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Rust & Bone (De rouille et d'os)
Trying to see what anyone could like about 'Rust and Bone'...I cannot. A drab, unimaginative plot. Aimless shaky-cam, polarized, overcast photography. Barely skin-deep characterizations, less character development than in the average After School Special. Horrendously cliched writing and poor coverage of all the essential action in the story (such as it is). Hmm...it's "edgy" alright. And it has a modicum of class consciousness. And Marion Cotillard's CGI-reduced body. What else? Mediocre pop songs. A bad joke that this is what passes for a critically acclaimed French movie these days. Shame on Landmark for their miserable lack of decent foreign movies this past year, and letting the latest Peter Jackson "epic" infest its screens. Where is Resnais's 'You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!'? Hell, pretty much any French movie of 2012 is going to be better than 'Rust and Bone'.— December 28, 2012 3:25 a.m.
Matters of Fact
I am ashamed of what I wrote on this page - almost immediately after I wrote it. It's too bad they won't let you delete your own posts on here. What I've been ashamed of, in this off-the-cuff shooting off of my big mouth, was not so much in the content of my criticisms of Duncan Shepherd's naysayers, but in focusing my rage at one man in particular: Scott Marks. He may have been the most frequently irritating commenter; he was far from the worst (look no further than the fascistic Josh Board for the worst). For the record, Marks originally said (Re: 'The Beaches of Agnes'): "You know, I’ll be honest with you, after watching this film, I was shocked by how many Agnes Varda films I haven’t seen and how many of them look terrible." I'd appreciate it if Marks had simply said - 'Hey, Jabez, you're full of wind: I misspoke..we only have a limited amount of time on the radio to devote to movies like this, so...I misspoke, nu? So shoot me.'...instead, he went on to claim that he was only talking about '101 Nights''s clip. The rest of his comments: "Man, does that look bad. That looks – And what caught me is Robert De Niro’s in a film and I haven’t seen it? This thing looks so pretentious and so silly and I was talking to Duncan Shepherd when it was over and he said her career is really uneven. Maybe just the great ones like “Vagabond” and “Cleo From 5 to 7”." What set me off (my 'final straw' after listening to such prattle for years), what to my ears sounded like a misrepresentation of what Duncan Shepherd said, I can see may not be too 'off the mark'. What ever, that's his style - vague, scatter-shot, take-it-or-leave-it. I'm not advocating the critic be hanged for not being precise as can be. I could, of course chosen the mature response: turn of the radio and ignore it. Maybe focused on exposing a real evil lurking under our noses (e.g., Josh Board). Oh well, that's past, and no one is going to read this, so why am I wasting more time? One last picking at the scab: Mr. Marks's cavils at the Coen brothers' 'True Grit' as a "remake" of a John Wayne movie (a common misconception in the illiterate media), and as nothing more than a "trace" over what he regards as a mediocre original, will stand as some of the most silly comments made about this movie. And the fact he gives it the same low, low rating as 'Jonah Hex' shows how prejudiced his reactionary criticism is. But at least it's criticism, unlike the kind of junk that Board or Jay Sanford pump out.— January 9, 2011 1:43 a.m.
True Grit Stands Alone
"you people make me sick. im so tired of living in a world full of mostly stupid people. god" Sez the "Tea Party" apologist. Try using Capitols and punctuation next time, and I'll get a giant pillow for that head of yours.— December 29, 2010 4:53 a.m.
True Grit Stands Alone
I could only hope 1 of 3 of the reviewers now are "as bad as Duncan was", I can only hope.— December 29, 2010 4:48 a.m.
True Grit Stands Alone
Hah, #1 - memory ... I remember the ratings of nearly all the movies Duncan Shepherd reviewed. So call me a freak. #2 - yes, I do have stacks of old readers where I live. No need to call me one, freakdom confirmed. I'd like to point out that I am of course flawed: for instance, I said the original review of 'Unstoppable' was a Black Spot review -- I was wrong, it was a 1 Star (surprisingly). I remember a couple of other times in the past I was wrong....— December 29, 2010 4:46 a.m.
True Grit Stands Alone
Glad to hear it. What matters most - of course - is that all the original text of the reviews remain in their original state. The ratings are only there to confuse. I was sort of hoping that the Reader would stop using ratings altogether in Shepherd's absence. Mr. Shepherd may have originally borrowed the Black Spot from Cashiers du cinema (or was it Robert Louis Stevenson?), but he made it so distinctly his own, it's sort of a shame to see it passed on like this. Anyhoo, as long as the reviews are up, they can use any symbols (♡, ✿, ☀, ☺, ☼, ۞, et cetra) or amount of them, and I'll be fine!— December 24, 2010 4:18 a.m.
True Grit Stands Alone
By the way, really good reviews of 'The Fighter' and 'True Grit', John Rubio!— December 22, 2010 7:10 p.m.
True Grit Stands Alone
The ratings system on the Reader website has gone goofy, for whatever reason. I first noticed in the review of 'Unstoppable' by Duncan Shepherd, a new rating mysteriously appears: "Reader Rating: 3.0 ★★★ " The original rating was of course a black spot (●), as anybody could tell after reading the review. Exact same problem in the Shepherd review of 'Due Date' (it was promoted bizarrely from black spot - to - 3 stars. I've noticed this upping of the ratings in many other reviews posted this week, higher than the original movie reviewer indicated. I don't know what gives here, but it's time to fix that. Many other false ratings: 'The The Social Network' now gets 4 stars (originally only 1), 'Elf' gets 2 (it received only 1 in Duncan Shepherd's review). On the other hand, it also cuts the other way: 'Inside Job' and 'Mao's Last Dancer' are now listed with black spots - originally they were given a star each. And 'The King's Speech' is listed as a black spot when I distinctly remember David Elliot's 4-star review. Last one I'll mention: DE's 1-star for '127 Hours' is now listed as 3 stars. So it's obviously not a conspiracy to mess with Mr. Shepherd's integrity alone. I first noticed such ratings problems on this site when I saw 4-stars for 'Tootsie' and 'Edward Scissorhands'. I only ever saw 2 stars for those movies in print. 'Scissorhands' is back to it's rightful rating, but 'Tootsie' is still at 4 stars for some reason. What gives?— December 22, 2010 7:08 p.m.
So Long
"I just hope that he will now compile his best articles in a book, or books, a la Mencken and Nathan, Agee and Farber..." ▬ ▬ ▬Amen to that.— November 20, 2010 2:01 a.m.
David Elliott’s Declaration of Pleasure
"What to make of those numbers?". What I make of those numbers, if you've really only heard of 14 of the 50 mentioned, is that you aren't much of a cinephile. By all means, get thee to Kensington video and see 'Olympia','Playtime', 'I, the Worst of All', 'Pee-wee’s Big Adventure', 'Monsieur Vincent', 'Jackie Brown', 'A Taste of Cherry', 'L’eclisse', and Apu Trilogy, if you're interested in the true power and majesty of the movies. While I have plenty of problems with this new regime, not least of all this week's straining to appeal to "Duncanistas" (a "word" I pray never to see again), I wish to bury any annoyances I've had with Mr. Elliott in the past (giving a lone star to 'Last Days of Disco', that dog!), and hope for him a successful run in these pages. And congratulations to John Rubio, who I'm very happy to see play a part in filling in some of this immense hole left in the movie culture of San Diego.— November 18, 2010 7:19 p.m.