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Berkeley Barb

Tomatometer-approved publication.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Michael Reynolds Pacino is immediately riveting.
Posted Apr 06, 2024  Edit critic review
Lady Sings the Blues (1972) Pam and Michael Rosenthal It isn't Billie Holiday, and that's a pity, but there are a whole lot of worse ways they could have gone about it. As Saturday night entertainment, it can't be beat.
Posted Apr 04, 2024  Edit critic review
Chinatown (1974) Len Lyons Though Chinatown is not Polanski at his best, it will keep you up for several paranoid, early-morning hours after the rude awakening of its conclusion.
Posted Mar 08, 2024  Edit critic review
Grease (1978) Gar Smith Grease is a true product of American genius: objectionable material you can dance to.
Posted Feb 08, 2024  Edit critic review
Alien (1979) Bill Wallace Despite the $9 million worth of surrealistic sets, special effects and gadgetry, Alien succeeds on a level that other recent high-budget space operas can't approach: as a compelling, gripping drama.
Posted Nov 16, 2023  Edit critic review
Little Big Man (1970) Tom Zimberoff Penn has managed to show us a bit of authentic Indian existence and also give us a funny film.
Posted Nov 10, 2023  Edit critic review
Taxi Driver (1976) Cynthia Genser Scorsese has spit all his disgust right in our faces. Well, you don't have to like it. But when the doors of the [theater] opened to let us out, there was New York and I knew, I knew it was no longer possible to avoid the horror.
Posted Oct 06, 2023  Edit critic review
Andy Warhol's Trash (1970) Charlie Davis Trash is Warhol's most entertaining movie to date. It's funny and sad all the way through. It has a kind of Huckleberry Finn mood to it.
Posted Sep 21, 2022  Edit critic review
Annie Hall (1977) Marina Hirsch Annie Hall is a wonderful riposte to the question, "can you translate your own life into a creative medium and not bore the hell out of everybody?"
Posted Aug 26, 2022  Edit critic review
Dont Look Back (1967) Lenny Lipton What does this film of his tour of Britain, this journey with Bob to and from concerts, tell us about him? Do I have to tell you, do I need to explain, that it's so very little, but so very much.
Posted May 09, 2022  Edit critic review
Nothing But a Man (1964) Tom Luddy It is a powerful and moving film, despite one or two dramatic flaws.
Posted Jan 31, 2022  Edit critic review
Goin' South (1978) Marina Hirsch A lovingly produced parody of all shoot-em-ups, of tight-lipped Western men and camisoled, fluttery Western women.
Posted May 13, 2021  Edit critic review
Autumn Sonata (1978) Marina Hirsch Bergman's faith in his characters' capabilities is a calming finish to an otherwise searing portrait.
Posted May 13, 2021  Edit critic review
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) Marina Hirsch [Keaton's] vulnerability, cynically expressive eyebrows, constantly reassessing eyes, give Looking for Mr. Goodbar an immediacy it doesn't deserve.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
The Man With a Movie Camera (1929) J.N. Thomas Vertov brought the camera itself into the action, pulling out all the technical stops in probably the most exhausting, extravagant and dazzling "documentary" ever made.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
Earth (1930) J.N. Thomas Dovzhenko was a poet of nature, a radical mystic more akin to Blake than Marx, and in this film this love is dramatized in images of tremendous power.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
Fellini's Casanova (1976) Gar Smith Fellini's Casanova is a cold, lugubrious film. A chilling undressing of myth. But at a cost of $7 million, four years and several lawsuits, it is still spectacular cinema. It is Fellini, which is to say this film is an opera for the eyes.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
Bound for Glory (1976) Marina Hirsch The cinematographer is Haskell Wexler, and his scenes are still paintings, glowing at the edges, awash in muted and glowing light. Every scene looks hand-tinted, like old postcards. I wish they'd shot the movie in black and white.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
(undefined) J.N. Thomas Each and every worker is faultlessly heroic. Their solidarity is absolute, their ideology perfect.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
One Way or Another (1977) J.N. Thomas One Way or Another is an amazingly honest look at the "pre-revolutionary hangovers" of racism, sexism, and religious fanaticism among these people.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
