Top 10+ Music, Movies, and Visual Art of the Week (2025) - Music Diaries

AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

IN PROGRESS

Working on this at the moment... Recommendations welcome of course... (several I've seen that I still need to add ... also several I still need to see)

Best Animated Films of All Time

7.5/10
<<<<<7.7>>>>>
Perfect Blue - Satoshi Kon (1997)
<<<<<7.6>>>>>
It's Such a Beautiful Day - Don Hertzfeldt (2012)
<<<<<7.5>>>>>
<<<<<7.4>>>>>
<<<<<7.3>>>>>
Spirited Away - Hayao Miyazaki (2001)
Waltz With Bashir - Ari Folman (2008)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Robert Zemeckis (1988)

7/10
<<<<<7.2>>>>>
Princess Mononoke - Hayao Miyazaki (1997)
<<<<<7.1>>>>>
<<<<<7.0>>>>>
Grave of the Fireflies - Isao Takahata (1988)
WALL-E - Andrew Stanton (2008)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut - Trey Parker (1999)
Toy Story - John Lasseter (1995)
Inside Out - Pete Docter (2015)
Akira - Katsuhiro Otomo (1988)
<<<<<6.9>>>>>
Waking Life - Richard Linklater (2001)
Toy Story 3 - Lee Unkrich (2010)
Alice - Jan Svankmajer (1988)
Pinocchio - Ben Sharpsteen (Walt Disney) (1940)
Bambi - David Hand (Walt Disney) (1942)
<<<<<6.8>>>>>
The Nightmare Before Christmas - Henry Selick (1993)
Anomalisa - Charlie Kaufman (2015)
Toy Story 2 - John Lasseter (1999)

6.5/10
<<<<<6.7>>>>>
<<<<<6.6>>>>>
<<<<<6.5>>>>>
<<<<<6.4>>>>>
The Lion King - Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff (1994)
The Little Mermaid - Ron Clements and John Musker (1989)
A Scanner Darkly - Richard Linklater (2006)
<<<<<6.3>>>>>
Toy Story 4 - Josh Cooley (2019)

6/10
<<<<<6.2>>>>>
Aladdin - Ron Clements and John Musker (1992)
<<<<<6.1>>>>>
Up - Pete Docter (2009)
World of Tomorrow - Don Hertzfeldt (2015)
The Simpsons Movie - David Silverman (2007)
Beauty and the Beast - Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (1991)
<<<<<6.0>>>>>
Shrek 2 - Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon (2004)
Fantasia - James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe, Norman Ferguson, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield and Ben Sharpsteen (Walt Disney) (1940)
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America - Mike Judge (1996)
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit - Steve Box (2005) ***tentative rating/may need a revisit***
<<<<<5.9>>>>>
Song of the Sea - Tomm Moore (2014)
<<<<<5.8>>>>>
Shrek - Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson (2001)

5.5/10
<<<<<5.7>>>>>
Ratatouille - Brad Bird (2007)
Finding Nemo - Andrew Stanton (2003)
<<<<<5.6>>>>>
<<<<<5.5>>>>>
The Incredibles - Brad Bird (2004)
<<<<<5.4>>>>>
<<<<<5.3>>>>>
Cool World - Ralph Bakshi (1992)

5/10
<<<<<5.2>>>>>
<<<<<5.1>>>>>
<<<<<5.0>>>>>
The Iron Giant - Brad Bird (1999)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - David Hand (Walt Disney) (1937)
<<<<<4.9>>>>>
The Land Before Time - Don Bluth (1988)
<<<<<4.8>>>>>

4.5/10
<<<<<4.7>>>>>
<<<<<4.6>>>>>
<<<<<4.5>>>>>
Dumbo - Ben Sharpsteen (Walt Disney) (1941)
<<<<<4.4>>>>>
<<<<<4.3>>>>>

4/10
<<<<<4.2>>>>>
<<<<<4.1>>>>>
<<<<<4.0>>>>>
<<<<<3.9>>>>>
<<<<<3.8>>>>>
Alice in Wonderland - Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske (1951)

3.5/10
<<<<<3.7>>>>>
<<<<<3.6>>>>>
<<<<<3.5>>>>>
Cinderella - Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi (1950)
<<<<<3.4>>>>>
<<<<<3.3>>>>>

