Showing posts sorted by relevance for query MORRICONE. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query MORRICONE. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Dion Sucked

Celine Dion not Stephane Dion.

At the Academy Awards.

Doing a pathetic souless song dedicated to the great composer Ennio Morricone.

10:52: I'm not the biggest fan of movie scores, but I have to say, Ennio Morricone elevates the genre. Take notes, please, John Williams. Celine Dion opens her mouth, my cue to get up and stretch my legs.

In fact it was so bad that while she looked like she was lip-syncing the words were actually coming out of her mouth. With lip-syncing there is at least some power, some force, some emotion because it is pre recorded. This was live.

You had to lean forward to hear her sing, and as the camera focused on her mouth I was given to think of a Kissing Gourami as she painfully formed each word with her lips as she sang. High notes ferget it. Deep contralto ferget it. It was white toast, nah make that Melba toast.

Luckily it was the Academy Awards and not American Idol, or she would never have made the cut. But then again Best Supporting Actress awards are given to those who don't make it on Idol.


Dion's performance was a flat as the other Dion's has been in Question period.

That's what happens when unilingual Francophone's try to express themselves in English by reading from a script or a teleprompter.





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Wednesday, July 14, 2021

BURN! 
MY FAVORITE ANTI IMPERIALIST FILM
WITH A GREAT SOUNDTRACK BY ENNIO MORRICONE




QUEIMADA, originally QUEMADA(aka BURN), changed its Spanish name to the Portuguese one, because general Franco was threatening UNITED ARTISTS with a new ban of all their films in Spain, like it happened with COLUMBIA after Fred Zinnemann's BEHOLD A PALE HORSE.

The producer Alberto Grimaldi and the director Gillo Pontecorvo changed the nationality of the conquerors, remaining Marlon Brando as the British Sir William Walker.

Initially Grimaldi contacted Paul Newman and Sidney Potier for the roles, but both actors considered the script as "anti-American".

Unlike Newman, Brando was an admirer of the author of LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI (BATTLE OF ALGIERS)
and he proposed Cassius Clay for the role of Jose Dolores. Finally Brando's antagonist was Evaristo Marquez and the shooting started in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), being finished in Morocco after different mishaps and controversies.

But then United Artists considered the movie politically not adequated for US audiences and they made a new editing, cutting several scenes and changing the dialogues.

This mutitlated US cut was the english version. These images are from the uncut italian restored version. Ennio Morricone composed one of his most impressive soundtracks, still maintain its position in the main artery of majestic movie themes. Many of the tracks are literally, a magic carpet ride.


"..The film portrays, quite brilliantly, the nature of a guerrilla uprising. Walker seems all too aware of the danger of a popular uprising, when he cautions the white rulers that "the guerrilla has nothing to lose." And that in killing a hero of the people, the hero "becomes a martyr, and the martyr becomes a myth." " Amazon Review

�An amazing film. . . No one, with the possible exception of Eisenstein, has ever before attempted a political interpretation of history on this epic scale.� � Pauline Kael

'Queimada': Revolution In Perpetual Motion as long as there are empires, there will be wars - "Pontecorvo was an expert on the subject of revolution, possibly even the poet laureate of violent change. An Italian communist, he wore his biases plainly on his sleeve and didn't let them prevent him from reaching greatness, as he did in 1965 in "The Battle of Algiers," a movie so pungent in its realities that the Pentagon showed it to Special Forces people just last year... the movie Queimada is most powerful as argument: It believes in the permanence of revolution, and it closes on a shot of the surly, bitter, seething people of Queimada, and in their anger it sees a forever of violence. This is the way it will go, he seems to be saying, and it doesn't seem that he got that one wrong, unless peace broke out in the past five minutes. It's brilliantly constructed to argue what might be called the classic imperial paradox: To win this war you must make inevitable the next. The corollary is that as long as there are empires, there will be wars. "
Queimada (1969)
Queimada - Trivia The film's original title was Quemada (the Spanish word for "burnt", as the action took place in a Spanish colony. When the Spanish government officially complained and threatened a boycott of the film (objecting to the script's supposedly anti-Spanish bias, Gillo Pontecorvo agreed to alter the setting to a Portuguese island and the release title became Queimada ("burnt" in Portuguese).

Sir William Walker, a real historical figure portrayed in the film by Marlon Brando, was neither British nor knighted. Walker was an American adventurer and his title of "sir" was one he adopted on his own.

'Evaristo Marquez' , who plays rebel leader Jose Dolores in the film, was not an actor. He was a poor villager whom director Pontecorvo discovered while scouting locations and convinced to star opposite Brando. The studio had originally wanted Sydney Poitier.

