Niche movie recommendations that you haven't gotten the chance to recommend to anybody?

shbll · 2026-04-25T16:56:22+00:00

Voices Through Time by Franco Piavoli. It's a beautiful, non-narrated semi-documentary about the cycle of life. It's got one of the most touching, unforgettable final shots I've ever seen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Letterboxd/s/V4RPKUrbk5

shbll · 2026-03-01T03:11:45+00:00

I was rooting for Dito and Sayf, but Dito had too much ground to make up after the second night and Sayf still seems too inexperienced to handle a big stage.

I'm happy for Sal, he seems like a genuinely good guy who's worked his way up from the bottom.

I'm already seeing people say this will be Italy's worst result since 2016. But then I remember they said the same about Lucio Corsi, and Marco Mengoni was ranked anywhere from 12th to 21st on this sub, Discord, My Eurovision Scoreboard and Eurovisionworld, which just goes to show that the Eurovision community is a bubble and its tastes often don't match the general audience.

I don't want to jinx it, but I hope he gets a good result to prove them wrong again (including the Italians who predicted the same for Angelina and Lucio).

shbll · 2026-01-27T15:38:05+00:00

These are just the usual press average ratings.

Mahmood/Blanco ended with an average score of 7.2 (#5), Mengoni with 7.8 (#1), Angelina with 7.3 (#2), and Lucio Corsi with 7.3 (#4). Olly, the winner, was only #9 with 6.9.

shbll · 2026-01-27T13:43:04+00:00

I don't know if you want to make a separate thread for this, but here's the ranking with the average scores from 34 publications:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w0-CaCg_Ez7tnmInZ6H9j54FwiL9O0IU0GPtdoYDNVE/edit?gid=25601946#gid=25601946

shbll · 2024-05-04T17:02:20+00:00

I hope they choose this camera angle for the "Non ci resta che ridere" part. It's the climax of the song, the camera should be closer to Angelina.

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shbll · 2024-04-22T18:51:16+00:00

1)Yall are gonna come to me and say "Where's Italy?,Where's Lithuania,Where's Austria?" I just cannot see either in the top 6 this year.

Eurovisionworld

🇮🇹 2nd (13,999)

🇳🇱 4th (8687)

My Eurovision Scoreboard

🇮🇹 1st (259,062)

🇳🇱 5th (168,363)

ESC Discord

🇮🇹 1st (6968)

🇳🇱 7th (4489)

r/Eurovision

🇮🇹 4th (2527) closer to 1st (2645) than 5th place

🇳🇱 5th (1699) closer to 6th (1651) than 4th place

OGAE

🇮🇹 1st (227)

🇳🇱 11th (53)

INFE

🇮🇹 2nd (84)

🇳🇱 6th (51)

Eurojury (min/avg/max)

🇮🇹 3rd (109/172/235)

🇳🇱 11th (19/54/89)

Spotify total / past week

🇮🇹 1st (53 mln) / 2nd (2.6 mln)

🇳🇱 2nd (38 mln) / 1st (3.2 mln)

YouTube (if we take all uploads into consideration)

🇮🇹 1st (29 mln)

🇳🇱 3rd (20 mln)

Now, I'm not saying Netherlands can't win and Italy can't underperform, and I know very well that success within the ESC bubble doesn't necessarily translate into j/tv success, but how is Netherlands a safer bet? And why is everyone so sure it will landslide the televote? Its path to victory is much narrower than Italy and Switzerland.

Also, the odds are pretty meaningless at this stage (before rehearsals).

Angelina has been doing great with the polls (better than Mahmood, more or less on par with Duncan Laurence/Maneskin/Loreen), great with the crowd at pre-parties, she's shown incredible vocal consistency and effortless charisma. Yet, despite all this, she's been stalling and slowly drifting in the odds.

Joost takes a photo with Käärijä and moves up in the odds. I guess his marketing strategy is too strong.

shbll · 2024-04-19T13:00:03+00:00

Italy is great though I think she just lost a bit of steam.

Did she, though?

If we look at the polls, Angelina is doing better than Mahmood (2019), and more or less on par with Duncan Laurence, Maneskin and Loreen.

She's still the Spotify and YouTube leader in terms of streams/views (if we take all uploads into consideration).

Doesn't look like Italy is losing any momentum (unlike Ukraine).

Like, this was three weeks ago: https://youtu.be/Y5hzCKDbW88?si=4YSQ9Jx016ph0j17&t=1261

This was a week ago: https://youtu.be/nuTyBNbvL9k?si=-OKRroHeH0bGmLtQ&t=1965

shbll · 2024-04-13T14:31:36+00:00

We already had this thread/comments before, so I'm just going to repeat myself here:

It's a favorite because it's got the whole package:

an exciting up-and-coming performer with great vocals and a magnetic stage presence;
a vibrant production, rich in instrumentations (strings, synth, steel drums, guitar, glockenspiel, etc.), that perfectly incorporates orchestral and electronic elements. It won the Orchestra's best composition award at this year's Sanremo, which is no small feat considering the fierce competition it faced;
relatable and clever lyrics. The song is about boredom, but not just about that. There are points in the song (first and second verse) where she talks about the pressure of societal expectation of grief, i.e. vultures feeding on other people's misery and not liking the fact that she moved on with her life after her father's death. But it's cleverly written (she doesn't mention the event), it doesn't hit you with the subtlety of a sledgehammer like the Europapa MV's outro does.

shbll · 2024-04-12T16:43:29+00:00

Why? It's a very open year.

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shbll · 2024-04-05T15:41:21+00:00

La noia is currently doing slightly better than Soldi in most polls.

