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67 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
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  1. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    83
    Shulman was around so long that he even got to weigh in on Frank Gehry's Disney Hall. He was skeptical once but came to love it.
  2. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    80
    A really terrific, intensely focused documentary on a fascinating personality.
  3. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    78
    Associated with the modernist architectural movement centered in Southern California during the mid-20th century, Shulman's still photographs are essential to any study of the style's vast popularization and commercialism.
  4. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    75
    Shulman photographed buildings as if they were movie stars: He found their best angles and immortalized them.
  5. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Walter Addiego
    75
    Something of an elegy to modernism.
  6. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    75
    This stylish film reminds us that great images endure after bodies and buildings crumble.
  7. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    70
    Enjoyable as it is, Bricker's giddy hagiography could have used a little pushback, especially in the matter of Shulman's airy dismissal of the postmodernism that, he claimed, forced him into "retirement."
  8. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    70
    Nominally about the life and career of landmark Southern California architectural photographer Julius Shulman, but it's more about the buildings he photographed than it is about him. Which is probably the way he'd like it.
  9. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Andy Webster
    70
    It's about lovely photographs of graceful buildings and those who can afford the real estate. But it does pay proper respect to a deserving artist.
  10. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Keith Uhlich
    60
    Visual Acoustics goes out of its way to remain as kindly and pleasing as Shulman himself.
  11. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    50
    Essential viewing for builders, graphic designers, visual artists, and other optically inclined folk, but it's a bit of a slog for the uninitiated.
  12. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Fred Camper
    50
    This documentary tells this story reasonably well, though one might question whether director Eric Bricker's jazzy montages, collages, and rapid camera movements are appropriate to the contemplation of still photographs.
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