Marlon Brando once said this film contains "the best acting I've ever done"

Queimada - Amy Taubin
" Burn! was a courageous film for Pontecorvo to make. There are few films as passionate or as uncompromising about the real workings and nature of imperialism as a world order, nor a film which identifies so feelingly with the victims of neo-colonial rule. Not since Eisenstein has a film so explicitly and with such artistry sounded a paen to the glory and moral necessity of revolution. Even had United Artists not attempted to sabotage Burn!, it would be a film deserving wider viewing and critical attention. " Joan Mellen

SEE THE FULL REVIEW
Quemada - Gillo Pontecorvo's Burn! (tamilnation.org)

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Nude News

With the success of my previous nude news review: The Naked Truth, success of course being all those hits when folks google for nude, naked, etc....., here is this weeks nudes in the news....


More naked truth from the naked city. You remember that movie and TV show; Naked City...There's eight million stories in the naked city.....it was about the dark noir of New York and of course since the world is a Global village, we are all New York now.... “Cap d'Agde - The Naked City

The Not-Quite Naked City

Naked City
Austin Chronicle, TX

Talk About the Naked City



This weeks nude revue

The naked and the dead...
SYDNEY (Reuters) - There's a time and place for everything, local Australian governments have ruled as they move to stop brothels opening near cemeteries.

Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Tuesday that cemeteries were places for quiet reflection by families who should not have to put up with "a brothel going on next door.""It's totally inappropriate. There's a place for brothels and a place for cemeteries and we don't believe the two mix," he said.

Hmm besides the fact that there is the kinky possibility of Necrophilia. Nah that just happens in funeral homes not brothels.

Heather Mills’ nude photos hit the tabloids

No wonder the McCarthy's broke up.

Of course she will not be financially hurt by this unlike this lass

Nude snaps end Miss England hopes
A FINALIST has been throw in out of a beauty competition - after it was discovered she had posed as a nude model.

PETA would be happy.

The naked vets

Sunday, April 25, 2021

Italian star singer Milva dies aged 81

The genre-crossing Italian chanteuse, known for her vocal range and red hair, took Europe by storm in the 1960s and '70s. Her career spanned decades.


Singer Milva passed away aged 81 on April 23, 2021


Milva, an Italian chanson and pop music singer popular in the 1960s and 1970s, passed away Friday at her home in Milan, Italy, aged 81. Born Maria Ilva Biolcati, the singer was often referred to as "La Rossa," meaning "redhead" in Italian, for the color of her fiery red locks.

With an active career spanning decades, Milva was a musical great in her home country. Italy's Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, called her "one of the strongest interpreters of Italian songs." Her voice awakened "intense emotions" in entire generations and upheld the reputation of Italy, he said Saturday after news of her death broke.

Yet her fame was not limited to Italy. Her penchant for singing in foreign languages led to her success around the world — she released songs in English, German, French, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese and Japanese.

Milva collaborated with tango music great, Astor Piazzaolla

She had an especially large fan base in Germany, where she gained fame with sophisticated easy listening tracks. Her song "Hurra, wir leben noch" ("Hurray, we're still alive"), was an especially big hit. A fan of collaborations, Milva recorded songs with Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, as well as famed film score composer Ennio Morricone.

Milva sang with Argentine tango music composer Astor Piazzolla, who died in 1992, and began a long-lasting collaboration with her compatriot, the innovative singer-songwriter Franco Battiato with whom she recorded an album.  

A career to envy

Maria Ilva Biolcati was born on July 17, 1939, to a dressmaker and a fisherman in the small town of Goro in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region on the Adriatic coast. As a child, she worked to support her family, which experienced economic hardship.

Eventually, she moved to Bologna, entered a singing competition and received vocal and acting lessons. From then on, her career was enviable. She recorded dozens of albums, went on tours and appeared on the stages of theaters and concert halls around the world. Between 1961 and 2007, she performed 15 times at Italy's most important pop festival in San Remo, but never won it.


Milva sang a variety of musical genres throughout her long career


For over 50 years, Milva worked tirelessly, recording 173 albums that spanned a wide range of repertoire. Her daughter Martina was born in 1963 but Milva had little time for family life and her daughter often had to go without her famous mother.

Milva had no qualms about breaking away from chanson and commercial music. She toured the world's opera houses and theaters with performances of songs by Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht. Her rendition of the role of Pirate Jenny in Brecht's "Threepenny Opera" helped make her an icon in the world of musical theater. She gave concerts at the Scala in Milan, the Paris Opera, London's Royal Albert Hall and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. She alsosangin operas by avant-garde composer Luciano Berio and even dabbled in work as an actress. She landed a supporting role in Wim Wenders' 1987 masterpiece "Wings of Desire

Seeing red

The singer was open about her leftist political views and charmed the working-class milieu with her political chansons, including the famous partisan hymn "Bella Ciao," which was a constant in her repertoire. Her nickname "La Rossa" was also an allusion to the color associated with her political commitments.


In 2010, Milva left the stage and said farewell to her fans in a letter posted on social media. "I did my job gracefully and probably well," she wrote. Milva said she decided to take this step because she was no longer able to continue her career "in the best way possible."

Milva is survived by her daughter Martina.