...instead of conversing with the few lonely souls...
Hey - not sure if offense should be taken by anyone on that...? 🤣
Some have actually been discussing with me for several years, a few even going as far back as 2005-2006 or so... (on other sites too)
(don't think they're all that lonely -- just think they love music, movies, art, etc ... a journey of sorts for all involved ... pretty cool actually if you ask me...) _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
Good to hear that you have people to discuss with, and not necessarily wanting to become more known is a good attitude in its own way.
Yes, there's a tricky question here as to whether to rate individual poems or books of poems. And yes, I get the point about artists needing a certain extensiveness to reach the very top echelon, and how long works, if thoroughly developed, will show their greatness in each part. At the same time, it would seem misleading if a poet like, say, Emily Dickinson caps out at a 7/10 in your scale because she exclusively wrote short poems (achieving a 7/10 in just 20 lines would take an overwhelming masterpiece by most standards). Dickinson is particularly tough as she never published any books of poetry (only 10 of her poems were published in her lifetime), so it seems very hard to rate her properly, not even getting into how difficult her poems are to evaluate in the first place. Anyway, I don't really have any answers here, but I think it's worth further consideration.
Thanks for you insight and you're always welcome here Ezra. It's tough I agree. Its something I'll have to work out if and/or as I get deeper into rating Literature -- especially poetry: single shorter poems or the whole collection of them in a book that the poet themselves approves of...? How to work this out... I don't have an answer yet either. Similar to when I started rating architecture and how to separate all the potential parts (sculptures, etc) that are sometimes housed in (especially older) structures, I eventually figured workable criteria on that as I got more acclimated to the genre.
Are you mainly a Literature enthusiast, or are you also much into other art forms as well, like Rock, Jazz, Classical music, film, visual arts? _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
Speaking of Comedy films, I wanted to highlight a somewhat overlooked film that I am mid revisiting and that is available for free (with ads) on youtube right now:
I have it at 6.8/10 (from years ago) but it is likely going to be upgraded. Not sure where I'll upgrade it to yet, but I had it at 7.3 several years ago after seeing it for the first time in the late 2000s... Looks like Scaruffi upgraded it to 7.5 (seems pretty recent?) so that's a good guess about 80% of the time, right? I don't know if I'll put it that high, but in either case, this is a relatively overlooked film of the "Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman variety" (with his masterpieces like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich). It's not on the level of those -- and in fact it's written by Zach Helm, not Kaufman -- but it is perhaps the least known of any known Will Ferrell film?
It's not really "a Will Ferrell film" ...thankfully (for the most part)... It's actually rather understated (in gags) and more thought-provoking and unique than probably any of his films, and has a lightly comic sense of tragedy throughout as well...
Recommended... rating coming soon... Makes me want to revisit, double check, my rating of Adaptation btw ... and yes, that's a proper-Jonze/Kaufman film (and more proper direct relative of STF) _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
At the same time, it would seem misleading if a poet like, say, Emily Dickinson caps out at a 7/10 in your scale because she exclusively wrote short poems (achieving a 7/10 in just 20 lines would take an overwhelming masterpiece by most standards). Dickinson is particularly tough as she never published any books of poetry (only 10 of her poems were published in her lifetime), so it seems very hard to rate her properly, not even getting into how difficult her poems are to evaluate in the first place. Anyway, I don't really have any answers here, but I think it's worth further consideration.
Yes, Dickinson, even if "only" topping out at 7/10's, a multitude of these for instance, still could be viewed as on par with possibly some of the next higher tier greats if at least in the sense of "qualitative efficiency". The only difference might be that a higher tier great was able to develop a combination of "7's" into a whole 9 (or 8, or the like) whereas Dickinson remained a short poem writer of perhaps multiple 7's (I'm not saying such will be her actual ratings, I'm just using her as a potential example to piggy back off your query).
