zafiroblue05
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
The Fall
"Debased and diluted surrealism"? Well, the girl imagining it is only five or six! Is she supposed to have some more stately surrealistic imagination? There is a bit more to the plot than merely "guy tells story to girl," which is what I had feared, and if one doesn't cotton to the type of imagery shown -- one look at a trailer should give you a good enough idea -- then skip it. But bully for you, say I. An elephant swimming with fish, a horse slowly lifted out of the water, vast landscapes of brilliant colors, a man encased in a tree, it's branches tying up his dreadlocks, dead bodies strung like a chandelier in a vast hall, miles of maze-like structures, etc. (And there IS more to the film than merely these images, as I said. The last minute or two's homage to silent films and early stuntmen, for example, is in the context both very funny and moving.) I suspect would Duncan sneer at the imagery of, say, the BBC Planet Earth series, finding only "gagging phantasmagoria." That's a shame. But, as I said, bully for him.— October 30, 2009 10:20 p.m.
Wild and Woolly
God almighty. When a circle of people pisses on each other, daisy-chain style, everyone gets splashed in the end. Less blah-bla-blah and more ew-gross-STOP-IT. How about it, everyone?— January 29, 2009 11:12 p.m.
Seasons Go
Interesting that Shepherd liked Batman Begins but criticizes the drive "heighten, deepen, broaden, lengthen, strengthen the experience" of a movie. That is what the first movie without argument did. (He also criticizes the fake death, which I happen to agree about; but he cannot possibly think Gylenhaal survived the explosion. A better example for his point might be Harvey Dent, though Eckhart has said that he's really dead. He shouldn't have had to, though.) The massive anticipation for the Dark Knight occurred for the following reasons: 1) It's Batman, 2) People loved Batman Begins, 3) The Joker is in it, 4) Heath Ledger died. IN THAT ORDER. Ledger made another movie before his death, and despite a huge cast (Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Jude Law, etc.), no one is going to see it. Shepherd's main point is that movies today fill a quasi-religious or -mythological need, that we need "event movies" that enrapture us all rather than pure story-telling. Come on! Does he really think this is anything new? Let's make a list, going backward: Titanic, ET, Star Wars, Godfather, Sound of Music, just about anything with Charlton Heston - but let's say Ten Commandments, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind... etc., etc. Now, to his credit, as I look back through the archives, Duncan isn't particularly enraptured with any of these movies, but the idea that this phenomenon is new is silly. The only difference, nowadays, is the focus on gross revenues, but that has little to do with quasi-religious devotion to movies but instead with a final acknowledgment of the massive control money has over the movie industry. (Oh, and as a total aside, it is dumb to say that the gross of a movie of Titanic or the Dark Knight is smaller than that of Gone with the Wind because of inflation. There were no DVDs or home video in the 30s. The best estimate would be to compare tickets sold with tickets sold + DVDs sold, but they might not even have those numbers.)— September 5, 2008 12:35 p.m.
The Dark Knight clocks in
Johnrubio, of comments 3, 4, etc..., is a fool. He attempts to show (no, "tell," actually, is the word) how unimpeachable Duncan Shepherd is by displaying his own superior command of language and ability to recognize genius. This is ironic, considering that one of (perhaps, the central) Shepherd's own critiques of The Dark Knight is its pretentiousness. Oddly enough, I agree with most of what johnrubio was saying, but a single sentence would have sufficed. To whit: Shepherd has a flair for the language, a knowledge of cinema, and a discerning taste. To which I would add: he unfortunately doesn't have much time for all but the most wink-nod types of humor, all but the most brief types of action, all but the most affected types of sincerity. I personally was only in San Diego for a short time when I noticed (and loved) his reviews, and have been reading them online as soon as I found them here. But I rarely read them to guide me to movies I would like; tastes diverge. Put it this way: among Pixar pictures, Cars got a more positive review than Toy Story 2, the Incredibles, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, and surely more and I can't be bothered to look up? One star to Pan's Labyrinth but four to Mimic(!)? I could go on, but there's not point. As to The Dark Knight: to be sure, Bale is a bad Batman (though not a bad Bruce Wayne), mostly because of that god-awful whisper-voice thing. And yes, he should be able to turn his head. But I thought Ledger was brilliant - one can't really talk about Oscars without seeing other potential candidates, but I can't complain about the Oscar he's sure to win. And to people who really think he's overacting, I ask you: what movie are you watching? Or, to be more precise: what *character* are you watching? When it comes down to it, however, I think Shepherd gets more than a little thrill in taking down huge movies - huge in the sense of popular among both crowds and critics. If he really thinks Nolan takes childish glee in crafting terrorism, he's a brute and and an idiot. To try to "invest some psychological realism and topical relevance into this figure" (that is, the Joker), is wholly missing the point. And does Nolan have a "lack of faith in the fairy-tale form"? Of course not; that's why he made this movie. But does Shepherd - you betcha: "bat ears and clown makeup ill become a crisis of conscience." In sum: TDK isn't a great movie, but it's a good one, maybe very good; Shepherd only puts in a few real points against the movie, and they're either not really right or essential; and he's still the best (my favorite, anyway) reviewer to read, even when you only sometimes or perhaps rarely agree with ihm. [By the way, why does it seem like every couple of weeks Shepherd doesn't publish? Is he not supposed to write every week or was he just taking a week off for some - who knows, personal/family, maybe - reason?]— July 29, 2008 10:44 p.m.
The Show May Go On
Wonderfully-written article. And well done on Meet the Spartans. I wonder, though, if you mean decline to view the movie, or decline to review the movie. Either would make sense. As to the Oscars, they are just an excuse for actors/actresses to get prettied up before cameras, before high-class papparazzi. There is no harm in that, I don't think. You mention the accolades given to Lord of the Rings, to There Will Be Blood, both of which you shrugged your shoulders at and gave one star. Does the acclaim of others affect your point of view?— January 31, 2008 3:37 p.m.