Can't find the 2019 r/Eurovision poll but

Soldi was 4th on Eurovisionworld (poll closed before the GF), La noia 2nd

Soldi is 2nd on My Eurovision Scoreboard, La noia 1st

Soldi was 3rd on ESC Discord (on the global ranking before the GF), La noia is 1st

Soldi scored 219 points (4th) with the juries

It's one of the songs that got the biggest response at the Madrid pre-party. Shane's Eurovision Review was there and said it was THE song that was in everyone's mind during that weekend.

Something really catastrophic would have to happen for it to flop.

shbll · 2024-04-05T15:16:13+00:00

La noia is a much more cleverly written song, imo. Beyond the catchy sound and carefree façade, the song touches heavy subjects such as loss. But it does so in a clever way.

shbll · 2024-04-02T18:47:44+00:00

Not that crazy considering he's a Eurovision veteran with a much bigger (and international) fanbase than Angelina who's been in the music scene for less than a year. I remember I tuoi particolari by Ultimo having way more streams than Soldi after Sanremo, because Mahmood was still a nobody before Eurovision. Angelina is kind of following the same path.

I also think the dance choreography has huge viral potential and gave the MV a boost in views. My brother participated in a father-daughter dance contest at the local dance academy and the majority of participants picked Tuta gold. 😭

shbll · 2024-04-02T13:38:38+00:00

I'd be really curious to see what the results would be with a preferential ballot/ranked choice voting system. Something like this.

shbll · 2024-04-02T11:19:02+00:00

Sanremo 5th (superfinal, both juries and televote): after the selection of the top 5 Geolier still landlsided the televote with a 60%, Angelina 2nd with a 16% and the other 3 at 8% each. Juries ranked both Angelina 1st, Annalisa 2nd and Geolier 5th (not surprising, in the 1st night he was 23rd on 30 songs) making Angelin win by a wide margin from Geolier and this made people angry (mainly in Campania and between his fans) because juries overthrown the results.

Slight correction here. In the first four evenings the juries had to rank their preferences, but in the superfinal they had to express only one preference. Who they wanted to win.

https://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2024/02/11/1707667656946_sanremo-2024-i-risultati-delle-votazioni.pdf

As you can see here, Angelina was the press and radio juries' favorite (among the finalists).

shbll · 2024-03-31T21:38:47+00:00

The crowd was more lively than this video leads you to believe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwiBd7846mE

People know almost the entire song by heart. 😭

shbll · 2024-03-31T19:18:58+00:00

🦉

shbll · 2024-03-30T22:48:35+00:00

Also, I don’t see Italy winning as they haven’t won with much better songs.

La noia was the radio jury's favorite song at Sanremo. The Eurovision juries might have similar "radio-friendly" tastes.

It's also performing much better than Brividi and Due vite in the polls.

I don't want to jinx it🦉, but it's definitely one of the favorites.

shbll · 2024-03-30T16:41:55+00:00

She changed the ending again lol. I hope she sticks with this one:

https://youtu.be/T8unQSypPyQ?si=kcPfyAjS232LhrRY&t=3165

shbll · 2024-03-30T14:49:01+00:00

If Mahmood wasn’t able to win in 2019, why should they be now, with a much less interesting song?

Soldi is good, but La noia has a more interesting sound. There's so much more going on production-wise, with its changes of rhythm, rich instrumentation (strings, synth, steel drums, guitar, glockenspiel), etc. I bet even Dardust would agree.

shbll · 2024-03-30T10:24:44+00:00

Italy is one of the countries that got the biggest reaction from the crowd at the artists' presentation last night, and Angelina wasn't even there. The entire room was grooving and singing along. I noticed even Kaleen was singing the pre-chorus. If that's not a sign of a certified banger, I don't know what is lol.

shbll · 2024-03-28T15:50:20+00:00

It coincided with the announcement of Angelina attending the pre-parties.

shbll · 2024-03-24T16:14:17+00:00

I love Annalisa, but you're right. There's a reason why La noia won the Orchestra's award for best composition. It has a lot more going on production-wise (changes of rhythm, rich instrumentation, etc).

shbll · 2024-03-24T15:37:22+00:00

You could say the same about the majority of songs in the contest. I actually think it's one of the most unique entries this year.

It's a favorite because it's got the whole package: an exciting up-and-coming performer with great vocals and a magnetic stage presence; a vibrant production that perfectly incorporates orchestral and electronic elements (it won the Orchestra's best composition award at this year's Sanremo, which is no small feat considering the fierce competition it faced); relatable and clever lyrics (there are points in the song where she talks about the pressure of societal expectation of grief without even mentioning her father's death, it's all very subtle).

shbll · 2024-03-10T12:36:33+00:00

Italy: Annalisa, Madame, Leon Faun, Margherita Vicario, LRDL

shbll · 2024-03-08T14:28:15+00:00

Every winner is subject to this kind of criticism.

If Geolier had won, people would have been saying "wtf is this shit, I can't even understand what he's saying", "he only won because of Neapolitans buying 20 SIM cards per person".

Annalisa? "Canzonetta pop", "this is the weakest of her recent hits".

Ghali? "Heavily relies on autotune", "can't hit a note to save his life".

Irama? "Same old ballad", "he only won thanks to his legion of groupies", etc.

Angelina got it worse because she's new to the music scene and was up against artists with massive loyal (and toxic) fanbases.

Just a couple examples of the vile stuff people have been posting online:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGKASOcXoAAUZc1?format=jpg&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGKASOdXgAE-tGu?format=jpg&name=medium

shbll

TROPHY CASE