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Daniel Barnes
Tomatometer-approved critic
Daniel Barnes is a Sacramento-based film critic and host of the Dare Daniel podcast, as well as a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle. His work has appeared in the Sacramento News & Review and other print and online publications across the country.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Rashomon (1950) |
The fourth story is seemingly the most objective of them all, and it's probably the closest to the truth. But even in that story, there are big holes. Everyone has something to hide. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Nov 14, 2023
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Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001) |
Despite the beautiful locale and an impressive cast, we’re never given a compelling reason to care about any element of this tedious and soulless awards-grubber. Even the mandolin doesn’t matter! - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Oct 03, 2023
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Jiu Jitsu (2020) |
Cage goes Obi-Yawn Kenobi as a neo-hippie martial arts mentor, but cedes the lead to Canadian stuntman, martial artist and charisma black hole Alain Moussi. Jiu Jitsu comes up short on every level, especially in the omnipresent fight scenes. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Sep 19, 2023
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Trespass (2011) |
A mindlessly perfunctory and progressively annoying 1A thriller that barrages you with standoffs, fake-outs, double-crosses and twists, twists, twists! - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Sep 05, 2023
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Left Behind (2014) |
Cage has little to do but somehow manages to do less with it. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Aug 23, 2023
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Sonny (2002) |
Cage the director makes as many baffling decisions as Cage the actor, but the effect is significantly less entertaining. Sonny is low-lighted by a full-tilt boogie turn from an impossibly brassy Brenda Blethyn that simply took my "Bleth" away. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Aug 08, 2023
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Vampire's Kiss (1989) |
Cage makes more choices than E-40, all of them “Yup,” and the result is a feature-length supercut of classic Cage freakouts. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jul 26, 2023
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Oppenheimer (2023) |
If nothing else, Oppenheimer confirms Nolan's status as the ultimate "chalkboard director." He inevitably gives us scenes in which someone flips over a chalkboard to dumb down complex ideas for their fellow geniuses onscreen and us idiots in the audience. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jul 22, 2023
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Two of a Kind (1983) |
It’s a movie forgotten by time, and I look forward to forgetting it myself. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Nov 15, 2022
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The Exorcist III (1990) |
Blatty crafts a shockingly effective slow creep that is unfortunately undermined by an over-the-top fan service ending. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Nov 03, 2022
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Hocus Pocus (1993) |
This sloppily written, egregiously unfunny Halloween comedy about three Stooges-esque witches somehow became a beloved holiday tradition. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Oct 18, 2022
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Strait-Jacket (1964) |
Strait-Jacket is a middling Psycho meets Gaslight proto-slasher that telegraphs its plot twists more than Western Union. But it’s elevated by Joan Crawford’s remarkably possessed and highly physical turn as an ax murderess returning home from the asylum. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Oct 08, 2022
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The Next 365 Days (2022) |
Endless, pointless and utterly lacking in any new story developments, The Next 365 Days offers even less than its vapid predecessors. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Sep 21, 2022
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Ryan's Babe (2000) |
This dimwitted yet bizarrely Rohmer-ian road trip movie gets the conventions of filmmaking so wrong that it forces you to question the value and meaning of doing it right. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Sep 21, 2022
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Grunt! The Wrestling Movie (1985) |
After an amusing first five minutes, the film quickly becomes a chore. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Sep 21, 2022
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An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn (1997) |
Joe Eszterhas’ lame, career-killing non-movie is 85 minutes of an over-validated, out-of-touch, inexplicably bitter screenwriter grinding an ax and making O.J. jokes. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Aug 09, 2022
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Let There Be Light (2017) |
The film stars Kevin Sorbo as Sol Harkens, a world-famous atheist lecturer with all the stereotypical supermodel and sports car trappings of the anti-faith debate circuit. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jul 28, 2022
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016) |
This 2016 sequel is a big empty nothing constantly recapping its own empty nothingness. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jul 12, 2022
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Saturn 3 (1980) |
The film assembles an amazing armada of above-the-line talent for a passionless, murky and uninspired Adam and Eve in space parable. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jun 28, 2022
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Biker Boyz (2003) |
This underdeveloped outline of a movie concerns motorcycle hustlers striving to become the “King of Cali” for reasons we can never know. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jun 14, 2022
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365 Days: This Day (2022) |
365 Days: This Day distances itself from the sex-trafficking-as-courtship ethos of its predecessor, yet somehow emerges as an even more loathsome and vapid entity. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted May 31, 2022
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Viva Knievel! (1977) |
Its as moth-eaten a movie as youll ever see, with only the messianic egomania of its star to differentiate it from a thousand other duds. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted May 03, 2022
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The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005) |
A film that tries too hard while making no effort whatsoever, The Crow: Wicked Prayer concerns an ex-con tragically caught between wealthy Christian fundamentalist Aztec casino owners and Satanist miners. No, seriously, it does. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Apr 21, 2022
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Rabbit Test (1978) |
Ostensibly about the world's first pregnant man, Rabbit Test is a grim comedy death jog through lazy ethnic humor and vulgar non-jokes that were already tired in 1978. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Apr 06, 2022
