A Lou Reed concert film that I connected with despite it being a downer.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 10, 2010

Schnabel's set design, onstage projections, and postproduction add a good deal of visual noise to Reed & company's aural variety, which reproduces the album with a mixture of professional exactitude and unpredictable cacophony.

| Aug 8, 2009

Those who admire Reed will find that Schnabel's film allows the music to speak for itself against its rather messy background.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2008

It's Reed's gruff and tuneless delivery that challenges one's enjoyment.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 25, 2008

Reed, who's looking more and more like a Bond villain, comes close to smiling at one point, although the chances are you won't.

| Jul 25, 2008

For devotees only, I'm guessing.

| Jul 25, 2008

Reed's unmistakable lilting groan has real pain in it, hinting at a real but undisclosed personal story behind the music.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2008

An entirely watchable concert movie, providing depressing songs are your thing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2008

If you don't like the music, there's nothing to see here.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 22, 2008

If you love Lou Reed or even like Lou Reed a little, musically this film is worth your time and, unless you've got an amazing audio system at home, it should be experienced in a theatrical setting.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 22, 2008

Performed live, the haunting material finds new life ... Schnabel has created an incredibly artistic experience out of the concert with many moments that will give you goosebumps.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 20, 2008

A well made concert film that will, nevertheless, fail to satisfy Reed's many dedicated fans.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 18, 2008

Once again a concert documentary allows those of us unable to have witnessed a monumental event to see it seemingly exactly as it took place.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 18, 2008

It's direly beautiful, sometimes spine-tingling and, yes, gloomy as purgatory.

Full Review | Jul 18, 2008

Reed's dour, bombastic song-suite about the lives of the drug-addicted and downtrodden steadily acquired cult cachet over the decades, peaking with its staging as a complete-album concert in 2006, which Lou Reed's Berlin documents.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 18, 2008

Who could have guessed that nearly 35 years after its release, Lou Reed's once-reviled concept album Berlin would inspire a sold-out concert, shot with loving awe by Julian Schnabel?

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 18, 2008

Your enjoyment will hinge entirely on whether you think the album is a masterpiece or a bore.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 18, 2008

For die-hard Reed fans, it's an invaluable document.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 18, 2008

In Julian Schnabel's grimly majestic concert film Lou Reed's Berlin, Mr. Reed wears the deadpan smirk of a Zen master who has endured punishing Buddhist training.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 18, 2008

Schnabel and Kuras know their subject enough to know how to frame him: with space, darkness, and unyielding cool.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 17, 2008