NEED TO SEE:
The Adventures of Prince Achmed - Lotte Reiniger (1926)
Fritz the Cat - Ralph Bakshi (1972)
Fantastic Planet - René Laloux (1973)
Allegro Non Troppo - Bruno Bozzetto (1976)
The Secret of NIMH - Don Bluth (1982)
Angel's Egg - Mamoru Oshii (1985)
When the Wind Blows - Jimmy T. Murakami (1986)
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion - Hideaki Anno and Kazuya Tsurumaki (1997) [note: probably need to see the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series first]
Millennium Actress - Satoshi Kon (2001)
Avalon - Mamoru Oshii (2001)
The Triplets of Belleville - Sylvain Chomet (2003)
Tokyo Godfathers - Satoshi Kon (2003)
Howl's Moving Castle - Hayao Miyazaki (2004)
Paprika - Satoshi Kon (2006)
Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud (2007)
Sita Sings the Blues - Nina Paley (2008)
Fantastic Mr Fox - Wes Anderson (2009)
Mary and Max - Adam Elliot (2009)
How To Train Your Dragon - Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders (2010)
Consuming Spirits - Chris Sullivan (2012)
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya - Isao Takahata (2013)
Coco - Lee Unkrich (2017)
Isle Of Dogs - Wes Anderson (2018)

ALREADY SEEN - NOT YET RATED:
Peter Pan - Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske (1953)
Lady and the Tramp - Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske (1955)
Sleeping Beauty - Clyde Geronimi (1959)
101 Dalmatians - Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske and Wolfgang Reitherman (1961)
The Jungle Book - Wolfgang Reitherman (1967)
Yellow Submarine - George Dunning (1968)
Watership Down - Martin Rosen and John Hubley (1978)
Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind - Hayao Miyazaki (1984)
My Neighbor Totoro - Hayao Miyazaki (1988)
FernGully: The Last Rainforest - Bill Kroyer (1992)
Pocahontas - Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg (1995)
James and the Giant Peach - Henry Selick (1996)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (1996)
Hercules - Ron Clements and John Musker (1997)
Mulan - Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft (1998)
A Bug's Life - John Lasseter (1998)
Antz - Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson (1998)
Rejected - Don Hertzfeldt (2000)
Chicken Run - Peter Lord and Nick Park (2000)
Monsters, Inc. - Pete Docter (2001)
Ice Age - Chris Wedge (2002)
Cars - John Lasseter (2006)
Shrek The Third - Chris Miller (2007)
Caroline - Henry Selick (2009)
Frozen - Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee (2013)
The Lego Movie - Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (2014)

ANIMATED TV SERIES - POTENTIAL WATCHES???:
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Facetious/TiggaTrigga: I would suggest keeping Paranoia Agent high on your list of priorities, given that it's directed by Satoshi Kon and holds up next to his perfect filmography, plus only consists of 13 short episodes. Other interesting anime series that are short include Serial Experiments Lain (13 episodes), Kaiba (12 episodes), FLCL (6 episodes, practically feature film length as a whole).
_________________
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Best Films
Best Paintings

Last edited by AfterHours on 08/11/2023 20:06; edited 24 times in total

TiggaTrigga

What did you find great about Toy Story 1 and the South Park movie?

geologist

Nice to see It's Such a Beautiful Day so high, any important things to pay attention to? I only watched it fairly recently and I felt that it used animation as a medium perfectly. It's basically a personality study of Bill, with the two main questions being, "Why is Bill like this?" (past) and "What's going to happen to him?" (future), yet these questions have to be answered through Bill's subjective, psychological lens, which is stuck in the present tense. Throughout the film Bill basically just makes mundane observations repeatedly (and sometimes absurd images treated as mundane). But by the end, this personal message gets thrust into the universal, as if time itself ceases to exist. Still not sure how to feel about it personally, but I find it a truly powerful use of the medium.

Facetious wrote:

I would suggest keeping Paranoia Agent high on your list of priorities, given that it's directed by Satoshi Kon and holds up next to his perfect filmography, plus only consists of 13 short episodes. Other interesting anime series that are short include Serial Experiments Lain (13 episodes), Kaiba (12 episodes), FLCL (6 episodes, practically feature film length as a whole).

