Co-host of the Dare Daniel and Canon Fodder podcasts and a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle.
Claire’s Knee (1970; Eric Rohmer) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes In my review of La Collectionneuse last week, I made this admission about French auteur Eric Rohmer, a director whose work I had never seen before this festival: “Rohmer makes movies that I want to kick off my […]
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014; Dean DeBlois) GRADE: C+ By Daniel Barnes “Decreased Stakes” Perhaps it is unfair to hold a film sequel up to the light of its predecessor, but How to Train Your Dragon 2 fairly groans with the strain of stretching a cute concept […]
Capricious Summer (1968; Jiri Menzel) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes For some reason, I watched Capricious Summer thinking it was the predecessor to writer-director-actor Jiri Menzel’s more polished Closely Watched Trains. Instead, this bawdy and cluttered but raggedly beautiful comedy was Menzel’s follow-up to Closely Watched Trains, which […]
La Collectionneuse (1967; Eric Rohmer) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes Two-thirds of the way through Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales series, I feel that I know exactly what to expect from the French filmmaker, and yet still remain utterly mystified. In writing about his movies, I often feel like […]
Suzanne’s Career (1963; Eric Rohmer) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes Shot on a shoestring and never released theatrically, the 60-minute featurette Suzanne’s Career is a technically abysmal early effort. Most professional filmmakers would look to bury it, as Quentin Tarantino did with My Best Friend’s Birthday. The film […]
Let the Fire Burn (2013; Jason Osder) GRADE: A- By Daniel Barnes Jason Osder’s powerful and disturbing Let the Fire Burn is part of a new wave of media collage documentaries that also includes Brett Morgen’s July 17, 1994 and Penny Lane’s Our Nixon. Rather than offer comforting […]
