Larrok

Just finished watching, engaging and keeps you on edge until the end. Honest in showing both sides of the coin, without solely favoring the U.S.A. as often happens in this type of productions... I mean, it’s true that the integralist revolutionaries take on the role of the villains, but the damage caused by the American coup is clearly highlighted. Well-deserved Oscar.

fantastic album, undeniably one of the best of 2012, the freak Ariel Pink treats us to gem after gem, ranging through a kaleidoscope of '60s pop (the title track or the stunning single "Only In My Dreams"), '70s disco trash, Zappa influences, new wave, and so on... a huge discovery of a multifaceted character who has found his best expression with this new record label.

Two hours and 40 minutes of absolute pathos and complete immersion in the characters' thoughts; I didn’t find it slow, rather it gives the right breathing space to extremely dramatic situations. After admiring a film of such intensity, I wonder, did they really have the guts to award that piece of garbage "Shakespeare in Love" instead of this masterpiece? I mean, they also gave the Oscar to "Hurt Locker," which isn’t worth a fingernail... personally, "The Thin Red Line" goes straight onto the podium of all-time war films, fiercely competing with "Apocalypse Now," "Full Metal Jacket," and "Paths of Glory," followed at a distance by "Letters from Iwo Jima," "The Deer Hunter," "Lebanon" (highly recommended to everyone), "The Great Escape," "The Pianist," "Platoon," and among animated films, my personal favorite "Waltz with Bashir."

if you can’t tell Lennon’s voice from McCartney’s, please avoid writing reviews about the Beatles at least

I continue to prefer "Escape from New York," "The Thing," and "They Live"... the beginning of the film is very promising, but once they arrive at the hotel and then the church, with crowds of zombies, tentacled monsters, etc., it loses much of the emotional tension built up earlier. I wasn't convinced, even though the social critique messages that Carpenter aims to convey, in this case about the influence of mass media, are, as usual, commendable.

As a Beatles lover, I had already seen much of this material in the various Anthology and other documentaries, but I must say that Scorsese did a great job in giving the right space to Clapton, McCartney, Monty Python, etc., and skillfully using the soundtrack, for instance, when he emphasizes the left-hand melody of "Blue Jay Way" to highlight the breaking of the idyllic atmosphere of Beatlemania. There were many touching moments; I was saddened to see George poke fun at Paul at Twickenham, especially since they could no longer stand each other at that time. However, I was unaware of the funding of the irreverent and legendary "Brian di Nazareth."

"Critics elevate this album to fundamental status for rock music (and a part of the audience – the self-proclaimed cultured one – follows suit) because they’ve long stopped listening to music for the pleasure of doing so." Here lies a fundamental misunderstanding... a critic doesn't have to be a passionate fan; rather, in my opinion, they should take objective parameters to evaluate albums. They can't just say, "this is better than that because I enjoy listening to it like a hedgehog and it gives me goosebumps." Instead, they should seek to historically argue the importance of an album in relation to its historical period, its genre scope, the influences it has had, the innovation it brought, and so on... What’s the point of reading a critic who writes about their musical tastes? Their tastes hold the same weight as those of any other jerk on this earth. What is objective and is the critic's job to analyze is why, for example, without the Pretty Things, the Who would never have composed "Tommy," or why without the Stooges, punk and garage wouldn't have the shapes we know, or how this debut by the VU was the matrix for a certain type of psychedelia and noise rock, or why Sonic Youth was a radical break with the past. If you’re not interested in any of these things, please, DO NOT READ MUSIC CRITICISM; no one is ordering you to do so.

use of the over-the-top soundtrack as usual for Sorrentino; the story is well developed and the unveiling of events is skillfully paced with the flow of the film.

Can you explain to me why every time Scaruffi speaks highly of an album, there are always people who come in biased and automatically lower its rating, just to show they’re immune to the critic’s influence? I’m discovering this album now, and it’s an alienating madness in the first five tracks (Shifting Sand has a muddy, lysergic guitar sound that unusually colors the drumstorm underneath it). Then there’s "More Time," which honestly seems unrelated to the rest of the LP (with a riff borrowed from Willie the Pimp by Uncle Frank). "Dark & Bright" is one of the most interesting and original pieces, in my opinion, aiming for dissonance while remaining within a varied funk rhythmic canon. The ending with the three dub tracks is nothing short of jarring, but in a negative sense (at least for my tastes), meaning, it seems like they thought, "Okay, since we’ve run out of ideas, let’s put in something unexpected to look cool." It’s just completely out of context for an ending like this. All in all, though, it remains a great album. 4 solid stars. The cover is in line with the delirium conveyed by this music.

a disturbing fresco of perversion (it's a strange world)... all the characters, even the positive ones, convey a sense of unease. Certainly, a director who releases a masterpiece for each decade ("Eraserhead" for the '70s, "Blue Velvet" for the '80s, "Lost Highway" for the '90s, and "Mulholland Drive" for the '00s) is someone to be revered.