May
25
2014
A friend of mine gave me the ispiration to post a beautiful cover of this Bob Dylan classic…Ministry style! So expect an heavy, slighty psychedelic, sludgy trip.
Also, I’ll post new movie reviews soon! Work hasn’t stopped on them.
Bye!
May
4
2014
Pearls before swine have been one of the most beautiful and influential folk bands in America in the ’60s. This is one of their best songs, taken from what maybe is their masterpiece: Balaklava, a concept album about the infamous battle in the XIX century.
Apr
27
2014
TIme for a new review: After Agostino, another very beautiful movie from Italy, from Dino Risi’s genius. Like Agostino, the original source is a novel from a very talented italian writer, Piero Chiara. The movie it’s a mix between a lot of genres, with some strong gothic overtones. It’s also very subtle and psychological. You can find the review here
Apr
21
2014
To go along with Agostino’s review, it’s time to listen again to the genius of Erik Satie, also used as a soundtrack for Agostino.
Enjoy!
Apr
21
2014
I’m very happy to announce that I’ve reviewed the first rare and underground movie of the site, an obscure italian classic, Agostino, inspired by a novel by Alberto Moravia, a very influential and prolific Italian writer who also had a very big impact on the world of cinema, both as a writer and as a critic.
You can find the review, along with English subtitles for the movie (not mine), here.
Apr
13
2014
With pleasure, I’m announcing you the opening of the cinema section of Illusion City! Like I wrote on the last update, the first movie to be reviewed is Francois Ozon’s Young and Beautiful, a wonderful movie about the hardship of the teenage years and many difficulties and shadows of living in the contemporary world…I’m quite happy of the analysis I’ve written, I’ve found an interesting connection between this movie and one of Louis Bunuel’s masterpiece, Belle de Jour (1967), so I invite you to read it and comment it!
I am planning to upload a new review every one or two weeks, depending on the spare time I’ve got…I hope you will appreciate them.
Mar
30
2014
Time to dwell among the best reliques of old-school Italian cinema…a psychological, eerie and gothic masterpiece by Dino Risi, Anima Persa (lost soul ; known in France as Ames Perdues), which I will probably review here in the near future. The movie is incredibly good with a stellar cast (Catherine Denevue of Belle de Jour fame and Vittorio Gassman), a wonderful trip of discovery inside the darkest recesses of the human soul.
By the way, I think I’ll open the cinema reviews section in 1/2 weeks at maximum, with more or less a new review once a week. I guess I’ll start with Young and Beautiful (Jeune et jolie) by Francois Ozon. Sorry to have made you wait!
And now, time to enjoy some very good music…
Mar
16
2014
This week I’m offering you a rare B-side from the genius of Alice Cooper. This song was released as a B-Side of the single of “how are you gonna see me now?” off the (very underrated) 1978 album, from the inside.
Also. I’m happy to announce that the work for the cinema section is proceeding very well! I’ve written more reviews, and when I’ll have a sufficient number of them I’ll start posting slowly here on the site.
Mar
4
2014
I’ve written a review for an interesting Japanese freeware horror game, created with the Wolf RPG Editor. An intriguing psychological tale named the crooked man…read the review and leap into the abyss! You won’t regret it.
Mar
2
2014
Laurie Spiegel, born in 1945, is an avant-garde musician, interested in the cybernetics, the automation and in the experimental music writing using mathematical algorythms. However, unlike many other avant-garde musician, her focus is on what automation can’t accomplish, and she doesn’t want to cut off the link with the traditional music like folk or classical music.
The track I’m presenting to you this week, the expanding universe (title track of the album from which it’s from), was released in 1980, but was written in the ’70s. The recording process itself was very pioneristic: the album was recorded with a DDP-224 computer, a computer so big that filled an entire room, and was remotely operated via a joystick and a keyboard in a room nearby.
The result is astonishing and still very fresh and original, despite the sound can result somehow dated to the modern (and often, sadly, musically illiterate) listener.
Enjoy!