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 […]
White Zombie (1932; Victor Halperin) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes From its first shot of a Haitian burial ceremony undulating under the opening credits, Victor Halperin’s 1932 indie horror film White Zombie establishes an eerie and unusual atmosphere. The corpse in question is getting buried in the middle […]
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 […]