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The Wedding Planner (2001) |
A vehicle seemingly designed to seep all the appeal out of stars Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Mar 18, 2022
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The Princess Switch (2018) |
A movie designed to be half-watched while decorating Christmas trees or scrolling through Instagram feeds, The Princess Switch is made half-watchable by Hudgens alone. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Mar 18, 2022
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Jaws the Revenge (1987) |
Located a million light-leagues away from the elegant terror of Spielbergs 1975 classic, this fourth entry turns the shark into a standard-issue 1980s slasher villain. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Mar 08, 2022
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Stardust (2020) |
Loaded with glum flashbacks and facile psychoanalysis, Stardust tells the story of an interesting man in the least interesting manner imaginable. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Feb 23, 2022
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Fateful Findings (2013) |
It's as though Breen beamed this incomprehensible, egomaniacal, paranoid fever dream from an alien planet that studied human behavior but didn't pay attention. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jan 25, 2022
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The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020) |
It's like Christmas was projectile-vomited onto every inch of this movie. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Dec 28, 2021
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The Poison Rose (2019) |
An onslaught of private detective cliches crudely formed into a movie-like shape, The Poison Rose is filled with twists but bereft of surprises. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Nov 30, 2021
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Moment by Moment (1978) |
Moment by Moment announces its indifference and ineptitude in the opening moments and then reinforces it over the next several thousand moments. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Nov 16, 2021
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Skullduggery (1979) |
Pointless beyond comprehension, Skullduggery concerns a malicious game within a game within a muddy and witless non-horror movie. It's just a series of nonsensical things happening in the most uncompelling manner possible. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Oct 26, 2021
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Dude Bro Party Massacre III (2015) |
It's disjointed, overloaded, and often forced and obvious, with a high volume of jokes and a low connect rate, but there are enough real laughs to make it recommendable. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Oct 12, 2021
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Old Fashioned (2014) |
Director-writer-producer Swartzwelder stars as Clay, an intensely unlikeable, old-fashioned old fascist with serious serial killer vibes. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Sep 28, 2021
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Cosmic Sin (2021) |
This brain-dead space opera stars Willis as a fading star who refuses to do second takes or give a fart. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Sep 14, 2021
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Mogul Mowgli (2020) |
Ahmed as Zed is good, but I'm not sure that he's rapping so much as reciting slam poetry, which is bad. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Sep 03, 2021
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From Justin to Kelly (2003) |
The film stars American Idol contestants Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson as reality show hostages grimly going through the motions of a bland and brainless Spring Break musical. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Aug 31, 2021
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The Night House (2020) |
Sneaking up behind someone and kicking their ears in the balls does not a master of suspense make. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Aug 20, 2021
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Dancin' It's On! (2015) |
This hilariously inept Panama City Beach travelogue has good dancin' but bad everythin' else. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Aug 17, 2021
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Pig (2021) |
An intriguing blend of a John Wick-style revenge fable and a foodie travelogue unfortunately confined to a standard-issue indie therapy movie. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Aug 08, 2021
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Annette (2021) |
Ultimately, Annette is uniquely Carax - consistently audacious, brutishly self-aware, sometimes too clever for its own good but frequently brilliant. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Aug 06, 2021
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Nine Days (2020) |
It emphasizes rules and explanations while churning out message-on-the-sleeve life lessons. Naturally, those lessons involve doing things like screaming into the void and feeling the sand between your toes because that's real living in movies like this. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Aug 06, 2021
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Jungle Cruise (2021) |
It's a moldy Indiana Jones knockoff clumsily sutured onto a rotting Pirates of the Caribbean knockoff. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jul 30, 2021
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The Last Man (2018) |
A dreary, shapeless, grey-green, post-apocalyptic incel sex fantasy, The Last Man is a chore from start to finish. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jul 20, 2021
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Black Widow (2021) |
Take out all the mindless bickering, pointless fight scenes, cutesy-poo Avengers references and tie-ins to future Disney+ TV series, and you're left with maybe 75 to 80 minutes of actual movie. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jul 08, 2021
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Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) |
Instead of action or suspense, Cruise Control delivers dumb comedy riddled with continuity errors and a complete lack of spatial-temporal logic. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jul 06, 2021
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Zola (2020) |
While Zola is undeniably entertaining and often hypnotic, there is something unseemly about turning the true-life story of sex-trafficked teenagers into a glossy crime comedy. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jul 04, 2021
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Crimson Gold (2003) |
Crimson Gold opens with a single-shot jewel heist gone wrong, then circles back to the origin story of the misguided thieves. It may bear the trappings of a Tarantino knockoff, but Crimson Gold possesses an incisive naturalism that is pure Panahi. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jun 24, 2021
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Spookies (1987) |
A go-for-broke 1980s horror buffet that offers some surprisingly good monster effects and some unsurprisingly abysmal acting and writing. - Dare Daniel
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| Posted Jun 22, 2021
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