But Dickinson, if her body of 7s or so, were just as impressive as, say, one writer with one or two 8s (or the like), would not necessarily rank lower overall as an artist. Or perhaps only slightly lower due to less ambition fully realized...
There are similar cases for, say, a painter like Van Gogh, who painted only small, less ambitious works, than almost any great painter. (Though he did manage some 7.3+ and probably one 7.8+ work (minimum 7.5+) with Starry Night. Or Dali being a very very good example (most of his works are quite small... yet Metamorphosis of Narcissus for instance is 8.3...). But I still credit them as among the greats for both their high points but also their incredible "efficiency" at creating many great works within far more limited "space" than, say, the likes of Michelangelo or Tubke or Architects, etc. I mean Metamorphosis, for instance, is out-rating and out-ranking massive works like Notre Dame of Paris, or or or many others... in music it would be roughly the equivalent of a single song (by, say, Faust...?) out-rating and out-ranking a massive choral work by Bach... Dali and Van Gogh both rank quite highly in Visual Arts for me... So Dickinson may end up so as well...
Then there are examples like Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (a large collection of similarly themed, shorter, poetry) which is generally considered as a more or less "single" whole in most cases due to its interconnected "symphonic" structure... perhaps the greatest example of such a collection? So this connectivity is key to determining how to "count" it... _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
Hey - not sure if offense should be taken by anyone on that...? 🤣
Oh, no offense intended at all, I was just being too... poetical? 😄
I get your points on Dickinson, Van Gogh, et al. Though I wouldn't say there are any "higher tier greats" in my mind up from Dickinson - there's nothing wrong about Dickinson remaining a short poem writer, nothing was unrealized in her body of work. Yes, how to rate books of poetry would probably have to be thought about case by case, and Les Fleurs du Mal is definitely a great case of a cohesive collection.
AfterHours wrote:
Are you mainly a Literature enthusiast, or are you also much into other art forms as well, like Rock, Jazz, Classical music, film, visual arts?
Right now mainly literature (especially poetry), but I'm decently knowledgeable about a breadth of music I'd say. Don't know much about film or visual arts (I'd say Parasite is one of my favorite films). In terms of shared favourites, definitely the jazz canon (Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Miles Davis) and a good amount of the rock selection like late Talk Talk, Slint's Spiderland (probably my favorite album), The Velvet Underground, etc. I also like a lot of Warp Records electronic (like Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Autechre) and also adore Elliott Smith and Frank Ocean... Just a scattershot overview. I know a bit of classical music, but mainly a few choice composers, Beethoven, Mahler, and Bartok, and I have a long way to go in just understanding those three 😄 I enjoyed your comments on Beethoven's (absolutely amazing) piano sonatas. Are you considering revisiting his (late) string quartets anytime soon? Op. 131 and especially 132 are very dear to me.
Hey - not sure if offense should be taken by anyone on that...? 🤣
Oh, no offense intended at all, I was just being too... poetical? 😄
I get your points on Dickinson, Van Gogh, et al. Though I wouldn't say there are any "higher tier greats" in my mind up from Dickinson - there's nothing wrong about Dickinson remaining a short poem writer, nothing was unrealized in her body of work. Yes, how to rate books of poetry would probably have to be thought about case by case, and Les Fleurs du Mal is definitely a great case of a cohesive collection.
AfterHours wrote:
Are you mainly a Literature enthusiast, or are you also much into other art forms as well, like Rock, Jazz, Classical music, film, visual arts?
Right now mainly literature (especially poetry), but I'm decently knowledgeable about a breadth of music I'd say. Don't know much about film or visual arts (I'd say Parasite is one of my favorite films). In terms of shared favourites, definitely the jazz canon (Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Miles Davis) and a good amount of the rock selection like late Talk Talk, Slint's Spiderland (probably my favorite album), The Velvet Underground, etc. I also like a lot of Warp Records electronic (like Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Autechre) and also adore Elliott Smith and Frank Ocean... Just a scattershot overview. I know a bit of classical music, but mainly a few choice composers, Beethoven, Mahler, and Bartok, and I have a long way to go in just understanding those three 😄 I enjoyed your comments on Beethoven's (absolutely amazing) piano sonatas. Are you considering revisiting his (late) string quartets anytime soon? Op. 131 and especially 132 are very dear to me.
