Top 10+ Music, Movies, and Visual Art of the Week (2023) - Music Diaries

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

homelessking wrote:

Why do you think Magic City is better than Atlantis?

Atlantis may have the weakest half of any album rated 7.3+, and is salvaged almost entirely by the amazing title track. As a whole album, Magic City is compelling or better all the way through (and stunning over the last several minutes of the title track, and exceptional through the bulk of track 2). The final tracks too, very obscure and alien, are yet oddly fascinating. In short, all of it works. Even if it doesn't quite reach the heights that Atlantis' title track does, Magic City is on the whole more compelling, consistently interesting all the way through and highly emotional/riveting through enough of it to surpass (overall) what would be gained by Atlantis' title track after its poor first half, if they were to be compared side by side.

I haven't always thought this way. For years I rated Atlantis in the 8.5s and a long time ago 8.8-8.9, always above Magic City. But I've had MC above it for probably a few years now.

Although I love the title track, Atlantis is one of the only great works that the qualitative discrepancy between halves is so large that the overall rating is actually lowered (imo) by the addition of the other and would be increased if just the title track alone. So I am a bit confused by Scaruffi's 9 for Atlantis as a whole and have wondered before if maybe there is an early rare/discontinued release of just the title track alone that he might be ranking so high (more understandable if he rates that a 9 alone). (I keep forgetting to ask him about this...) He only mentions the title track in his very brief mention of the "album" on the artist page and also claims it is from 1967 which I can't find any record of the album released before 1969 (discogs, RYM), so maybe the title track was released individually as an EP in 1967 and the rest added later? More likely "1967" is just a typo... Or just maybe there is something significant about the other tracks that I'm missing. Otherwise, I don't know how it can achieve 9/10 with so much mediocrity before it finally sets sail with the title track. No other 9 has this issue. Even WL/WH, famous for Sister Ray being so much better than the rest of the album, has yet a far superior first half than Atlantis. So logically (assuming they're both roughly the same rating/ranking, "lower" 9s, probably "8.8s"), it makes little sense that Atlantis could achieve the same rating without the title track being quite a bit better than Sister Ray so as to make up the difference, which seems unlikely (unless the fact Atlantis takes up just over 50% of its album vs Sister Ray taking up approx 44% is enough for Scaruffi to justify it).
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Facetious

Gender: Male
Age: 24
Location: Somewhere you've never been

What would you rate the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack?

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Facetious wrote:

What would you rate the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack?

I have never sat down and listened to it all together, though I've heard every song individually (most many times). So I don't know for sure. I'm not a big disco fan (I'm sure that comes as little surprise Laughing

). You?

In revisiting the film, I was reminded how superbly it expresses that scene (in its bars, dances, visuals, etc) but also the dark more sexualized, promiscuous, and artificial side of its culture (that I'm sure was there to greater or lesser degree), and it was more cynical and misogynistic than I remembered. Many reviewers that pan the film, seem to due to its relentless misogyny (and perhaps a hatred of disco). But I think it is missed that the film is not being a proponent of its treatment of women, or crime, or violence, but clearly showing this in a brutally honest way as an unfortunate consequence of that scene that the music perhaps fluffs over (relative to punk, its contemporary opposite; that disco may be a pretense "pretending to not have the same problems"), exposing that it wasn't all about the glamour and glitz of dancing. I also thought that Travolta's performance was remarkable and I had forgot just how consistently unlikable his character is (how badly he treats others, especially women), but also how honest and complex the portrayal, and then how there is just enough humanity shown (in the family scenes, in his regrets about life, in his wishes to change his life, in the dance scenes which are also liberations of feelings that he has a hard time expressing elsewhere and also escapism from his hardships, demons, the dubious friends he maintains) that there is empathy drawn for him to turn things around, which (considering how much of an asshole he is otherwise throughout the film) is an impressive feat in itself.
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Note that I've started a thread in the Movies and TV forum re: Greatest Acting Performances and that is where I am updating my selections for the time being, as well as asking for others selections or recommendations.

I will probably do the same with the others too (Editing, Visuals, Ensemble...)

Rejoice! Select! List! Converse! Contribute! Laughing

Link: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...&start =0

(Of course you can still give recs and discuss these things here too if you want)
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homelessking

Insights on Consumer Revolt?

TiggaTrigga

I've personally always felt that Gold Dust Woman was the most emotional song on Rumours. Thoughts on that song?

