ANIMATED SHORT NOMINEES (from best to worst) World of Tomorrow (Don Herzfeldt; USA) We Can’t Live Without Cosmos (Konstantin Bronzit; Russia) I already raved about both of these films last October in my review of the 17th Annual Animation Show of Shows, so it’s no surprise that they’re […]
The Treasure (2015; Corneliu Porumboui) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes Another deadpan, three-headed Romanian history lesson from the director of 12:08 East of Bucharest, this time in the form of a treasure hunt. Struggling family man Costi (Toma Cuzin, who also figures prominently into the superior Aferim!, this […]
Lamb (2016; Ross Partridge) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes *Now playing at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Journeyman actor Ross Partridge writes, directs and stars in this restrained but discomforting drama. He plays David Lamb, a middle-aged man stuck in a downward spiral. Into his life comes […]
When you add up my weekly reviews in the Sacramento News & Review, my work here at E Street Film Society, and my contributions to other print and online publications, I penned over 250 published movie reviews in 2015. At an average of 300 words a pop, that’s […]
Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes “Tangible and Dimensional” “Luke Skywalker has vanished.” With those four words, strategically chosen by director J.J. Abrams and his co-screenwriters Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt to begin the opening crawl of Episode VII, […]
By Daniel Barnes All hail, Awards Season! Tyrant of all she surveys! Oppressor of cinephiles! Scourge of the pudgy and bespectacled! Obvious Ben Whishaw fan! Long may her tastefully bland mediocrities inexplicably occupy our otherwise intelligent thoughts! SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29 Victor Frankenstein (Dir.: Paul McGuigan; GRADE: C+) Not […]
