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Your Week — Daily event picks
Rancho Bernardo man fights Navy helicopters
What if the rotor head of a helicopter DID know what kind of mission it was on?— May 14, 2014 11:55 p.m.
Something fishy about Filner's accuser: where there is smoke there are mirrors
Who is this "historymatters," and does he have a name? Or is he content to hide behind an alias while spewing political conspiracy theories that don't hold up to scrutiny?— July 23, 2013 1:26 a.m.
Car Hits Moped Rider in Point Loma
What do you care?— October 8, 2012 11:43 p.m.
Photographer Attacked by Pit Bull in Ocean Beach
Good point. These pitbull defenders are just plain in denial. Pathetic.— October 8, 2012 11:39 p.m.
Photographer Attacked by Pit Bull in Ocean Beach
You're insane to imply that the photographer and officer might have done something to provoke the dog. What would that be? You list "burning them with cigarettes, cutting off ears," as examples. So you think the photographer might have burned the pitbull with a cigarette? Are you crazy?— October 8, 2012 11:38 p.m.
Ocean Beach Pier Jump Goes Unpunished
SurfPuppy, the reason they would arrest him is that it would create a deterrent effect. Numerous people have died after jumping off the pier. If it becomes known that all you will get is a ticket if you are caught, then it becomes more likely that future people will jump, and therefore more likely that future people will die. As I am sure you can imagine, the costs of booking an arrestee are nothing compared to the costs of handling a drowning.— October 8, 2012 11:35 p.m.
Shocking Video: Skateboarding Veteran Run Over
This is very sad. I hope there will be a follow-up article.— October 8, 2012 11:33 p.m.
David Elliott's Final Column
Delmartian, "the plotline was ridiculous," you say. Stay away from science-fiction stories if you think the Engineers story was ridiculous. (I hear there's even a movie series where a bunch of earthlings travel around ina ship getting into conflicts with bipedal creatures from other galaxies, and some of those bipeds have pointy ears, or forehead wrinkles! Stay. Away.) Regarding your claim that "the acting was silly," what a concise word you used there: "Silly." What does it mean? Noomi Rapace did a silly job of portraying a woman trying to survive alien attacks? Michael Fassbender did a silly job portraying an android? I thought they were both very good in their roles. When you say "the conclusion was disappointing," why were you disappointed? Did you want big answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything? Could any movie satisfy? I admit "Prometheus" gets stuck in place, and turns into a monsters-versus-people story. But that's all I wanted from a prequel to "Alien." That and maybe John Hurt's stomach exploding after eating spaghetti.— June 18, 2012 5:41 a.m.
David Elliott's Final Column
Wow, somebody sure hated "Prometheus"! Head on over to this week's New Yorker and David Denby's review. He enjoyed the film -- on its own terms, not on terms he dictated in advance of entering the theater (or that were the result of previews that built misleading expectations). Error #1 in your premises, David, is that a "veteran director" won't make mistakes, even if he has "years to plan" (as if he was sitting around twiddling his thumbs the whole time, as opposed to working on other projects and having a life). Plus as we all know, veteran directors have to do the same desperate tapdance as anybody else to convince studios to invest heavily in their 100-million-dollar auteur projects. Error #2 is the assumption that somebody has "squandered his resources" when you haven't established why you think they were squandered. The film was a science-fiction horror thriller, and it comes from a story universe full of monsters eating humans, not Max Von Sydow playing chess with Death. "2001: A Space Odyssey" has already been done, and re-done if you count Brian DePalma's "Mission to Mars" thing, which plays out the "Chariots of the God" DNA-planting story, complete with M&M's product placement. Ridley Scott is a visualist first, and he always has been, going back to his days as a commercial director. In "Thelma & Louise" he made sure to light up the mountains, realistic dusk be damned. "Blade Runner" can't even keep its number of androids straight. The only reason Scott managed cohesion and spatial discipline in "Black Hawk Down" is he employed a team of military authenticators. Scott's story mind has never been a steel trap; it's more like a shiny aluminum misting machine. Error #3 is in assuming the film is "junk piled" from past films, when obviously its status as a prequel means audiences will expect some echoes of the past, successful works. Characters are traveling in space -- if not in cryo-stasis, then why not? They do it in "Alien" so it only makes sense to do it here, too. But you can take that repetitive element and change it around, add new elements (a robot who dribbles a basketball, and reads people's dreams?). Regarding the movie as a whole, I thought it had flaws, but naysayers seem to be piling on to an absurd degree.— June 18, 2012 5:33 a.m.
David Elliott's Final Column
Your comment #11 says more about you being angry than it does about what I wrote. I would think you really should be angry, or maybe even angrier. The U-T and the Reader both deserve the anger of all writers who have put in their time and lifeblood and been ill-treated at the endpoint. I don't think you're really angry at me, as I am one of your regular readers, and one of the people who now has far less incentive to pick up the Reader each week, just as I had far less incentive to grab a U-T after their arts coverage flaked away. And I don't think "The Numbers," an abstract non-entity, is the problem. Honestly I think the problem is political, or cultural-political-economic. The things that people value will direct the way they consume and respond to art and entertainment. The Numbers is a symptom. One thing I hope you will do is find an independent platform for your continued writing, and then really let 'er rip, saying everything you never could say when being managed by philistines, as you put it.— June 18, 2012 4:59 a.m.