Seconding Serial Experiments Lain (haven't seen the others). It's like if Tarkovsky directed an anime in 1998. It's a bit low budget and has a bit of technobabble, but it still engages pretty meaningfully with some philosophical concepts.

AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

TiggaTrigga wrote:

What did you find great about Toy Story 1 and the South Park movie?

Toy Story: Freshness of its visual art/animation, which looks ahead of its time relative to others of the mid 90s (just 1 year removed from the Lion King which itself was pretty impressive and was heralded for its computer animated sequences). The creativity of the characters and their personalities molded by what kind of toy they are, all superbly/endearingly "acted". From the very beginning, this leads to a high percentage of creative situations and obstacles posed throughout the film, from the perspective of the toys and their size differential relative to environment (where furniture, plants, people, etc take on more imposing nature, such as the plant becoming the "Vietnam jungle" of the military pieces that are scouting the situation, etc ... plus creatively employed POV shots ... ... even POV shots of humans carrying toys that are meant to strike an ambiguity as to which perspective it is: toy or human? Are the toys really any less fundamentally "human/conscious"?). Most of the actions scenes/sequences/escapes (perhaps all) are very creatively staged. On top of this, the action and predicaments tend to be symbolically, thematically developmental among the characters as opposed to action that is entirely plot driven, superficial and contrived only for excitement (such as Buzz finding a way to "fly" at the end is not just a winning move, but a progression through stages of his character ... throughout the film are several such examples, not least of which is the opening act that establishes all the toys personalities through their actions and predicaments being pretty masterful in this regard).

While the next three Toy Story's tend to lead towards more drama/touching/heart-warming predicaments and conclusions (and Part 2 and 3 might be as good as 1), I'm not sure any of them can match the first one's consistency of development, the efficiency/usefulness/thematically-meaningful progression of its scenes and its brilliantly composed cast of characters. All these elements are present in all of the films, just probably not to the same level of efficiency/consistency as the 1st.

South Park: The show is/was very hit and miss, but the film goes all out relentless satire on the US (from the kids being exaggeratedly influenced by the R-rated film they see, to blaming Canada, to starting a useless war, to Saddam Hussein being the devil's lover ... and, naturally, to bombing those annoyingly good-looking Baldwins just because!). The animation is (like the show) intentionally terrible, itself a satire upon the "art" of animated films (perhaps the height of ridiculousness is "Hell" which blends incongruous computer animation with the terrible animation of the characters, including Saddam's cropped head). The musical numbers are satirically terrible (and vulgar), itself a satire upon the innocent musicals of Disney and others. All the while, its main characters are all kids, and the animation looks like it was drawn and colored by a kid. This is juxtaposed with the vulgarity and obscenity on display makes the satire even more pronounced (because it's pretending to be a movie for kids, with kid characters, but all its content is adult). This juxtaposition enhances the main theme of the film, and is "meta". The main theme of kids being disrupted by bad language is placed in a film that would itself be blamed for the same thing: posing as a kids film that is itself maniacally obscene and vulgar (which leads to/creates a war with Canada -- hilariously because the children's parents have no one else to blame -- and it eventually resurrects Satan and Saddam Hussein to unleash evil upon the world).

It returns to the satirical glory of peak Marx bros, only now in an R-rated format, with the vulgarity/obscenity and absurdity brought to the breaking point of good taste.
_________________
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Last edited by AfterHours on 04/11/2022 19:53; edited 1 time in total

AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

geologist wrote:

Nice to see It's Such a Beautiful Day so high, any important things to pay attention to? I only watched it fairly recently and I felt that it used animation as a medium perfectly. It's basically a personality study of Bill, with the two main questions being, "Why is Bill like this?" (past) and "What's going to happen to him?" (future), yet these questions have to be answered through Bill's subjective, psychological lens, which is stuck in the present tense. Throughout the film Bill basically just makes mundane observations repeatedly (and sometimes absurd images treated as mundane). But by the end, this personal message gets thrust into the universal, as if time itself ceases to exist. Still not sure how to feel about it personally, but I find it a truly powerful use of the medium.