Okay - really glad you've found so much in Dickinson! (certainly needs revisiting on my end -- been like 20 years or something since I've given her a serious read)
And great taste in Jazz, Rock, etc!
Re: Op 131 and 132 ... I recently revisited the 14th and it maintained its 7.7 rating, though its been a bit higher than that (8.3+) before, as has his 15th (8.8+ even) so higher ratings are not out of the question; they are no doubt among his most innovative works... I do want to go through them (along with at least the 13th w/ Grosse Fuge, and others such as 8-12) like I have with his Piano Sonatas surveys ... maybe this round of listening, I was definitely thinking about it, yes ... right now Comedy films has jumped ahead as a priority so will see... _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
Running Log - Comedy Films - Updates Ratings/Rankings...
La Dolce Vita - Federico Fellini (1960) ...simply added to my Comedy Films list whereas before it was missing... (same rating as it has been for years: 8.4/10)
The City of Lost Children - Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1995) 7.2/10 to 7.4/10 ...update from several months ago...
Delicatessen - Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1991) 7.4/10 to 7.3/10 ...update from several months ago...
Everything Everywhere All at Once - Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (2022) 6.9/10 to 7.0/10
Naked Gun 2 1/2 - David Zucker (1991) Not Rated or "tentative 6.0" to 7.0/10 ...Hadn't seen this in at least 15 years so was a treat to revisit ... possibly the best of the series, even if I could say the first one is maybe superior up until (roughly) the last fourth (of each). The last Act or so of 2 1/2 reaches the heights of comedic masterpieces like Airplane, with a series of ingenius gags that never lets up, among the high points of 1990s comedy. Rest of the film is always amusing or funny and relentlessly satiric as well (of bad guys, of the president and his wife, of etiquette, of politics, of suspense films, of buddy cop films, of police and detectives in general and their brilliance at solving the mystery, etc, with countless quotations including the hilarious tribute to Ghost's love scene...) ...and it avoids too much repetition with the original (no small feat), always finding new ways to express its wit, humor, satire, with Neilsen's dead pan, oblivious stupidity among the great characters (and most useless, inadvertently winning despite himself...) in the history of comedy...
Stranger Than Fiction – Marc Forster (2006) 6.8/10 (no change) ... Could be 6.9-7.0 but at least for now decided that 6.8 is (probably) accurate, fwiw... may change my mind as I revisit some others...
Bad Santa - Terry Zwigoff (2003) 6.8/10 (no change) ... Another one that might change as I watch/re-watch some others... still kind of getting my bearings with film during this Christmas season, after my time off spent getting sloshed at Miami beach (that's a reference to the film, not serious... 😎 )
Idiocracy - Mike Judge (2006) 5.8/10 to 5.3/10 _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
Last edited by AfterHours on 12/15/2025 18:52; edited 6 times in total
Recommended... rating coming soon... Makes me want to revisit, double check, my rating of Adaptation btw ... and yes, that's a proper-Jonze/Kaufman film (and more proper direct relative of STF)
Agreed with your description and rating of Stranger than Fiction. Along with Adaptation, it's worth mentioning a great literary predecessor, worth checking out and comparing with STF: Miguel de Unamuno's Niebla (++ from Scaruffi)
Agreed with your description and rating of Stranger than Fiction. Along with Adaptation, it's worth mentioning a great literary predecessor, worth checking out and comparing with STF: Miguel de Unamuno's Niebla (++ from Scaruffi)
Thanks -- I started re-watching Adaptation last night and will probably finish tonight or maybe over the weekend.
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