Godard mon Amour (2018; Michael Hazanavicius) GRADE: C By Daniel Barnes *Opens Friday, April 27, at the Landmark Embarcadero in San Francisco. Talk about Contempt! Academy Award-winning director Michael Hazanavicius (that looks wrong, but this is our world now, deal with it) delivers this annoyingly whimsical biopic about the relationship […]
Staying Vertical (2017; Alain Guiraudie) GRADE: B- By Daniel Barnes Alain Guiraudie’s self-contained, cryptic, borderline pornographic, Hitchcock-goes-homoerotic Stranger by the Lake was a jaw-dropping breakthrough in 2013/2014, even though it was the sixth feature film for the 52-year-old French writer-director. Staying Vertical is his highly anticipated follow-up, a […]
Daughters of the Dust (1991; Julie Dash) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes It took Julie Dash fifteen years to make Daughters of the Dust, and although it’s raw and occasionally impenetrable, it’s also the sort of breakthrough low-budget movie that should have been the stepping stone to a […]
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 […]
Chevalier (2016; Athina Rachel Tsangari) GRADE: C By Daniel Barnes Chevalier opens with long shots of figures struggling through the surf, oily blobs lurching from the ocean onto the beach like primordial creatures. Back on their Greek luxury liner, they shed their wet suits to reveal those most […]
