Category: Reviews

Willem Dafoe as Pasolini

“Pasolini” Movie Review by Daniel Barnes

Pasolini (2019; Abel Ferrara) GRADE: C+ By Daniel Barnes *Opens Friday, May 10, in New York City, and expands to other select theaters in the following weeks. “Obsessed with Banality” After playing Vincent van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate, Willem Dafoe continues his biopic tour of tragic artists with […]

Transit

“Transit” Movie Review by Daniel Barnes

Transit (2019; Christian Petzold) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes *Opens Friday, May 3, at the Tower Theatre in Sacramento. “Thoughtful Yet Glacial” German director Christian Petzold follows up his 2015 critical darling Phoenix with another thoughtful yet glacial melodrama that flits around the margins of World War II. Transit is […]

Juli Jakab in Sunset, directed by László Nemes

“Sunset” Movie Review by Daniel Barnes

Sunset (2019; László Nemes) GRADE: C+ By Daniel Barnes *Opens Friday, April 26, at the Tower Theatre in Sacramento. Or: The Grand Budapest Hell. Nemes follows up his much-lauded debut film Son of Saul with this disturbing mystery set in pre-World War I Budapest.  Of course, instead of the melancholy comedy […]

“Screwball” Movie Review by Daniel Barnes

Screwball (2019; Billy Corben) GRADE: C+ By Daniel Barnes *Opens Friday, March 29, at the 4 Star Theater in San Francisco. Less a documentary than a feature-length piece of click-bait, the true-crime sports movie Screwball offers the most superficial look imaginable at the steroids scandal surrounding Alex Rodriguez […]