Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Jumper
I decided to rent the movie. After about 20 minutes I had to stop it. The writing just doesn't sound authentic. Jackson's character spoke like a stereotypical villain and the bar fight scene was so predictable. I don't even feel like watching the rest now. Is it just me, or did the writing sound pretty bad to anyone else?— November 19, 2008 4:36 p.m.
Transformers
You can think of this movie in a "dualistic" way : teenagers will think this is a masterpiece and adults will say it is a boring movie for kids. Both points of view have equal value. Basically this is a very good movie, but only if you are below 20. The computer graphics is at the state of the art. Impressive ! Those robots look almost perfectly real and you can even "feel" their heavy weight. Michael Bay has put together a very good product. If you have children, this DVD is the perfect gift. The only problem this movie has is that it is not enough interesting for adult people. But after all it was targeted to a young audience, so this does not lower its success. It is really well done ! In short, if you are under 20, rent this DVD, probably you will like it a lot, if you are over 20, find something else to rent.— November 19, 2008 4:34 p.m.
None
This movie was terrible. I have been a fan for years and the stories in the old movies were so much better, basically they were awesome with the exception of Temple of Doom. For starters, ALIENS!!! Are you effing kidding me, come on Lucas and Spielberg, leave the aliens in Star Wars and E.T., but for pete's sake do not put them in Indiana Jones. Two, when that nuclear bomb blows up and Indy is saved by hiding in a fridge that hurdled over a thousand feet and he is just fine. That was beyond stupid, it was absurd to think a fridge could save a human from a nuclear bomb. Then LaBeouf is flying on vines with monkeys, this made me think of Tarzan and probably the cheesiest two minutes in the history of cinema. Lastly the story just sucked, you never really got a feel for any of the characters (except for Indy cause you already know who his character is, but the others, no character development) and to bring back Indy's old love interest was boring and you would think that Indy would know that he had son after his son has been alive for around twenty years. I would believe this if his son was like three years old, but twenty years old, not so much. That's another thing, Indy and his son when they finally do meet seem like that they couldn't give two sh*ts about each other in the entire movie. In the Last Crusade Indy and his dad were always helping each other out and Indy saves his dad's life in the end with the holy grail. This movie was terrible and if you liked it then kudos to you for liking National Treasure 3 with aliens and giant ants, but it disgraced Indy's legacy and I pray to God that Lucas and Spielberg do not attempt a fifth installment.— November 19, 2008 4:31 p.m.
Speed Racer
I've learned with these kind of movies you just have to ignore the critics and see for yourself. To me, the movie was true to the cartoon. The visuals were great, the W. bros really went out of there way to capture the feel and the (very cool) absurdity of the Speed Racer cartoons. I mean come on, buzzsaws coming out the front, Speed racing up the side of a mountain, you cant do that stuff without throwing all reality concepts out the window and make the movie according to the rules set in it's own cartoon world. Speed Racer the cartoon was never met to filmed on a regular Nascar track, nor was the Mac-5 meant to filmed as some kind of Camaro, W. Bros did what any Speed Racer fan would have done themselves, they stayed true to the material. I hope they make a sequel and have the Mammoth Car in it.— November 19, 2008 10:38 a.m.
The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club is really funny and touching, but its just so damn unrealistic. That is its biggest problem. 5 kids who represent every facet of the school are thrown together in Saturday school. They all have tortured lives and cry in each others arms like it's group therapy. Eventually the popular girl gives her virginity to the outcast criminal because he has a hard life and the jock ends up with the crazy basketcase girl because they threw some make up on her. Ya okay, sure! You want high school realism watch Dazed and Confused or American Graffiti.— November 19, 2008 10:34 a.m.
Casino
Casino was hugely underrated by critics and audiences at the time of its release. Yes, its horribly violent(but purposely so) in places, it drags and overdoes on the voice-over and ultimately pales in comparison of Scorsese's fresher, more inspired Goodfellas. Yet, this is a remarkable, brutal and totally engrossing experience with dislikable yet ultimately human characters, a mostly gripping and exhaustingly detailed narrative and outstanding production design. This is real cinema; bold, beautiful, shocking, vivid and unmissable. Rediscover it.— November 18, 2008 5:21 p.m.
The Golden Compass
There were some parts of the film that were very charming, ie, the Daemons and Sam Shepherd.. The rest of it was just rushed along, from one piece of exposition to the next. It needed far more room for everything to breathe and perhaps really did need the sort of pacing that was present in Lord Of The Rings to enable us to engage with each character. The characterisations were shallow and under-drawn as we rush from one event (conveniently explained to us by someone or other in each scene).... This was unnecessary, with more fleshing out, this could have been avoided. The exposition was very over the top and at times utterly patronising. All in all, it wasn't a success as a film. I have not read the books, and am purely judging this on the narrative, pacing, script and acting within a fantasy film. To this end it's a faliure really. A noble one, but a rushed sketch of what I am told is a deep and metaphysical book.— November 18, 2008 5:18 p.m.
None
300 is not a terrible movie it's just totally one dimensional. If all your looking for is kick-butt action than you'll love it, but if your a viewer most interested in something substantive than you'll find it sub par. It's all a matter of what you look for in a movie. 300 is mindless, but some people actually like to turn off their brains at the movies while others like to be challenged intellectually and emotionally, if that's you, don't see 300; go rent Traffic or another film with character and narrative complexities.— November 18, 2008 5:14 p.m.
None
Dazed is so honest and so much like life that it's tranquility is easily overlooked. It doesn't stretch a whole year dealing with sex and abortions and final exams like Fast Times does and its not group therapy like The Breakfast Club. It's less than 24 hours in life of 70's teenagers. Thats it. The dramatic conflict is small, but existent and the realism is so light and frivolous that the film is easy to dismiss as unimportant, but it's a truly dead on nostalgia piece that doesn't have a false note. The freshman actors may have seemed akward, but thats the point. It's really akward and uncomfortable to be a 14 year old hanging with seniors.— November 18, 2008 4:43 p.m.
Crash
The movie gives all of it's characters some time in a bad light. Watch and you will see that all of the characters have gaping flaws in their character, yet each one thinks they've just about got it all together. This seems a very good mirror on the behavior I see when I watch people. Awesome film.— November 18, 2008 4:36 p.m.