supersoul

Yeah, but "No Country for Old Men" is based on the great Cormack McCarthy, and in the trailers, I saw how the Coens have turned the ruthless and cold killer from the book into Javier Bardem with a ridiculous wig like Roy Orbison...let's hope for the best!

I agree on the quality of the writing and the absolute 5 for this record, and I would like to say a few things. To understand the greatness of the Ruts, just listen to their first single "In a Rut." Take the riff from "Down in the Street" by the Stooges, play it and sing it as Joy Division would approach reggae-dub, and from this mixture, you get the Ruts. The Ruts didn’t organize events like Rock Against Racism, but this was a movement that arose to counter the fascists of the National Front, and the Ruts, from their beginnings, supported it by playing concerts alongside the numerous reggae bands that emerged in London. On this album, I would define "Jah War" as seminal, written for the Southall riot in 1979, which became its manifesto alongside "Ghost Town" by the Specials. Besides the Stiff Little Fingers, who as Vortex rightly said had reggae influences, I would also mention the Members, who released a great punk reggae album in 1979.

Okay surferkangaroo, but you see, the thing is that when we want to interpret something, we do it not (paraphrasing Mazzacurati's last film) by keeping the right distance, but by immersing ourselves in this interpretative key. And maybe that’s what we’re doing. For me, more than adventure, he seeks solitude, an escape from the inevitable pain that comes with interpersonal relationships, and in fact, Alaska in the American imagination represents not so much adventure but solitude. You say he smiles because he has found the turning point, "I enjoyed it"... I don't see it that way, or at least not so simply, given that just before he realized that happiness is also about sharing, and yet he always fled from that affirmation. In my opinion, he smiles because, I repeat, he is there watching the wonder of the sky (it reminds me of the episode "What Are Clouds" by Pasolini), while others embrace in pain under that sky whose greatness they do not understand, lost as they are in the anxiety of sharing that pain.

@suferkangaroo, but why do you think a misfit is necessarily a madman? Alex knows how to relate to people very well but is convinced that interpersonal relationships, in the long run, do more harm than good, and he neither wants to maintain (see family) nor solidify new ones (he abandons everyone he knows). For this reason, the film can also be interpreted as a coming-of-age novel divided into chapters, from birth (or rebirth) to the wisdom of old age. When you are old, you can also understand that happiness is mainly about sharing, but what changes? In the end, on his face, there’s a faint smile that makes you realize that nonetheless, the sky he sees alone lying on the ground is the same as the one that looms over the people who embrace one another.

@gbrunoro, watch the movie first, because I believe it doesn’t aim to teach any truth; it’s just a sincere film. It doesn’t want to pay homage to hippie culture at the expense of "integrated" culture because Alex is not a hippie, and in fact, he won’t be understood even by the couple of "freaks" who, in the end, also get screwed by the need for "sharing." However, it’s a film that I think is directed toward the spectator and today’s culture because it has great visual strength (the cinematography is stunning) but is rather simplistic from a "filmic" point of view. The same message of this film can be found in that great 1970 film I mentioned, "Five Easy Pieces" by Bob Rafelson with a great Jack Nicholson. In that film, too, the protagonist is someone who, due to his training and culture (he’s a great classical pianist), is able to understand society but not to live it in his interpersonal relationships, and in the end, he chooses annihilation, heading towards Alaska. If you revisit that film, there’s not a gram of rhetoric, and on the other hand, you can understand what it means to know how to make films. From this perspective, for me, Penn is more simplistic and more showy; that’s why I said he "managed to contain himself" because he didn’t overflow as usual.

Sorry surferkangaroo, I think you're mistaken in your analysis; it means you haven't grasped the essence of the film. Because Alex is not driven by a thirst for adventure, but by a need to escape interpersonal relationships (remember when he says to the old man "...do you really think happiness lies in relationships with other people?"). He believes these are destined to hurt him anyway, and that's why he wants to isolate himself (Alaska). He is neither a hero nor a madman, but a misfit in this society. I don't think that when you left you donated all your money to charity and destroyed your documents to leave no trace of yourself.

For me, the Beggars Opera remains "embedded" in the previous Act One with its stunning and surreal cover, referred to as "Fellinian" by the author because of the grotesque masked characters. There it was a magnificent triumph of toccatas and fugues, sarabandes and passacaglias, Mozartian marches and echoes of operetta that for a time I renounced as pretentious and ridiculous, but today I occasionally listen to again with a smile on my lips and amusement.

...and you did well for the Spiro. It's true, the voice tends to lean towards melodramatic emphasis, but this was an actress and so... Anyway, she can't really compete with Slick, but keep in mind that we're in 1969. With hindsight and decades of singers having passed through our ears, we notice many flaws...

It makes me laugh that people try to dissect this film to extract scenes that are in opposition to the protagonist's "ideals," as if this Alex should behave like a messiah come to save us from the evils of society. He's a misfit, not a messiah. Someone who made those choices because of a family situation that marked and disgusted him, not because he was doing well. Expecting only gestures of inner nobility from him... that's just rhetoric. Instead, I was amazed that Sean Penn, an actor and director often over the top, managed to restrain himself. Just look at an expert like Michael Cimino and what he did with "Heaven's Gate." In cold blood, the most rhetorical and unbearable aspect of the film is precisely the lyrics (translated with Italian subtitles) of the songs in Vedder's soundtrack.

mmmm captain, I don't know this record but I have the first one and then I remember a good version of "A Hard Rain..." by Bob Dylan. As for "Ghost of a dog," I remember that the songs that made it up could only be distinguished from each other because they had different titles... the insubstantial and melancholic grace of the reflective lyrics and the cotton candy sounds...