Here's something you might be interested in.
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
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
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
Now Streaming: RUST (2024)
The “church scene” didn’t make the final cut, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the first thing that comes to mind every time a bullet is fired
Rust shrouds Alec Baldwin in darkness.
RUST (2024) John Souza / Writers: John Souza and Alec Baldwin / Cinematographers: Halyna Hutchins and Bianca Cline (2.35:1) / Designer: Bryan Norvelle / Editor: David Andalman / Composers: Lilie Bytheway-Hoy & James Jackson / Acted by: Alec Baldwin, Patrick Scott McDermott, Josh Hopkins, Travis Fimmel, Frances Fisher, & Sam Carson / Distributor: Falling Forward Films / Not Rated / Length: 139 mins.
Sergio Leone-sized close-ups of Panavision eyes are the first thing that greets us, followed by a long shot of a western town, complete with an asthmatic weathervane creaking in the dusty wind. Director Joel Souza and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, the two victims in the piece, make their affinity for past forms clear from the start.
Video:
Trailer: RUST
Sadly, that’s not the only thing that’s clear. Souza was winged by an accidental misfire that claimed the life of Ms. Hutchins during filming. The “church scene” didn’t make the final cut, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t the first thing that comes to mind every time a bullet is fired in Rust, and there are holsters-full. There are simpletons among us who choose to view the tragedy as karmic retribution for all the times Alec “Not Guilty” Baldwin mocked you-know-who on SNL.
Before moving past the white elephant in the room, let us also acknowledge critics whose approach to film appreciation is based solely on story and/or acting. All of a sudden, those who regularly turn a blind eye to composition are the first to chime in on Ms. Hutchins’ use of chiaroscuro when shooting in natural light. Her greatest contribution was doing the art department a solid by keeping the interiors dusky enough to cover the cracks in the production design.
It's clear from the start that Rust comes with “vanity project” invisibly inked in the deal. One must applaud Baldwin’s desire to be a man for all genres. With 165 film and television appearances to his credit, it took some time before a western hit his radar. He obviously believed in the project, hence the triple-threat duties of actor, producer and co-scriptwriter. But as Harland Rust, Baldwin is more interested in mythic proportion than he is in making character. First off, the guy is too damn movie-star clean to have spent more than a few minutes in a dirt-water town. I'm guessing the only time Baldwin set foot on Western soil was during the walk from his trailer to the set. And how long did it take makeup and hair to daily mow every last hair on his manicured whiskers?
Wyoming Territory, 1882: 13-year-old Lucas Hollister (Patrick Scott McDermott) and younger brother Jacob (Easton Malcolm), orphaned by the killing of their parents, sell everything they own just to eat. What are the chances that after chasing a wolf — in broad daylight, in the middle of nowhere — for what felt like a mile, Lucas would stop, aim, fire, and so accidentally kill the father of a boy he had tangled with early on? Look, the plot needed motivating, no matter how big a stretch it was.
Sentenced to death by hanging, Lucas is sprung from jail by Rust, the boys’ grandfather — who, coincidentally also happens to be on the run from the law. Rust is a stone-cold killer by trade, and he and the boy spend the remainder of the film trying to outrun the law. As for Little Jacob, he is all but forgotten — that is, until a reunion is in order. The vistas are sumptuous, but not grand enough to justify a spate of third act sentimentality that tops an unwieldy 140 running time. **
Here's something you might be interested in.
Now Streaming: RUST (2024)
The “church scene” didn’t make the final cut, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the first thing that comes to mind every time a bullet is fired
Now Streaming: RUST (2024)
The “church scene” didn’t make the final cut, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the first thing that comes to mind every time a bullet is fired
Rust shrouds Alec Baldwin in darkness.
RUST (2024) John Souza / Writers: John Souza and Alec Baldwin / Cinematographers: Halyna Hutchins and Bianca Cline (2.35:1) / Designer: Bryan Norvelle / Editor: David Andalman / Composers: Lilie Bytheway-Hoy & James Jackson / Acted by: Alec Baldwin, Patrick Scott McDermott, Josh Hopkins, Travis Fimmel, Frances Fisher, & Sam Carson / Distributor: Falling Forward Films / Not Rated / Length: 139 mins.
Sergio Leone-sized close-ups of Panavision eyes are the first thing that greets us, followed by a long shot of a western town, complete with an asthmatic weathervane creaking in the dusty wind. Director Joel Souza and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, the two victims in the piece, make their affinity for past forms clear from the start.
Video:
Trailer: RUST
Sadly, that’s not the only thing that’s clear. Souza was winged by an accidental misfire that claimed the life of Ms. Hutchins during filming. The “church scene” didn’t make the final cut, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t the first thing that comes to mind every time a bullet is fired in Rust, and there are holsters-full. There are simpletons among us who choose to view the tragedy as karmic retribution for all the times Alec “Not Guilty” Baldwin mocked you-know-who on SNL.
Before moving past the white elephant in the room, let us also acknowledge critics whose approach to film appreciation is based solely on story and/or acting. All of a sudden, those who regularly turn a blind eye to composition are the first to chime in on Ms. Hutchins’ use of chiaroscuro when shooting in natural light. Her greatest contribution was doing the art department a solid by keeping the interiors dusky enough to cover the cracks in the production design.
It's clear from the start that Rust comes with “vanity project” invisibly inked in the deal. One must applaud Baldwin’s desire to be a man for all genres. With 165 film and television appearances to his credit, it took some time before a western hit his radar. He obviously believed in the project, hence the triple-threat duties of actor, producer and co-scriptwriter. But as Harland Rust, Baldwin is more interested in mythic proportion than he is in making character. First off, the guy is too damn movie-star clean to have spent more than a few minutes in a dirt-water town. I'm guessing the only time Baldwin set foot on Western soil was during the walk from his trailer to the set. And how long did it take makeup and hair to daily mow every last hair on his manicured whiskers?
Wyoming Territory, 1882: 13-year-old Lucas Hollister (Patrick Scott McDermott) and younger brother Jacob (Easton Malcolm), orphaned by the killing of their parents, sell everything they own just to eat. What are the chances that after chasing a wolf — in broad daylight, in the middle of nowhere — for what felt like a mile, Lucas would stop, aim, fire, and so accidentally kill the father of a boy he had tangled with early on? Look, the plot needed motivating, no matter how big a stretch it was.
Sentenced to death by hanging, Lucas is sprung from jail by Rust, the boys’ grandfather — who, coincidentally also happens to be on the run from the law. Rust is a stone-cold killer by trade, and he and the boy spend the remainder of the film trying to outrun the law. As for Little Jacob, he is all but forgotten — that is, until a reunion is in order. The vistas are sumptuous, but not grand enough to justify a spate of third act sentimentality that tops an unwieldy 140 running time. **