Seconding Serial Experiments Lain (haven't seen the others). It's like if Tarkovsky directed an anime in 1998. It's a bit low budget and has a bit of technobabble, but it still engages pretty meaningfully with some philosophical concepts.

Thanks geologist, I agree with your points on It's Such a Beautiful Life. There is potentially a lot to unpack about it. Its visual art is very creative, merging mundane "stick-figure" animation with Malick-like visual poetry, into a Brakhage-like collage of effects. Of course, the mundane, stick-figure, animated characters and environments are symbolic of the triviality of Bill's life, who himself is likely a metaphor for the average human's pointless life (or at least Hertzfeldt's perspective of this), and increasingly the loss of sanity of this person also becomes a poetic metaphor (as it is increasingly merged with the collage of effects) for many other ruminations about the tragedy/quandary of human existence/destiny, etc.

Thanks for the input on Serial Exp Lain. Noted for future reference.
_________________
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Best Films
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AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

For my criteria page, go here: http://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15503

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Top 10+ Music, Movies, and Visual Art of the Week(s): 4-11-2022 - 5-1-2022
Piano Sonata No. 20 in A Major - Franz Schubert (1828)
Isenheim Altarpiece - Matthias Grunewald [includes sculpture by Nikolaus Hagenauer] (circa 1512-1516)
The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa - Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1652) [Sculpture and Architecture]
The Gates of Hell - Auguste Rodin (1889 "Expressionist" Version) [Sculpture]
Europe After The Rain II - Max Ernst (1942)
Piano Sonata in B Minor - Franz Liszt (1853)
Sandham Memorial Chapel: The Resurrection of the Soldiers & War Murals - Stanley Spencer (1929)
Violin Concertos Nos. 1-4, "The Four Seasons" - Antonio Vivaldi (1723)
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor - Ludwig van Beethoven (1822)
The Beethoven Frieze - Gustav Klimt (1902)
Apollo and Daphne - Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1625) [Sculpture]
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon - Pablo Picasso (1907)
Guernica - Pablo Picasso (1937)
Medici Chapel: The Sagrestia Nuova - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1555) [Sculpture and Architecture]
Rock Bottom - Robert Wyatt (1974)
Pieta - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1499)
The Entire City [Zurich Version] - Max Ernst (1936)
The Crucifixion - Jacopo Tintoretto (1565)
The Kiss - Gustav Klimt (1908)
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I - Gustav Klimt (1907)
Las Meninas - Diego Velazquez (1656)
The Adoration of the Magi - Peter Paul Rubens (1609; revised 1629)
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1785)
The Virgin - Gustav Klimt (1913)
The Deposition - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1555) [aka, "Bandini Pietà" or "The Lamentation over the Dead Christ"] [Sculpture]
The Luncheon on the Grass - Edouard Manet (1863)
Moses - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1515) [Sculpture]
Sistine Madonna - Raphael Sanzio (circa 1514)
Pauline Chapel: The Conversion of Saul and The Crucifixion of St. Peter - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1545; 1550)
F-111 - James Rosenquist (1965)
Delivery of the Keys - Pietro Perugino (1482)
Laurentian Library - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1571) [Architecture]
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor - Sergei Rachmaninoff (1901)
Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor "Pathetique" - Ludwig van Beethoven (1798)
The Resurrection - Piero della Francesca (circa 1460)
The Sleeping Venus - Paul Delvaux (1944)
Doolittle - Pixies (1989)
A Love Supreme - John Coltrane (1964)
The Procession To Calvary - Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1564)
Rinaldo and Armida - Anthony van Dyck (1629)
Violin Concerto in D Major - Johannes Brahms (1878)
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1786)
The Persistence of Memory - Salvador Dali (1931)
Primavera - Sandro Botticelli (1482)
The Band - The Band (1969)
Psychodrama - Dave (2019)
Castle in the Pyrenees - Rene Magritte (1959)
The Holy Trinity - Tommaso Masaccio (circa 1427)
Christina's World Andrew Wyeth (1948)
Massacre of the Innocents - Peter Paul Rubens (1612) [Art Gallery of Ontario Version]
Metamorphose de Narcisse - Salvador Dali (1937)
Death and the Maiden - Egon Schiele (1915)
Surfer Rosa - Pixies (1988)
View of Toledo - El Greco (1599)
Saturn Devouring His Son - Francisco Goya (1823)
Symphony No. 7 in D minor - Antonin Dvorak (1885)
The Great Last Judgment - Peter Paul Rubens (1617)
Everything Everywhere All at Once - Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (2022)
The Nightmare Before Christmas - Henry Selick (1993)
Graceland - Paul Simon (1986)
Blacklisted - Neko Case (2002)
Forever Changes - Love (1967)
Cypresses - Vincent Van Gogh (1889)
The Last Supper - Jacopo Tintoretto (1594)
Il Paradiso - Jacopo Tintoretto (1595)
Old No. 1 - Guy Clark (1975)
The Pilgrimage to San Isidro - Francisco Goya (1823)
Asmodea - Francisco Goya (circa 1820-1823)
Violin Concerto in D Major - Ludwig van Beethoven (1806)
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major "Emperor" - Ludwig van Beethoven (1811)
Prometheus Bound - Peter Paul Rubens (circa 1612)
Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major "Jeunehomme" - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1777)
Bangerz - Miley Cyrus (2013) ...In what is starting to appear like a gradual, continuing slide back down to Earth, this listen it seemed more like 5.8-6.2 range, but hopefully that doesn't hold. I'm giving it another chance or two before possibly dropping it below 6.8 (last rated at 6.9/10). A strange, subversive, inexplicable and indefensible part of me desperately wants a Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus album in the 7s or -- even better -- 7.3+ ratings!!! Laughing

