"... its jewel-like magnificence pretty much slapped me upside the head. Essentially a series of high-contrast black and white shots of bridges, trellises, and commuter trains against a blank NYC sky, Silvercup manages to impress with its effortless interlocking shots. If you graphed them out or analyzed them, there would be no concrete reason why, from shot to shot, each framing and camera angle seems to be the logical complement to the last. The film isn't overbearing, like an Eisenstein montage, nor does it follow any predictable film grammar. But the editing works, like a perfectly curated series of photographs unwinding in time, all modern yet displaying a picturesque urban decay, an unlikely collusion between Franz Kline expressionism and Rodchenko-like Constructivism. Yes, it is perfect. And as we know, perfection is not an accident."
- Michael Sicinski, The Academic Hack

"The first time I remember going to Long Island City was in 1973 to take a hack license exam. What I remember of the bridge and fringes of subway lines above me was oppression. About twenty years later I found myself back there thrilled by the compositions I was making with a still camera and eventually made The Elevated with some of the photographs I took. Often last Winter and Spring I again went back there and ended up expressing a tenderness I felt by making this film."
- Jim Jennings, quoted in the catalogue of the 43rd San Francisco International Film Festival

"Jim Jennings' contemplative Silvercup finds soul in the steel bridges and railways binding Manhattan to Queens and a totemic union of past and present in a once-abandoned Long Island City landmark."
- Todd Hitchcock, "Pleasures of Urban Decay," Washington City Paper, Aug 9, 2002

"In Silvercup, trains move along their tracks continuously, as day becomes night and rain falls and ceases. The constancy of the mechanical complements the mutability of the natural. In this film, train, rain, moon and man respond to one another tenderly."
- Karen Treanor