He agreed it was his worst - the production was really hampered by the authorities etc and, by the time he was three quarters through, he basically gave up and started thinking about his next film. So if, say, Mirror was an A, then this would need to be an A- or even a B+ in my opinion.

Mirror is probably my favourite film but, even though I loved it the first time I saw it, it was only after seeing it multiple times, reading Sculpting in Time etc, that I really saw just how extraordinary it was. I think Andrei Rublev could be a good starting point (if you don't mind long films) as it is in a much…

K Dee and Bootsy
I thought I saw a Pussy…cat that is….

It is amazing. I was lucky enough to see it with a live orchestra once. I was a total mess…I can see it many times though because every frame is just so bloody beautiful.

"he didn't make it for any reason"?
You know where Salo is right? You know what happened there?
Do you know anything about Sade and his treatment of the complex relationships between sex/power/the body etc?
Why do you think those two guys are dancing at the end?

Sadly I am bored enough at work right now to bother to reply to you.
1) You continue to assume you know what I feel, and how I responded to a movie. This is arrogant and pretty stupid. The movie did not move me in the slightest. In fact it made me very angry.
2) I had absolutely no idea Kubrick said anything about the…

My point, you big plonker, was that you have every right not to like the film and to think it is rubbish, but to state that people "force themselves to praise it" was retarded. I have my reasons for thinking it is a worthwhile piece of cinema, but agree it is by no means his best work. It is entirely irrelevant who…

I did not realise that I was only allowed to dislike something for a finite period of time. Thanks for letting me know. I hate that film because it turns something fundamentally fractured, paradoxical and uncomprehensible into a kitsch narrative that seeks to manipulate the audience into feeling all sad and moved and…

"this is a movie people force themselves to praise because it has Pasolini's name on it".

Pretty much everything about that film is awful. It is trite, stupid and actually kind of offensive to the reality of that which happened. The idea of making a Hollywood movie out of the Shoah is completely fucked up on every level. And yes, I do think that Schindler's List is a piece of crap too.

I agree on Salo. I am glad I watched it, and think it is an incredible piece of work, but have absolutely no intention of watching it again…

Bio readouts are all in the green. Looks like she's alive. Oh well, there goes our salvage guys…

she is good live
I saw her supporting the Dirty Projectors in London. Lots of energy, powerful voice…worth seeing if you get the chance.

@unicyclistperiscopes - yes! I was not allowed to watch tv in the mornings, but my parents would always drive to the town about 20min away to get groceries and I could sit, with one eye on the driveway, waiting to tape something.

I have about 5 VHS tapes (on long play setting -remember that?) full of music recorded from the tv. We did not have cable or anything when I grew up so we only had BBC1,2, ITV and Channel 4 and I used to sit for hours and hours, finger hovering over the record button, waiting for something cool to come on. Now I could…

"slow" movies
I think, because they have to be watched in a different way to 95% of the rest of the things we see, these are often the toughest to get in to. You have to make an effort to engage with them, and you have to let yourself flow with them, rather than expect them to tell you what to feel every five seconds.…

I grew up in a little village near where it was set and read it when I was about 10. It totally and irreversibly changed the way I saw the countryside around me. I remember so many hours spent exploring the hills and fields on my own and imagining all this rich, and frightening, life going on around me…There is some…

My earliest clear musical memory is going on a road trip with my parents in the south of france, lying half-asleep on the back seat with Graceland playing loud through the stereo. The bass came rumbling though the seat as I dozed…

@lexicondevil - good point. I guess I was trying to get round that by specifying the 'technique' point. A similar example in poetry would be when Auden gets too trite and sing-song - he still has such perfect control of form, alliteration etc that I can still appreciate it. Simon's earlier stuff is often rather trite…

The 'how great is Paul Simon?' discussion
If you look at his technical ability - the lyrics, melodies, structures etc of his songs, I really do think he is (maybe beaten by Joni Mitchell) the best of that generation. I would make the argument that he is lyrically more sophisticated that Dylan (but that is probably…