Fireworks Wednesday (2006; Asghar Farhadi) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes After the overwhelming acclaim of A Separation and a mini-crossover with The Past, the early films of Iranian director Asghar Farhadi have started trickling into American arthouses. His excellent 2009 film About Elly toured stateside arthouse theaters last […]
Cheatin’ (2015; Bill Plympton) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes In a genre overwhelmingly dominated by major studios, nine-digit budgets, digital animation, wisecracking animals, A-list voice casts, and costly pop song licensing rights, animator Bill Plympton remains an iconoclast. Cheatin’, which premiered at Slamdance 2014 but is only now […]
A Fool There Was (1915; Frank Powell) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes As I stated in my festival intro, while Theda Bara may have created a cinematic archetype and inspired an evolution in movie publicity machines with A Fool There Was, her “vamp” character did not break any […]
