By Mike Dub Steven Soderbergh, the eclectic filmmaker who helped launch the independent film movement of the 1990s, announced last year that he would be hanging up his viewfinder to pursue other interests. With his final picture, the HBO-released Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, tallying Golden Globe […]
Schizopolis (1996; Steven Soderbergh) Grade: A By Daniel Barnes Although nearly forgotten in the Soderbergh oeuvre, the playfully piercing absurdist comedy Schizopolis is his most personal and original work. Intensely aware of and yet utterly freed from cinematic conventions of storytelling and style, Schizopolis is like the product […]
L’Avventura (1960; Michelangelo Antonioni) Grade: B+ By Daniel Barnes You don’t need any cheeky and reductive “trilogy” categorizations to understand that L’Avventura is a film about the many forms of “modern” alienation. Every frame and narrative fragment reeks with moral disintegration and self-denial, and there many striking shots […]
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002; Wych Kaosayananda) GRADE: D By Daniel Barnes *Originally published on The Barnesyard blog in September 2005. The first Dare Daniel challenge was no easy feat. Just saying the title out loud is believed to cause a new form of brain cancer. Ballistic: Ecks […]
RHINESTONE (1984; Bob Clark) GRADE: D+ By Daniel Barnes *Originally published on the Movie City USA blog on August 22, 2007. Sylvester Stallone will be challenging to explain to our kids and grandkids. I don’t mean that in the sense that he’s a Napoleonic, steroidal, barely talented musclehead […]
