The new Bond is not just another pretty face, in fact is a pretty craggy face.
November 16, 2006
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Stories by Duncan Shepherd
Early Season
Mightier Than the Sword
The more you know about an event, the more tainted it will get.
October 26, 2006
Preliminaries
The director tries to lose the viewer in a maze of flashbacks-within-flashbacks.
October 19, 2006
Superman Departs
The parallel plotlines take a long time to shed any light on each other.
September 7, 2006
Debt
Manny Farber was a friend of mine before we ever met. I recall exactly how I was introduced. I had read Pauline Kael's jeremiad on Andrew Sarris and the auteur theory, “Circles and Squares,” in …
May 25, 2006
Top Dogs
Movies reviewed this week: Eight Below, Final Destination 3, Firewall, Freedomland and The Pink Panther
February 16, 2006
Burst
Seldom has so small a film created so big a flap. The flap, to be sure, has nothing whatever to do with the film itself, identified on the poster as "another Steven Soderbergh experience," though …
February 9, 2006
On Watch
Movies reviewed this week: Caché, Imagine Me and You and Mrs. Henderson Presents
February 2, 2006
No Competition
Movies reviewed this week: Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World and Match Point
January 26, 2006
In the Beginning
Movies reviewed this week: Hoodwinked, The New World, Transamerica, and Tristan and Isolde
January 19, 2006
Ivory and Ebony
Movies reviewed this week: Glory Road, Last Holiday, and The White Countess
January 12, 2006
Pictures of Contentment
More and more, I notice myself in the middle of a movie, or in the first ten minutes of a movie, putting the experience to the fundamental test. Am I content to be watching this …
January 5, 2006
Stuffed Stocking
Movies reviewed this week: Breakfast on Pluto, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, The Family Stone, Fun with Dick and Jane, King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha, andWolf Creek
December 22, 2005
Lion and Sheep
Movies reviewed this week: Brokeback Mountain and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
December 15, 2005
Potter’s Field
Movies reviewed this week: Aeon Flux, The Dying Gaul, Loggerheads, Protocols of Zion, and Syriana
December 8, 2005
Harry IV
Movies reviewed this week: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Ice Harvest, and Rent
December 1, 2005
Matches and Mismatches
Movies reviewed this week: Bee Season, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Pride and Prejudice, and Walk the Line
November 17, 2005
The Latest Generation
Movies reviewed this week: Jarhead, Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic, and Zathura
November 10, 2005
Four of a Kind
Movies reviewed this week: Prime, Shopgirl, The Squid and the Whale, and The Weather Man
November 3, 2005
Never Say Quit
Movies reviewed this week: Dreamer, Elizabethtown, Good Night, and Good Luck, and North Country
October 20, 2005
The Price of Art
Filmmakers have a hard enough time telling the truth about fictional characters fashioned out of whole cloth.
October 13, 2005
Impure Pleasure
Movies reviewed this week: In Her Shoes, Oliver Twist, and Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
October 6, 2005
Into the Out-Box
Movies reviewed this week: Côte d’Azur, Everything Is Illuminated, Just Like Heaven, Proof, Reel Paradise, The Thing about My Folks, Thumbsucker, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
September 22, 2005
A Leaf Turns
Movies reviewed this week: Crimen Perfecto, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Memory of a Killer, and A Sound of Thunder
September 8, 2005
Better and Better
Movies reviewed this week: Asylum, The Constant Gardener, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and Tony Takitani
September 1, 2005
Month of the Dead
We have reached the tail end of the Dog Days, where my choices seem to be either to do one or more of The Brothers Grimm, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, …
August 25, 2005
Wong Place, Wong Time
Movies reviewed this week: The Great Raid, Grizzly Man, Junebug, 9 Songs, Red Eye, and 2046
August 18, 2005
Summer Snow
Movies reviewed this week: Four Brothers, The Aristocrats, King of the Corner, Last Days, The Devil's Rejects and The Dukes of Hazzard
August 11, 2005
Bouquet
Movies reviewed this week: Broken Flowers, Lila Says, Murderball, and November
August 4, 2005
The Long Comeback
Movies reviewed this week: À Tout de Suite, Bad News Bears, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, 5x2 and Saraband
July 28, 2005
On the Dark Side
Movies reviewed this week: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Cronicas, Happy Endings, Hustle and Flow, The Island, and Wedding Crashers
July 21, 2005
Bad Dad, Better Mother
Movies reviewed this week: Dark Water, Me and You and Everyone We Know, and War of the Worlds
July 14, 2005
Major Peckinpah
The movie at two hours was already a bit short on action and long on character.
July 7, 2005
No Nicer Witch
Movies reviewed this week: Après Vous, Bewitched, Heights, Land of the Dead, and My Summer of Love
June 23, 2005
Fighting Depression
Movies reviewed this week: Cinderella Man, Lords of Dogtown, Mad Hot Ballroom, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, andThe Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
June 9, 2005
Prequelitis
Movies reviewed this week: Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
June 2, 2005
Instrument of Torture
There it sits, seemingly every week among the movie ads in these pages, an advertisement for myself (to lift a snippet from Norman Mailer), but taken out by somebody else. "Thousands of Duncan Shepherd's Movie …
May 5, 2005
Fistful of Peanuts
Movies reviewed this week: Don’t Move, Kung Fu Hustle, A Lot Like Love, Oldboy, and Walk on Water
April 21, 2005
Unequal Thirds
Movies reviewed this week: Eros, In My Country, and Melinda and Melinda
April 7, 2005
Field of Seven
Movies reviewed this week: Dear Frankie, D.E.B.S., Downfall, Millions, The Ring Two, Schultze Gets the Blues, and The Upside of Anger
March 24, 2005