yesterday - and I was kind of blown away..... I have seen Richard Thompson live but he didn't play this that time: Singing it years after recorded (30 years+) from an older, male, and more haunted, almost cathedral-like POV - more rueful, certainly less lovely and crystalline than how Linda sang it as a young woman........ Chill inducing stuff in either version: |
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 11, 2023 16:52:28 GMT
Death of the Adversary (1959) - by Hans Keilson A short, wrenching book written by a Jew with little emotion - and as an intellectual projection on his ascendant "adversary" - and his adversary and "the reason" are never even named. This book - in its form and mastery of language a kind of serious masterpiece - and I had never read it until this week when my library placed it on their recommended books after last weekend's horrors ........now it doesn't "read" as a masterpiece - rather as an exercise.......but exercises have their place and by appealing to your intellect in this way - the book makes the unknowable even more unfathomable........ and horrific. Reminiscent in ideas of The White Ribbon, Emmanuel Carrère's great (and similar) true crime The Adversary - and a story I once saw Werner Herzog tell in person in a lecture about how Nosferatu was a visionary prediction of The Third Reich......not "just" a movie. Not just a book either........in 2023 it seems like a horrible visionary prediction too.....  |
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 15, 2023 3:42:50 GMT
album: CMAT - Crazymad, For Me (2023)
There are many people irl that do not get my love for Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson - CMAT - getit? - an artist I first posted about last year - and in that time she has now pulled off 2 wonderful albums of wild humor and relationship heartache .....and she remains both underground (generally) and in her own universe - a fncking star (specifically).....
CMAT makes music of great feeling and depth - while masking it behind even greater - often almost incongrous - humor and often (not always) camp and theatrical tricks that can crowd you out as much as draw you in.......when you first hear her she's hard to process at all........with CMAT the totality of effect supercedes that specificity.......you have to get the whole act to get each song - the opposite of most artists.
She dropped a simple, stellar Pop song this year - Mayday - and left it off this record because it didn't fit - that's how sharp she is about what fits into her album vision.....
She is most obviously an American "country" artist - from Ireland (um) - but someone who loves country wouldn't know what to make of her necessarily either.......she has elements of Pop outrageousness and Rock songcraft - particularly in her lyrics - maybe the best by any female since the Long Blondes Kate Jackson or Amy Rigby (who she also loosely resembles musically in her wit) or Lily Allen a very similar artist in her appropriation of raunchy humor and camp......the difference is she's way more consistent - her albums are crafted and stuffed with exacting details and on this new one instrumentation......not to mention her singing - I've seen her live and she can sing her head off too.....
It is impossible for me to choose between her 2 albums - though this one may finish higher on my best albums list (her debut finished 6th in 2022) - even though I think this one may be top to bottom stronger and weirder......Weirder is the key word too - I can't think of another serious artist worth listening to that is more singular.......I can't think of someone who hews so close to crap Adult Contemporary and triumphs over it......she also invokes - literally David Bowie - another oddball outsider people didn't get at first .......in I Can't Make Up My Mind - "I'm your hunky dory" she sings........damn right.......I can't stop laughing and I am almost crying from laughing and laughing from crying - like a lot of my favorite Art across mediums...........from Westerberg to Woody Allen to A Fan's Notes.....
"I'm fine, no really I'm fine........like a teenage Frankenstein"
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 23, 2023 22:52:21 GMT
Death of the Adversary (1959) - by Hans Keilson A short, wrenching book written by a Jew with little emotion - and as an intellectual projection on his ascendant "adversary" - and his adversary and "the reason" are never even named. This book - in its form and mastery of language a kind of serious masterpiece - and I had never read it until this week when my library placed it on their recommended books after last weekend's horrors ........now it doesn't "read" as a masterpiece - rather as an exercise.......but exercises have their place and by appealing to your intellect in this way - the book makes the unknowable even more unfathomable........ and horrific. Reminiscent in ideas of The White Ribbon, Emmanuel Carrère's great (and similar) true crime The Adversary - and a story I once saw Werner Herzog tell in person in a lecture about how Nosferatu was a visionary prediction of The Third Reich......not "just" a movie. Not just a book either........in 2023 it seems like a horrible visionary prediction too..... I made a post about the poster art for Zone of Interest (in that thread) - and earlier some of the Mise-en-scène in the trailer - and you see many of the same tricks on this book jacket - no on faces the camera directly, the light not illuminating but being overwhelmed - the street seems to lead to a tunnel of darkness....there's a figure (the adversary?) that appears like a ghost apart from all 5 people........some really great Holocaust visual motifs in both works.......I not only really liked this unique book - I like the book cover too ffs |
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Post by Martin Stett on Dec 17, 2023 3:45:10 GMT
I'm not sure if "moved" is the right word, but this is undeniably impressive and rather beautiful. They're like real life Ghibli animals.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 12, 2024 19:41:15 GMT
The Curse - Season 1 - 10 episodes (2023/2024)Not merely great - but I think (?) - the first piece of Great Art in the MAR era (2017-) to be explicitly about being Woke (unironic, thanx) and which argues for and against it in the context of (significant) human shortcomings. The Curse makes other "social message" pieces - even good (not great) ones - Nomadland, Promising Young Woman, American Fiction - seem more hollow and false or at least too simple...........and it suggests all kinds of things it never even addresses because it is so dense in tying social climate issues in with human issues that many scenes don't fully hit you until later. Nothing escapes the shows reach: Virtue signaling wackjobs (a MAR specialty tbh) - the difference between being good and wanting people to call you good (or worse: "right"), white guilt, people so stupid they'd support Trump but also Bernie Bros / Mayor Pete fans - the show isn't about politics but it's woven into its fabric........the show makes you rethink your role and your place in the world ...........and not only that but by the end of Season 1 - it's practically bleeding with ethical dilemmas or avoidance: What's the worst thing you've ever done? What's the worst thing you've done to someone else? What if you did it - and didn't know? The Curse is the best - and most accurate work of Art I've come across in 2023 - film, TV, music - whatever about where we live now. Not only not for all tastes......how could it be? 
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 31, 2024 14:39:13 GMT
The Strangler (1970) - Directed by Paul Vecchiali
There is an idea - well, my idea usually - that movies often capture a "sickness" in those who view them - and while that is fairly common - it is amazing how much we don't see it too.....or let ourselves off the hook:
It is not unusual to tell someone who has seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre multiple times that they are "sick" but of course that becomes harder to say when you ( or in this case.............um, me) has seen it multiple times and considers it "great".
Such is the queasy, uncomfortable space occupied by this movie in the setting I saw it (first time watch):
I saw The Strangler this week at a college screening with my gf - who read something about it and thought I might "like it" (which itself is disturbing). The fact that someone who knows me can make that assumption troubles me - but it also revealed a deeper assumption (also true) about this movie that we talked about after it was over:
When shown on a dreary, rainy day itself attracts dreary, rainy people............and that young people, especially who go to see this movie .......curiously alone, with backpacks and hollow eyes - may be the victims in this film.
Very giallo like in imagery - with shots that evoke Argento and Cruising - a film that would be called of its time, dated and ahead of its time (Cruising, again) .....a film that asks you to identify with killer and victims.......and suggests lonely people may want to die - and the world will oblige - and there's always someone out there to misunderstand them (and themselves)) the way I did those people who go to see The Strangler alone .............on cold, rainy, dreary days.......... on college campuses.........
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Post by Brother Fease on Feb 1, 2024 0:02:14 GMT
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- it's going to make my top 10 ffs next to many albums far more "pacinoyes-y"............. Come on MAR ........geesh......
