Co-host of the Dare Daniel and Canon Fodder podcasts and a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle.
STEPMOM (1998; Chris Columbus) GRADE: D- By Daniel Barnes *Originally published on the Movie City USA blog on June 5, 2008. At the end of Chris Columbus’ mummified would-be tearjerker Stepmom, a credit reads, “In Loving Memory of Irene Columbus.” It’s a reference to the director’s mother, who […]
By Daniel Barnes *Originally published on the Movie City USA blog on August 21, 2007 [w/updated comments at the end] “He makes Hollywood feel better about itself.” -David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film I think that Thomson means this not just in the sense that Ron […]
“ARRESTED ADOLESCENCE IN PRE-APATOW AMERICA” (the silent era – 1996) By Professor Daniel Barnes Dub challenged me to create a course on “films about overgrown adolescents that don’t involve Judd Apatow.” Although Apatow got his start on TV in the early 1990s, his first film credits were on […]
The Big Wedding (2013; Justin Zackham) GRADE: F By Daniel Barnes It is important to note that I was dared to watch The Big Wedding by my father, Walter Barnes, Jr. Besides being a wonderful Dad, my father is a huge movie fan, and his early influence is […]
Youth of the Beast (1963; Seijun Suzuki) GRADE: A- By Daniel Barnes “Irreverent Energy” Youth of the Beast is the first movie I have seen from Seijun Suzuki, the Japanese director best known for flashy crime films like Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter. I am eager […]
L’ECLISSE (1962; Michelangelo Antonioni) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes As much as Antonioni stripped the narratives of L’Avventura and La Notte down to their bare essentials, those films had natural forward momentum and classic narrative shapes. L’Avventura takes on the basic structure of an unsolvable, Laura-like mystery, while […]