Top 10+ Albums/Movies/Visual Art for the Week(s) - Rated 2.8/10 to 6.7/10
For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver (2008)
The Simpsons Movie - David Silverman (2007)
Shrek 2 - Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon (2004)
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America - Mike Judge (1996)
Song of the Sea - Tomm Moore (2014)
Shrek - Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson (2001)
Fantasia - Walt Disney (1941)
Moses and the Brazen Serpent - Peter Paul Rubens (1610) [Courtauld Institute of Art, London]
Cool World - Ralph Bakshi (1992)
The Land Before Time - Don Bluth (1988)
Ratatouille - Brad Bird (2007)
Regulate ... G-Funk Era - Warren G (1994)
Alice in Wonderland - Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske (1951)

NEWLY LISTENED - ROCK/JAZZ ALBUMS - RATED:
Psychodrama - Dave (2019) 7.1/10

FAMILIAR CLASSICAL WORKS - RE-RATED:
Piano Sonata No. 20 in A Major - Franz Schubert (1828) 8.0/10 to 8.4/10
Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major - Ludwig van Beethoven (1820) 8.1/10 to 8.3/10
Piano Sonata in B Minor - Franz Liszt (1853) 7.6/10 to 8.3/10
Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major "Hammerklavier" - Ludwig van Beethoven (1818) 8.0/10 to 8.3/10

FAMILIAR FILMS - RE-RATED:
The Nightmare Before Christmas - Henry Selick (1993) 7.0/10 to 6.8/10
Toy Story 4 - Josh Cooley (2019) 6.0/10 to 6.3/10
Up - Pete Docter (2009) 6.0/10 to 6.1/10
World of Tomorrow - Don Hertzfeldt (2015) 6.0/10 to 6.1/10
The Simpsons Movie - David Silverman (2007) Not Rated to 6.0/10; 6.0/10 to 6.1/10
Shrek 2 - Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon (2004) Not Rated to 6.0/10
Fantasia - Walt Disney (1941) 6.8/10 to 6.0/10
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America - Mike Judge (1996) Not Rated to 5.9/10
Shrek - Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson (2001) Not Rated to 5.4/10
Cool World - Ralph Bakshi (1992) Not Rated to 5.3/10
Ratatouille - Brad Bird (2007) Not Rated to 5.2/10
The Land Before Time - Don Bluth (1988) 5.0/10 to 4.8/10
Alice in Wonderland - Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske (1951) 5.8/10 to 3.7/10

