Hellring

I agree. And it's painful to say it, but in hindsight, the box office flop was pretty predictable. It's hard to understand how Universal even granted it a higher budget for a film that can only appeal to a relatively niche audience. If, as I fear, this The Northman was the calling card that Eggers showcased to some major studios, then I believe he has failed.

Madonna's record. Their evolution, more or less continuously, is noteworthy. And this is a very thoughtful album, but it never loses (for me only in Pushing the tides, coincidentally the most old-school track) a compositional "freshness" that is almost impossible to find today in the genre, especially from such established bands.

For me, a great film, where the real issue is the didactic and erratic progression of the first part. Because if you look closely, Ad Astra is not a science fiction film, but a dramatic one that has only the setting of science fiction (what matters is primarily space): finally, a film that does not have the scientific flourishes and explanations of Interstellar and similar ones. Gray stages human obsessions, the insuppressible will to tame them, even if it means abandoning family and loved ones. The search for other life is for Tommy Lee Jones what the city of Z was for Charlie Hunnam in his previous film: in escaping something (there the bigoted England and a humiliating family past, here a Earth now saturated "we are world devourers" he says when speaking about the Moon, noting that it has become a 2.0 land, but here the message seems more nuanced), they need to find an answer to their obsession with living. Similarly, Pitt embarks on this journey not because he wants to uncover some great mystery (this is a decidedly secondary aspect of the story) but because he too is searching for something, and that is his love for his father. Just as Hunnam self-destructs in Bolivia (and brings his son along), here Lee Jones self-destructs, because he says "I have failed" and feels he must leave his son, whom he abandoned to satisfy the obsession he never tamed. In short, Ad Astra seems to speak about human obsessions and loneliness, in a discourse consistent with Gray's previous cinema. This may not be a masterpiece, but for me, it is a great film.

For me, this is definitely their flattest, most monotonous, and weakest album. You can terribly feel the absence of a real guitarist, someone who thinks and plays like a guitarist. The beautiful dreamy embellishments by Grudzinski are almost nonexistent here. A piece like the title track in the second half becomes so repetitive and monotonous that it doesn’t even seem like a Riverside song: once, in 8 minutes, they would have written a much more convincing track. But beyond this, what convinced me the least are Duda’s vocal lines, definitely less inspired compared to past works. I appreciated songs like "Vale of Tears," "River Down Below," and the splendid final ballad "The Night Before," but overall it’s an album that never really takes off and offers few ideas compared to what the band had accustomed us to (perhaps too well).

Definitely the most derivative album by Tool. There’s so much reasoning behind it that it often falls into mannerism, impossible to deny. But for me, it remains a splendid feeling (imho best track "Descending").

There’s stuff for which these people would have been wildly beaten in a basic screenwriting course. Even the 7th was a diluted series, but this is pure garbage, vomit. I believe a series that has been so followed and lasted so long has never been destroyed in such a way.

Great film by a director who, in today’s mess, has a unique vision, especially stylistically, and manages to create films that are never banal. I haven’t read Aronofsky’s statements, but I saw a biblical representation that is quite evident: the creator, Mother Earth, the breaking of the prism like original sin and from there the degeneration, the two brothers (Cain and Abel), the sacrificed son (Christ) and from there the degeneration of wars increasingly technological that come to represent contemporary life. On this level, there is also a critique (which, from my point of view, is quite clear) of man and his degeneration who forgets the vital source (the woman representing the Earth [mother, indeed]) which is, in fact, the home (our land) destroyed by man who takes pieces of it instead of preserving and lovingly caring for it, leading to inevitable self-destruction.

I remember it as wordy, static, unable to take flight.

Great review.
I've only listened to "toe to toes" and the opening track. Interesting and enjoyable. I believe this EP gives us the coordinates on which the band will navigate in the future. I think they will increasingly soften their sound. Even if in a distant and different way, I see them on a sort of path of opethization.

Slightly better than the previous one, while for me The Hunter is an incredibly underrated album that surpasses Once More 'Round the Sun and this one. Just to mention two tracks: Black Tongue and The Sparrow are not present in the next two albums.