David Fear Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Look, I thought The Dark Knight had a lot of strong selling points: Combine a deft pace with thoughtful characterizations and a whopping IMAX design that turns the entire experience into a plot-driven theme park ride, and you've got one hefty dose of Batman adrenaline.

Still, comparisons to The Godfather Part II notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn't foolproof -- in fact, no single movie in history is foolproof. The subjective experience of movie watching ensures that nothing can be universally liked by everyone, and rules of civility insist that humanity respect that truism. It's acceptable to feel passionately about a great work of art, and defend that perspective with rigorous argumentation, but much of the outrage over the minority perspective that The Dark Knight isn't any good has made such practical thinking impossible.

Deemed the first critic to pan the movie, New York's David Edelstein went out of his way to list the allegations against him sent along by various Batman fans. The House Next Door editor Keith Uhlich, meanwhile, fielded over a hundred rants in the comments section following his astute critique of director Christopher Nolan's questionable portrayals of violence. What's particularly shocking about this frightful deluge of negative responses is that many of these people began posting their disapproval before they even saw the movie.

What are the most anticipated movies at this year's Tribeca Film Festival? And has that (relatively) young festival in fact found a voice yet? And what does Tribeca's premiering Baby Mama and Speed Racer at this year's fest say about the uneasy relationship between high art and big headlines in New York's media world? Plus, what the end of New Line Cinema says about the state of the industry, and can Warner Brothers market The Dark Knight while still honoring Heath Ledger? Joining us this week on The Rocchi Review to talk about Tribeca and summer entertainment is film critic David Fear of Time Out New York as we discuss all of the above and more ... Cinematical's podcast content now has even better sound quality, and is now in iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

Woody Allen's left New York with Cassandra's Dream, but someone else is coming to town in Cloverfield. ... Speaking of wanton destruction, the WGA strike's still going on -- so it seems like a good idea to get out of town for Sundance, doesn't it? Joining James this week to talk about all these topics and more is film critic David Fear of Time Out New York. Cinematical's podcast content now has even better sound quality, and is now in iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

Does the end-of-the-year overload of prestige pictures and big festivals hurt more movies than it helps? What are a few smaller movies that, while wonderful, might get overlooked in the Oscar rush? And what's coming up for the end of October to chill and haunt moviegoers around Halloween time? Joining James on The Rocchi Review this week to talk about those questions and much more is Time Out New York film critic David Fear. You can download the entire podcast right here -- and we hope you enjoy.

It was gone for a while -- but now, it's back -- Coming Distractions, Cinematical's weekly podcast! This week's special guest is Time Out New York Film Critic David Fear, and David and myself talk about Jesus Camp, The Last King of Scotland, Shortbus and many others -- as well as the New York Film Festival, the difference between cretins and Spartans and much, much more. You can listen to the entire podcast by just downloading it here -- and let us know what you'd most like to hear in the Podcast in the future!

(Music credits: "Overdose," Dumb.)