NEWLY WATCHED FILMS - RATED:
Everything Everywhere All at Once - Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (2022) 6.8/10; 6.8/10 to 6.9/10 ... Somewhat disappointing relative to the M-E-G-A H-Y-P-E!!! around this as "THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE, INCREDIBLE, NEWLY ANOINTED GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME" (Letterboxd), or among them (RYM). But its "everything including the kitchen sink" attempt is still a wild novelty ride that is pretty fun for a while, even if, for me, I thought it tried to carry too much weight and became a bit too congested in what it was trying to say, to the point that it mostly sticks less and less in terms of sustained impact or truly compelling ideas as its running time progresses. (Maybe that was partially intentional with one of its themes and eventual realizations being "nothing really matters"???). Cinematically/thematically, it fuses ideas from films like The Matrix (parallel universes, "the one", kung fu -- for some reason -- as an exhibition of one's ultimate skills/powers) and (expressively, if not so much conceptually/thematically) the montages of the likes of Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Requiem for a Dream, Amelie (and probably others one could come up with) for its "multi-verse" sequences, which are aplenty. After a while though, the film becomes practically only relentless montages, almost like an extended music video, with rapid-fire jokes or oddball shots of many parallel and connected moments happening at once, with too little time taken to make enough of them more worthwhile and impinging. These are impressive in a technical sense and hold some interest in their non-sequitur comedy and can be visually exciting at times, but ultimately for me didn't amount to as much as the hype around this film seems to suggest. Most interesting, though, was when two "universes" would fuse simultaneously in the same shot. I wish that idea would have been developed a bit more and its rapid montages perhaps a bit tempered (and/or applied more meaningfully).

A user on Letterboxd, Josiah Morgan, summed it up for me rather well and succinctly: "Entertaining in the moment and overall an interesting case study in the fact that there are no stakes in a text wherein literally anything can happen."

Fwiw, I will be curious to see what Scaruffi gives this (when his rating is official). It wouldn't surprise me if he finds it more creative and exciting than I did and gives it a higher rating. He might be more enamored with its relentless tonal shifts (this aspect might also prove fruitful enough to raise the rating on revisits, keeping the "multi-verse" action interesting despite perhaps a bit of overkill). For a bit of it I was wondering if it might be 7.3+, but found it kind of ran out of steam despite its obvious and admirable effort to "go all out" and you have to give the cast credit for performances that ran a pretty wide gamut of emotions and wackiness, with scenes of drama and lots of sudden, pretty imaginative bits that could be pretty funny in how non-sequitur and/or absurd they were...
Song of the Sea - Tomm Moore (2014) 5.6/10

