A positive review from a local critic declaring the film “a moody horror/thriller elevated by deft staging and the director's well-known narrative gamesmanship.”  By A. Long

Bochco’s recent wartime drama portraying the war in Iraq fails to receive much audience attention. Gray contends that while the show is worthwhile and deserves a larger audience, both the smaller cable network and unresolved ending of an ongoing war contribute to its low exposure. Perhaps the audience feels like they are simply watching the news in drama form.  By A. Long

Announcement that on July 9^th, PBS will do an “American Masters” on Cassavetes. Cassavetes’s canonization by PBS is announced in the Philadelphia Daily News as a means of advertising the show, but it is another insistence of the importance of John Cassavetes as an American artist.  By G. Bond

According to this review, Baltake represents a critical fanbase in Philadelphia for Cassavetes before his death.  By G. Bond

Review of the film “Parting Glances”.  Baltake refers to the “kind of large ensemble doing the kind of spontaneous turns (improvisations?) rarely seen except in the work of John Cassavetes.” Cassavetes is synonymous with a large cast that improvises, this article leads us to believe, or at least for this Philadelphia critic.  By G. Bond

While talking about Frank Sinatra, Baltake says he has a fantasy of seeing Sinatra in a Cassavetes film. “Sinatra was made for Cassavetes. Cassavetes makes dramatic movies, but they have the spirit of a tune and the poetry of a lyric, qualities which, on screen, have always showed Sinatra at his best, qualities that make it possible for Sinatra to conjure up the feelings that he brings to a song.”An unprovoked reference to a figure like Cassavetes leads one to believe that Cassavetes plays a big part in the collective cinematic conscious, and that the seemingly mythological pairing of Sinatra and Cassavetes confirms Cassavetes place a cultural figure of significance, especially when placed alongside Frank Sinatra.  By G. Bond

Baltake is critical of the movie, but is eager to praise Cassavetes’s performance saying he gives “the best performance of his career”. Like Ryan, however, Baltake can’t stop himself from talking about Cassavetes the director, “Through it all, one is aware of what Cassavetes himself might have whipped up in half the time and with half the money - probably a modern, gritty, ‘Waiting for Godot.’ He certainly would have made better use of the Philadelphia locations and the film's inherent sociology on ‘neighborhood’ life as the two buddies here walk the streets, sit in bars, ride the buses and reminisce.”  By G. Bond

Talking about the film “Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?”, Baltake requests the reader, “imagine what ‘Annie Hall’ might have been like if it had been made by John Cassavetes, you’ll get some idea of the jittery, discordant, vital movie that director Henry Jaglom has created here.  The Philadelphia critical press uses Cassavetes in a very referential way, solidifying his reputation as an ideal or prototype of an edgy, independent filmmaker.  By G. Bond

The Philadelphia Daily News, in promoting the first wave of home theater equipment, endorses purchasing the video of Gloria, under the heading of “Sleepers”. Referring to the gangster genre, Baltake says, “Needless to say, Cassavetes turns the genre upside-down. It’s exhilarating!” By G. Bond

Prior to Cassavetes’s death, the Philadelphia critical press wasn’t sure what they thought about him. While he praised “Gloria”, Baltake uses his review for “Love Streams” as a means of waxing analytical about Cassavetes and his aesthetics. “It's ironic, really. The problem with cinema verite - film that's devoted to "truth" and "reality" - is that, more often than not, the results look more silly than serious. There's a certain messiness to real life that evades the kind of structure that most people expect from movies. Films that attempt to capture "real time" on screen or that are based on candid spontaneity, improvisation and voyeurism tend to seem vague. Stripped of a definite beginning and ending and lacking a direct theme, a film of this nature doesn't seem to be about anything at all. Viewers have nothing to latch on to, nothing to watch - other than a director and his cast going through an eccentric theatrical exercise. Such is the case with John Cassavetes' "Love Streams."  By G. Bond

Philadelphia learns of Cassavetes’s death and summarizes his career.  By G. Bond