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

homelessking wrote:

Insights on Consumer Revolt?

I would have to revisit it (with fuller attention to it than I would have right now) to remind myself enough to point out anything that might be worthwhile. Maybe soon...
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TiggaTrigga wrote:

I've personally always felt that Gold Dust Woman was the most emotional song on Rumours. Thoughts on that song?

Don't have a ton to say about music right now. I might go with The Chain, or Gold Dust Woman - tough choice.

Stevie Nicks' sensual, lugubrious, almost haunted vocals

Instrumentation, suave and tentative, coalescing into "casting spells" upon, or just between/before, points of emphasis

Vocals coalesce into Jefferson Airplane-esque choruses (where the vocals are both coalescing and weaving just in/out/around each other instead of in complete unison/aligned harmony like those of The Beach Boys, Beatles, etc)

Progresses into almost surreal, haunting coda where the vocals start losing their sense of stability, with haunting calls, and all becomes increasingly echoed "from the other side", like a scene of witchcraft, while the instrumentation becomes increasingly mysterious, scared, calamitous, dangerous (like so many "rock music dramas" post 1966, Doors influence, a la The End)
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TiggaTrigga

Why do you think It's a Wonderful Life is so good? I was looking at your greatest films list and saw that it was right below Blade Runner, which is a movie I consider pretty dang artistic and expressive. I just don't see it, though the last time I watched It's a Wonderful Life was when I was a kid. Maybe I just categorize it with the rest of those Christmas movies and shows that comes on every year, and that it's "nothing special."

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TiggaTrigga wrote:

Why do you think It's a Wonderful Life is so good? I was looking at your greatest films list and saw that it was right below Blade Runner, which is a movie I consider pretty dang artistic and expressive. I just don't see it, though the last time I watched It's a Wonderful Life was when I was a kid. Maybe I just categorize it with the rest of those Christmas movies and shows that comes on every year, and that it's "nothing special."

Well, as I'm sure you're aware, if the last time you saw it was as a kid, there's more than likely a lot that you would experience about it now that you didn't then.

First and foremost, it is a masterpiece of expressive audacity (without resorting to later, post-method-acting, especially 1960s-on, "tortured psyches" and the like), of cinematic joy, of expressive diversity and sincerity, of unbridled gesture and compassion and the willingness to (without reservation) express feelings (however naive) that would seem too cliche or saccharine in lesser hands -- and perhaps above all -- truly genuine, empowering and moving, joy and happiness through adversity that one is unlikely to find in much cinema since (maybe the closest is a film like Truman Show, particularly its climax; others may be Amelie, and in some ways, Forrest Gump, for example, but few can match It's a Wonderful Life in this regard).

If you really hold your attention mostly on Stewart throughout the film (shouldn't be hard to do as he is by far the main protagonist, dominating the scenes), from his eyes and facial expressions, dispositions, his actions and contortions, his gestures, his colorful, expressive speech, and from whom pretty much every other character and situation reacts and is centered around, and (overall) also pay attention and note for oneself the sheer diversity, totality of expression and expressive audacity his performance traverses across the filmic whole, striking an indefinable middle between "method" and "theatrical"... The more one watches, the more yearning, compassionate, humane, courageous and audacious it seems. Way harder than one might think to be that expressive with such unbridled conviction no matter the scene, traversing such a wide gamut of human emotions, without over-shooting one's "personality limitations" ... (such a performance seems practically alien to our modern age, where characterizations must be "psychologically examined", carefully considered and worked out, hyper-realistic... But Capra's cinema -- even if or when naive -- is, here and in its other peaks, a refreshing willingness to express cheerfully and unreservedly, a super-sized wonder at the human condition).

Anyway, because most of the film is centered around that, really seeing that performance as newly as you can, as an art form in itself, should open up the emotional impact of the whole.

Besides that, it is highly competent classic cinema: visually, editing, script, ensemble, etc.

But just above all, it is its unbridled joy of expression, of an outpouring of feelings (even when expressing devastation, sadness, loss, there is a joy or verve or vitality to expressing this, both in the cinematic content/presentation and from above all in Stewart's performance. All the other actors are fine in these regards too and contribute well to Stewart's and as an overall ensemble) ...and that should be irresistable (imo) and sooner or later quite moving, assuming you observe it closely and throughout (as in, not too casually) as recommended above, and of course seen newly (not merely based on what you remember as a kid).
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