FAMILIAR PAINTINGS/VISUAL ART - RE-RATED:
St. Peter's Basilica - Michelangelo Buonarroti, Donato Bramante, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1626) [Architecture] 9.4/10 to 9.0/10
Europe After The Rain II - Max Ernst (1942) 8.4/10 to 8.5/10
The Beethoven Frieze - Gustav Klimt (1902) 8.4/10 to 8.5/10
Metamorphose de Narcisse - Salvador Dali (1937) 8.5/10 to 8.4/10
Isenheim Altarpiece - Matthias Grunewald [includes sculpture by Nikolaus Hagenauer] (circa 1512-1516) 8.0/10 to 8.3/10
Medici Chapel: The Sagrestia Nuova - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1555) [Sculpture and Architecture] 7.8/10 to 8.0/10
The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa - Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1652) [Sculpture and Architecture] Not Rated to 7.7/10; 7.7/10 to 8.0/10
The Gates of Hell - Auguste Rodin (1889 "Expressionist" Version) [Sculpture] Not Rated to 7.7/10; 7.7/10 to 8.0/10
The Ambassadors - Hans Holbein (1533) 8.1/10 to 7.7/10
Ghent Altarpiece - Jan Van Eyck (1432) 7.9/10 to 7.7/10
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon - Pablo Picasso (1907) 7.4/10 to 7.7/10
The Entire City [Zurich Version] - Max Ernst (1936) 7.7/10 to 7.6/10
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I - Gustav Klimt (1907) 7.5/10 to 7.6/10
The Virgin - Gustav Klimt (1913) Not Rated to 7.5/10; 7.5/10 to 7.6/10
The Crucifixion - Jacopo Tintoretto (1565) 7.2/10 to 7.5/10; 7.5/10 to 7.6/10
Pieta - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1499) Not Rated to 7.6/10
Sandham Memorial Chapel: The Resurrection of the Soldiers & War Murals - Stanley Spencer (1929) 7.1/10 to 7.6/10
Death and the Maiden - Egon Schiele (1915) 7.5/10 to 7.6/10
The Adoration of the Magi - Peter Paul Rubens (1609; revised 1629) 6.8/10 to 7.5/10
Las Meninas - Diego Velazquez (1656) 7.4/10 to 7.5/10
Primavera - Sandro Botticelli (1482) Not Rated to 7.5/10
Apollo and Daphne - Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1625) [Sculpture] Not Rated to 7.4/10
The Persistence of Memory - Salvador Dali (1931) 7.1/10 to 7.3/10
The Sleeping Venus - Paul Delvaux (1944) 7.1/10 to 7.3/10
The Resurrection - Piero della Francesca (circa 1460) Not Rated to 7.3/10
The Procession To Calvary - Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1564) 7.2/10 to 7.3/10
Rinaldo and Armida - Anthony van Dyck (1629) 6.9/10 to 7.3/10
Moses - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1515) [Sculpture] Not Rated to 7.3/10
The Deposition - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1555) [aka, "Bandini Pietà" or "The Lamentation over the Dead Christ"] [Sculpture] Not Rated to 7.3/10
Sistine Madonna - Raphael Sanzio (circa 1514) Not Rated to 7.3/10
F-111 - James Rosenquist (1965) Not Rated to 7.3/10
Laurentian Library - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1571) [Architecture] 7.0/10 to 7.3/10
The Great Last Judgment - Peter Paul Rubens (1617) Not Rated to 7.2/10
Prometheus Bound - Peter Paul Rubens (circa 1612) Not Rated to 6.9/10
Moses and the Brazen Serpent - Peter Paul Rubens (1610) [Courtauld Institute of Art, London] Not Rated to 6.1/10

TOP 50 WORKS OF ART OF THE YEAR (2022)
Sistine Chapel: Ceiling and The Last Judgment - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1512; 1541)
St. Peter's Basilica - Michelangelo Buonarroti, Donato Bramante, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1626) [Architecture]
Brazil - Terry Gilliam (1985) [The Final Cut, 142 minutes]
Lorca - Tim Buckley (1970)
Citizen Kane - Orson Welles (1941)
Spiderland - Slint (1991
Persona - Ingmar Bergman (1966)
North by Northwest - Alfred Hitchcock (1959)
Marquee Moon - Television (1977)
The Velvet Underground and Nico - The Velvet Underground (1966)
The Doors - The Doors (1966)
Touch of Evil - Orson Welles (1958)
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor - Ludwig van Beethoven (1808)
Symphony No. 6 in A minor "Tragic" - Gustav Mahler (1904; 1906)
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor - Ludwig van Beethoven (1822)
Symphony No. 4 in E Minor - Johannes Brahms (1884)
Symphony No. 8 in B Minor "Unfinished" - Franz Schubert (1822)
Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor "Appassionata" - Ludwig van Beethoven (1805)
The Beethoven Frieze - Gustav Klimt (1902)[/b]
The Sacrifice - Andrei Tarkovsky (1986)
St. Matthew Cycle: The Calling of St. Matthew; The Inspiration of St. Matthew; The Martyrdom of St. Matthew - Michelangelo Caravaggio (1602)
The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci (1497)
Y - The Pop Group (1979)
Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major - Ludwig van Beethoven (1820)
It's Such a Beautiful Day - Don Hertzfeldt (2012)[/b]
Mission: Impossible III - J. J. Abrams (2006)
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor "Choral" - Ludwig van Beethoven (1824)
Strange Days - The Doors (1967)
Symphony No. 4 in E Minor - Johannes Brahms (1884)
Consumer Revolt - Cop Shoot Cop (1990)
Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom (2010)
Cache - Michael Haneke (2005)
The Godfather, Part 2 - Francis Ford Coppola (1974)
Blow Up - Michelangelo Antonioni (1966)
Straw Dogs - Sam Peckinpah (1971)
Taxi Driver - Martin Scorsese (1976)
Repulsion - Roman Polanski (1965)
Implosions - Stephan Micus (1977)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Michel Gondry (2004)
The Birds - Alfred Hitchcock (1963)
Goodfellas - Martin Scorsese (1990)
It's a Wonderful Life - Frank Capra (1946)
Schindler's List - Steven Spielberg (1993)
Nashville - Robert Altman (1975)
Written on the Wind - Douglas Sirk (1956)
The Tragedy of Macbeth - Joel Coen (2021)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia - Sam Peckinpah (1974)
Astral Weeks - Van Morrison (1968)
Diamanda Galas - Diamanda Galas (1984)
Ys - Joanna Newsom (2006)
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Last edited by AfterHours on 05/02/2022 19:05; edited 10 times in total