Who'll Stop the Rain? (1978) Ellin Stein Who'll Stop the Rain is a suspense-adventure movie given greater weight and complexity by undertones of moral questions which, if unsolved, are at least raised.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
Girlfriends (1978) Marina Hirsch Girlfriends is a movie I really wanted to like.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
The Inheritance (1976) Robert Hurwitt It is a pleasure to see Anthony Quinn once again in a role that makes use of his considerable talents.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
Wives (1975) Marina Hirsch The creators of Wives were presumably far more interested in making specific points than in creating characters, yet the actresses have such distinct personalities that characters emerge nevertheless.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
Heaven Can Wait (1978) Marina Hirsch Despite its superficialities and plot confusions, Heaven Can Wait is an interesting movie to watch, mainly because of the presence of Julie Christie.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
Valentino (1977) Marina Hirsch Russell fails to offer any explanation for the ambiguous person that was Valentino. The director instead blurs any possible insight through continued excesses of crowds, hysterical women and assorted grotesqueries.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) Marina Hirsch As a visual cartoon, Star Wars is resolutely successful, phenomenal in its impact; as an emotional adventure, Star Wars is only bubblegum entertainment, tripping us back into a black and white world where good and evil can fight it out with ray guns.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977) Marina Hirsch Rose Garden falls into the same trap as did Cuckoo's Nest, cashing in on the easy humor and inherently intense drama of mental illness, while slickly bypassing the corrosive aftereffects of its force.
Posted May 12, 2021  Edit critic review
The Godfather (1972) Barb Staff It is quite amazing how faithful the film really is. Almost all of the characters and situations looked on film just like I'd imagined they would when I read the novel. That's something I've never experienced before.
Posted Mar 29, 2021  Edit critic review
Cruising (1980) Marina Hirsch Cruising is rife with laughable loopholes.
Posted Feb 03, 2021  Edit critic review
Blue Collar (1978) Marina Hirsch That a film as contradictory and limited as Blue Collar is simultaneously powerful is to the credit of its leading actors, Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto and to Jack Nitzsche's driving score.
Posted Feb 03, 2021  Edit critic review
Being There (1979) Barbara Brecher One of the rare cases in which a novel is translated into a film with its humor, insight, and pathos intact.
Posted Jan 11, 2021  Edit critic review
The Deer Hunter (1978) Marina Hirsch The Deer Hunter is a movie of bad guys and good guys, and the bad guys are not us.
Posted Jan 11, 2021  Edit critic review
The Warriors (1979) Marina Hirsch The Warriors is no more than a schlocky exploitation movie.
Posted Jan 11, 2021  Edit critic review
The Great Train Robbery (1978) Marina Hirsch The Great Train Robbery is a fluffy piece of entertainment, highlighted by Geoffrey Unsworth's moody cinematography of Victorian interiors, in all their musty splendor.
Posted Jan 11, 2021  Edit critic review
Movie Movie (1978) Marina Hirsch It's a real pleasure to see a movie that I takes on all the cliches, from attractively fatal diseases through triumphant curtain calls, and plays with them.
Posted Dec 28, 2020  Edit critic review
King of the Gypsies (1978) Marina Hirsch It's the kind of movie where the blood spatters out in big slowmotion gobs when the bad guy gets his. It's also a relief when the credits finally roll by.
Posted Dec 28, 2020  Edit critic review
Moment by Moment (1978) Marina Hirsch Neither interesting nor innovative.
Posted Dec 28, 2020  Edit critic review
Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978) Marina Hirsch Grant finds the heights of romance in slum living, investigative reporting and stricken ballerinas. Her movie's title, poetic in the newspaper ads, is just the first glob in a load of goo.
Posted Dec 28, 2020  Edit critic review
The Blues Brothers (1980) Leslie Clark This is less of a plot than a modus operandi, but it hardly matters. It's a movie in which the good times roll, a maniacal, inspired slapstick spree from beginning to end.
Posted Dec 19, 2020  Edit critic review
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