by Chris Shappley | Jul 29, 2010 | Opinion
The first half of 2010 hasn’t provided the public with a plethora of quality cinema. It has been a strong contrast to recent years in that there hasn’t been very much I found worth spending $10 of my hard-earned cash on. Toy Story 3 was the exception, but besides that little gem, I have been overwhelmed with disappointment over what has been offered at the Cineplex. You can typically count on the summer to unload several blockbusters that are at least a blast to see. But after Prince of Persia, Knight and Day and many others bombed, I began to lose hope that this summer would bring us anything worth remembering. Finally that changed. Christopher Nolan, director of some the best films over the last decade (Memento and The Dark Knight), changed this summer’s landscape in a singe weekend with Inception. With a brilliant marketing campaign that left much of the plot out of the trailers, TV spots and posters, Inception wowed America and the world on day one. It is no wonder almst every detail was left out of the ads. Two and half hours were barely enough to explain every detail, I can’t imagine trying to present a general idea into a few seconds. But I am going to try. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a man with the ability to enter someone’s subconscious as he sleeps and extract ideas for whomever happens to be paying him (this method is known as extraction). He has a team that consists of Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) Ariadne (Ellen Page), Eames (Tom Hardy), Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and Saito (Ken Watanabe). Saito,...
by Chris Shappley | Jun 22, 2010 | News Slider
High expectations were a big part of the baggage I toted to my first Bonnaroo. My plans were that the four-day festival would change the way I experience music. Of course, I didn’t fully express that before the festival, simply because I wanted to cushion the fall if Bonnaroo failed to live up the hype. Now, a week or so after Dave Matthews Band closed it out, I look back and can say Bonnaroo not only lived up to the hype, it was one of the best experiences of my life. From the moment I first walked beneath the Bonnaroo arch and into Centeroo (where all of the stages are located) until DMB’s final notes, I was enchanted. The What Stage was larger than life, providing the best concert experience I’ve ever had. The three tents (This, That and The Other) housed so many great acts in a single day that I found myself having so many choices, I quickly realized I was going to have to miss several must-see shows just so I could be at another must-see. What a great problem to have. The weekend started off Thursday evening with Miike Snow at This Tent. Snow is an incredible up-and-coming artist and was the first act I knew I had to see. As I stood there listening to Snow kill his song, “Animal,” I looked around and tried to soak up the epic size of the festival around me. There were things going on everywhere. That was the moment when I knew four days wouldn’t be enough to absorb everything. From Miike Snow, my friends and I went over to That Tent where we spent the rest...
by Chris Shappley | Jun 22, 2010 | Opinion
For more than a decade Disney and Pixar have enchanted the world with some of the best animation in the history of cinema. After teaming up for 11 films to date, they have only misfired once — that being the incredibly generic Cars. But for the most part, Pixar has had the ability to deliver classic after classic on an annual basis. This has never been more clear than with their most recent film Toy Story 3. Unlike Toy Story 2, the third one doesn’t pick up where the previous one left off. We are immediately thrust into a world very different from the previous films. Andy is getting ready for college and Woody, Buzz and the other toys are dealing with a reality where they aren’t played with anymore. And after a couple of instances of bad luck they find themselves donated to Sunnyside Day Care. At first, this new location seems as though it will be a new start for the toys. They will have kids wanting to play with them all day every day. But when they are relocated to a room with kids much too young to be playing with them, their new home becomes one of terror. Thus sets the plot of trying to escape Sunnyside and make it back to Andy’s house before Andy leaves for college. Pixar succeeds where many other animation studios fail. Toy Story 3 introduces several new characters with their individual quirks and personalities. These characters have a certain depth that may be lost on some of the younger viewers, but makes the experience worthwhile for the older kids like myself who...
by Chris Shappley | Jun 7, 2010 | Opinion
Tennessee has always had a reputation as a place to hear great music. I know this well: I grew up in Memphis. In Memphis, it was common to see Elvis impersonators around the city. In fact, Presley’s home, Graceland, is the second-most visited house in the country behind The White House. And if you are looking for he real flavor of the city, stroll down Beale Street and listen to classic blues music no matter what time of day. Going to school at Lipscomb in Nashville has provided me with yet another type of music experience. And it’s not just the difference between Memphis blues and Nashville’s country music scene. While Memphis is a city known for its musical heritage, Nashville is known for its musical present, a place where where people from all over the world come to break into the music business. And it’s not just country music; it’s also rock, pop and more. However, in the last nine years Tennessee has garnered a reputation for another kind of musical experience: the music festival. Oh sure, there’s the big CMA festival here in Nashville, but that is an outgrowth of the long-time Fan Fair country music festival. The type of music festival I’m talking about here is one word that has come to describe an experience: “Bonnaroo.” That modern — rock, hip-hop, country and more — music festival takes place only 50 minutes away in Manchester, Tenn. What began as sort of a jam-band celebration in 2002 has evolved. In its ninth year has become one of the biggest and most diverse music festivals in the world....
by Chris Shappley | Jun 7, 2010 | Opinion
Lipscomb had a unique opportunity last week to host the Christian Scholars Conference, during which scholars from all over the country descended upon the campus to hear panel discussions and speeches on theology, art, racism and many other topics. But what may have been the highlight of the conference was not a panel or speech, but a play. John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt has been performed on stages all over the country, and has even been turned into a major motion picture starring such masters as Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. But last week, it was Lipscomb’s Mike Fernandez, chair of the Theater Department, who took the director’s role. Directing such a renowned play is probably trying, but when you add the fact that Shanley himself was in attendance for the opener, it’s obvious that it was a taxing — if rewarding — time for Fernandez. I’m happy to report that Doubt was performed without a hitch. And while the play was well directed and acted, the best part of the evening came after the curtain closed that first night. That’s when the talk-back began. Shanley and the cast and designers, including Fernandez, talked openly to audience about what the experience of putting on Doubt meant to them. The audience was able to ask questions, and most of them were directed towards Shanley. It was great to hear from Shanley how he took experiences from his childhood to help him write the play. In a moment of bluntness, Shanley tried to describe what it was like seeing his play being performed at Lipscomb. He said, in so many words,...