TiggaTrigga

Quick insights on these paintings: "Metamorphose de Narcisse - Salvador Dali" and "The Beethoven Frieze - Gustav Klimt" and "The Entire City [Zurich Version] - Max Ernst"? No idea what they're trying to express, especially Dali's piece.

AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

TiggaTrigga wrote:

Quick insights on these paintings: "Metamorphose de Narcisse - Salvador Dali" and "The Beethoven Frieze - Gustav Klimt" and "The Entire City [Zurich Version] - Max Ernst"? No idea what they're trying to express, especially Dali's piece.

For Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus, I'm not going to go into it yet, before I (at some point) put together at least a rough draft analysis on my "Greatest Paintings" page, but a good start is the poem Dali wrote to accompany it, which is the basic framework of expression of the painting:

"Narcissus,
in his immobility,
absorbed by his reflection with the digestive slowness of carnivorous plants,
becomes invisible.
There remains of him only the hallucinatingly white oval of his head,
his head again more tender,
his head, chrysalis of hidden biological designs,
his head held up by the tips of the water’s fingers,
at the tips of the fingers
of the insensate hand,
of the terrible hand,
of the mortal hand
of his own reflection.
When that head slits
when that head splits
when that head bursts,
it will be the flower,
the new Narcissus,
Gala – my Narcissus."

Beyond that there is a very profound stream of conscious "network" of enigmatic, interconnected ideas/allusions/reflections, across the work, forming a rather deep or complicated symbology that is quite personal/autobiographical to him and that one is unlikely to grasp or catch without going through the main works of Dali's career and getting a really good handle on his art and idiom of expression. Even though Metamorphosis is very much its own work, and is both a new start and culmination of Dali's preoccupations of the time, it still alludes to various earlier ideas in multiple ways and isn't too far from his prior idioms so that, knowing these, allows one a much better foundation from which to evaluate it from.

-----------

For Klimt's Beethoven Frieze and Ernst's Entire City, there actually already are insights available on my "Greatest Paintings" page. If you just scroll down on the page to the images and links section the works are listed in the same order as the rated rankings above that. Beethoven Frieze insights are very incomplete, but offers a good start of a very complex, deeply symbolic work (as Klimt's best works tend to be). Entire City is probably mostly complete, at least as a rough draft "main framework" for a better written, future analysis at some point.

(link to "Greatest Paintings" page available at the bottom of this reply and/or at the top of every "Top 10+ of the Week" update and/or just go to the Lounge Forum, 2nd page)
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TiggaTrigga

So you listened to Psychodrama by Dave? How is it?

AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

TiggaTrigga wrote:

So you listened to Psychodrama by Dave? How is it?

Excellent, maybe 7.3+. Immediate comp that comes to mind is something like a cross between The Streets and Sage Francis (not necessarily the best comp, that's just what first comes to mind).

His vocal delivery/range, while apparently "simple", has a much higher "honesty" factor than a lot of hip hop that tends to mythologize/exaggerate the protagonist. Some have criticized Dave for being too "monotonous" but in many songs there are subtle inflections in his voice that speaks of real pain, loss, empathy -- not so much theatrical, but as deft emotional undercurrent in his speech/vocals. This is well assisted by the often nuanced, deft, gently or suavely evocative and atmospheric backgrounds.
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