Tangerine (2015; Sean Baker) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes A relatively minor up-all-night comedy elevated to the status of a significant breakthrough by casting transgender performers in the roles of transgender prostitutes, and by refraining from ever psychoanalyzing or judging them. Meanwhile, harsh judgment gets rightly reserved for […]
Cartel Land (2015; Matthew Heineman) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes Beyond the usual genre themes of heroism and sacrifice, the greatest war films tend to project a sense of an intractable and ultimately unwinnable situation. Whether it be WWI in All Quiet on the Western Front or WWII […]
A Poem is a Naked Person (1974/2015; Les Blank) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes Documentarian Les Blank (Burden of Dreams) started shooting A Poem is a Naked Person in 1972 and completed it in 1974. However, the film was held up for decades by legal issues, and it’s […]
Magic Mike XXL (2015; Gregory Jacobs) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes Steven Soderbergh’s male stripper drama Magic Mike became a left-field hit in 2012, grossing over $100 million at the domestic box office against a budget of $7 million. Magic Mike cemented the star power of Channing Tatum, […]
Rebels of the Neon God (1992: Tsai Ming-liang) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes Festival circuit cinephiles revere Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang for films like Goodbye Dragon Inn, What Time is It There?, last year’s Stray Dogs, and Journey to the West (the slow-walking monk one, not the kung […]
The Wolfpack (2015; Crystal Moselle) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes *Opens today at the Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco, the Landmark Shattuck Cinema in Berkeley, and the Regency in San Rafael. Many hardcore cinephiles are socially maladroit misfits, and many more behave as though they learned how […]
