Co-host of the Dare Daniel and Canon Fodder podcasts and a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle.
Once again this year, the Mill Valley Film Festival got off to a splashy, star-heavy start, with west coast premieres of Arrival and La La Land attended by their respective stars Amy Adams and Emma Stone. My noble colleagues in the San Francisco Film Critics Circle even hobnobbed […]
Spa Night (2016; Andrew Ahn) GRADE: B- Danny Says (2016; Brendan Toller) GRADE: B- Cameraperson (2016; Kirsten Johnson) GRADE: A- By Daniel Barnes *All three films open in the Bay Area on Friday, September 30. Spa Night and Danny Says play at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco; Cameraperson plays at […]
White Girl (2016; Elizabeth Wood) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes *Opens Friday, September 16, at the AMC Van Ness 14 in San Francisco. The 1990s nostalgia trend in pop culture continues with this energetic throwback to Larry Clark’s Kids, Gregg Araki’s early work, and other benchmarks of casually […]
Elevator to the Gallows (1958; Louis Malle) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes This punchy debut feature from French New Wave satellite Louis Malle recently received a 2K digital restoration and a restored soundtrack. All the better to admire the documentary-style depiction of Paris nightlife and the electrifying jazz […]
Mia Madre (2016; Nanni Moretti) GRADE: C+ By Daniel Barnes The 39th annual Mill Valley Film Festival kicks off in about a month, and I plan to cover it here in a fashion similar to my 2014 and 2015 coverage. A full schedule comes out in a couple […]
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016; Werner Herzog) GRADE: C+ By Daniel Barnes *Opens Friday in San Francisco, Berkeley, Monterey, San Jose and San Rafael. From the “repulsive” corridors at UCLA where scientists invented the Internet to the gleaming surfaces of Elon Musk’s rocket lab, […]
