Chinaski82

Rosabella (or Rosebud)...is Kane's key...the viewer understands the mystery of the man with many faces (one for each "interviewee")...a child torn from his childhood, from his adolescence...a shock he will never overcome..."No trespassing" is the barrier that prevents anyone (in the film) from understanding this mysterious figure...in my opinion, that is the meaning of the film...then, the "technical" side is equally important...the cinematic innovations of Welles' genius change the history of cinema. There is a before and an after Citizen Kane. A true masterpiece!

Sean Penn is a great talent, both as an actor and as a director… he has a deep sensitivity, he’s a natural talent… I really liked the film… maybe it could have been trimmed by about twenty minutes… and perhaps a direct wink from the protagonist to the camera could have been avoided (?)… anyway, Eddie Vedder contributed his part to the success of this beautiful film!

I don't want to shoot the red cross... okay, we appreciate the fact that she took on Waits... but it all feels so chic!... soon we'll have Boselli playing Rachmaninoff?

Nice album, but I would say it is largely overrated. 7

Let's not forget that classical music (I hate this term but it’s for clarity) has always been written on paper... but the interpretation of a piece was the main "attraction"... it’s not so much about the nocturnes of Chopin, but who plays them, how they play, and how they interpret them... take the approach of a Horowitz! and compare it with Pollini or Ashkenazy!... there has always been an underlying indeterminacy in "classical" music (in the popular sense of the term)... Cage, what does he do? He overturns the system... take Imaginary Landscape No. 4, the piece with radios, to be clear... with each performance something different will emerge but the performer does NOT INTERPRET!... this is important! for the first time the performer is in third place!... in second comes the listener... and in first... the CASE!

@MAH: "This is a music site, and they give 5 stars to 4 minutes and 33 seconds of ...silence, something definitely doesn't add up..." ---> it's not "silence"! reread post number 1!
"NO! It's a huge joke, and the mother of all fools is always pregnant!" ---> it's not a huge joke, my dear... there's very strong irony, that's true, it's a destabilizing idea of music... but you mustn't underestimate Cage's philosophical-religious background! the concept of "Alea"...

Let's start with the fact that I love DT. Recently, I attended their first live show in Puglia (!!!) with a Take the Time that was mind-blowing... it’s enough to say that, since Metropolis Pt.1 was missing, calling an album by DT "Greatest Hits" is blasphemy!... I also agree that mutilating "the sixth degree of inner turbulence" is an extreme conceptual stupidity... and what about the absence of Octavarium (the song)? Shall we discuss that?... I also concur on Lifting Shadows Of A Dream, which has never excited me... really, I'm left speechless... sure, the low point was hit with that garbage called Liquid Trio Experiment, which I fortunately didn't buy originally (I couldn't find it)... thank goodness!!!! I saved 20 euros!!!!... but why do they do these things?... Okay, greatest hits are by nature a hassle, but at least the whole operation could have been done in a more respectable way (Pearl Jam docet!)... maybe it was due to the label change?

Here, every now and then, the value of Afterhours in general is confused with the value of the album in question... let’s talk about the album, the Milanese... now, shouting "miracle" for the Milanese makes no sense... this is because there’s nothing "miraculous" or "innovative"... we are not facing a new Exposure nor is there any strongly destabilizing piece... but this doesn’t mean the album doesn’t make sense... I always return to De André... if the criterion of originality (which is a very generic concept; for me you can be original without being innovative...) is the only evaluation driver, I can see why the Milanese would be thrown away! But then let’s throw away everything by De André, shall we consider him a copycat of Brassens?... The Milanese certainly cannot have an impact similar to that of, say, a 21st century schizoid man; there’s no doubt about that... I myself have NEVER said that this album is innovative, that it’s revolutionary, that it’s a milestone in the history of rock!... however, all this reasoning is based on a false hypothesis: that it’s innovativeness that must determine whether an album is valid or not! In my opinion, I Milanesi ammazzano il sabato is a great album when considered in the current Italian scene, considering the history of Afterhours (and not of world rock!) and looking at the lyrics, arrangements, melodic lines, and sounds... and then, dear Lux, you are right to say that in Italy we sometimes get excited for little... but here we are talking about people who have seen a lot go by (you, first of all)... none of those who defended the album has ever said things like "Afterhours uber alles," "I milanesi is the greatest rock album of the last 20 years," "We’ve never heard music like this"... but allow me to get excited in front of lyrics that say things like "Una mano danza e l’altra conta i cocci mentre canta" or "sculettando la tua gelosia piangerai che non ti piaccio più"... ;)

"Sometimes, in front of certain artistic expressions deemed by experts to be of high (or even very high) level, I don’t feel at all ignorant, but rather like I’m being messed with" ---> that's not the case with John Cage, trust me... 4'33'' is "just" a brilliant idea... of course, it's not something to listen to in the car ;)... but I encourage you to delve into the character and his ideas, the concept of alea... well, the last part of his work interests me less (he composed using I Ching)... the pieces for Prepared Piano are stunning, producing a sound very similar to percussion.

But is shooting star Bob's song? ;)