Miss Sharon Jones! (2016; Barbara Kopple) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes The 1960s soul revival band Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings built a worldwide reputation primarily on their electric live shows, gaining a devoted following without ever recording a hit song. At the center of the Dap-Kings sound […]
Phantom Boy (2016; Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes *Opens Friday at the Landmark Opera Plaza in San Francisco and the Landmark Shattuck in Berkeley. The New York-based independent distributor GKIDS is becoming as sure a sign of quality animated cinema as Pixar or […]
Microbe and Gasoline (2016; Michel Gondry) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes A lo-fi, low-stakes charmer from Michel Gondry, light years removed from the insufferable manic quirk of Mood Indigo. Unfortunately, it’s also a tonally disjointed effort just barely tethered to a meager narrative. Bullied misfit artist Daniel (branded […]
Three (2016; Johnnie To) GRADE: A- By Daniel Barnes The best film of 2016 so far. Fresh off a failed raid, a hard-boiled Hong Kong cop (Louis Koo) brings a wounded prisoner (Wallace Chung) into the hospital for emergency surgery and an illegal frame-up. They get tended by […]
Tickled (2016; David Farrier and Dylan Reeve) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes *Opens Friday at the Landmark Embarcadero in San Francisco and the Landmark Shattuck in Berkeley. In a crowded marketplace for documentaries, it’s easy to overpraise bold formal and visual ambitions, and easy to overlook a more […]
Les Cowboys (2016; Thomas Bidegain) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes Long-time Jacques Audiard collaborator Thomas Bidegain makes his directorial debut with this steely-eyed odd duck. It’s precisely the kind of terse tangle of cultural collisions and heavyhanded genre tropes that you would expect from the man who co-wrote […]
