By Daniel Barnes By all accounts, the 38th annual Mill Valley Film Festival got off to a roaring start last weekend, highlighted by west coast premieres of Oscar favorites The Danish Girl and Spotlight, as well as on-the-scene appearances from I Smile Back star Sarah Silverman and festival […]
Partisan (2015; Ariel Kleiman) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes I’ve come to realize that I am abnormally fascinated by movies about cults, whether in the form of documentary (Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple), dramatic non-fiction (Patty Hearst), fiction loosely inspired by fact (The Sacrament), or […]
Finders Keepers (2015; Bryan Carberry and J. Clay Tweel) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes If there were an award for Best Documentary That You Least Expected to Be an Emotionally Involving, Lump-in-Your-Throat Examination of Grief, Ambition, Class Resentment, Imperious Fathers, Media Exploitation and Human Frailty, then this tabloid-ready […]
The Keeping Room (2015; Daniel Barber) GRADE: C- By Daniel Barnes Set in “The American South, 1865”, Daniel Barber’s pompous and lifeless The Keeping Room opens with a quote from the Civil War’s rampaging General Sherman: “War is cruelty.” Under Barber’s heavy-handed direction, it’s also tedious and inert, […]
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2015; Roy Andersson) GRADE: A By Daniel Barnes “I’m happy to hear you’re doing fine.” A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is the best film of the year so far, and it’s not that close. It […]
The Mend (2015; John Magary) GRADE: A- By Daniel Barnes “Tense and Liberated” From where in the wide world of fucks did this crazy thing come? First-time writer-director John Magary makes an exhilarating debut with The Mend. This NYC-based comedy of ill manners exudes weird, nervous energy from […]
