Maidentrip is an all too brief documentary recording the remarkable personal odyssey of then 13-year-old Laura Dekker As Lao Tzu’s well-worn bromide goes, ‘every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ In the case of Maidentrip (opening at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood on Friday, March 21), however, a lengthy trip can also begin […]
John Seal
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Big Screen Berkeley: Asian American Film Festival
Pee Mak, a Thai satire on Southeast Asian horror movie conventions, screening as part of the Asian American Film Festival 2014 It’s almost spring time in the East Bay (and, not too surprisingly, the rest of the Northern Hemisphere as well), which means two things are about to happen: the Oakland Athletics will drop their […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: ‘The Rocket,’ good bet for Oscars ’15
The Rocket is a surreal, mytho-poetic tale of a young boy’s effort to shrug off the effects of the curse placed upon him by his grandmother is a surreal, mytho-poetic tale of a young boy’s effort to shrug off the effects of the curse placed upon him by his grandmother We’ve barely had time to […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: ‘Side Street,’ one nasty noir
MGM’s Side Street, an above-average film noir that was shot in New York City, screens in Berkeley on Friday Feb. 28 The American film industry was born on the Atlantic Seaboard. From Biograph’s lower Manhattan studio to the film factory that was Fort Lee, New Jersey (a city now infamous, of course, for an entirely […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: ‘Omar:’ A powerful Palestinian drama
Omar, a powerful Palestinian drama about life in the Occupied Territories, opens at Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas on Friday, Feb. 21 We’re just a couple of weeks away from this year’s Academy Awards, but one of the Best Foreign Language Film nominees is only now going on general release (to be eligible, films must screen publicly […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: The Trials of Muhammad Ali
“With Muhammad Ali long since silenced by Parkinson’s Disease, it’s easy to forget what a lightning rod he was during the ’60s and early ’70s.” “With Muhammad Ali long since silenced by Parkinson’s Disease, it’s easy to forget what a lightning rod he was during the ’60s and early ’70s.” We’ve been awash recently in […]
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Big Screen: ‘Stranger by the Lake’ is never boring
Stranger by the Lake is “a fascinating feature guaranteed to polarize opinion.” is “a fascinating feature guaranteed to polarize opinion.” In his now legendary concurring opinion in the case Jacobellis v. Ohio, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously noted that, despite the difficulty of defining the pornographic, “I know it when I see it.” I […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Oscar-nominated short subjects
HBO’s Prison Terminal: “I’d be shocked if it doesn’t win the Oscar Documentary prize,” says our film critic John Seal.: “I’d be shocked if it doesn’t win the Oscar Documentary prize,” says our film critic John Seal. It’s time once again to handicap the Oscar races that most obsess Berkeleyside readers – I’m speaking, of […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: ‘The Bicycle Thief’
Vittorio de Sica’s hugely influential neo-realist classic The Bicycle Thief helps kick off BAM/PFA’s series ‘The Brilliance of Satyajit Ray’ Thursday. helps kick off BAM/PFA’s series ‘The Brilliance of Satyajit Ray’ Thursday. We know it as neo-realism, but in India it was called Parallel Cinema – a movement to provide an alternative to the musicals […]
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Big Screen Berkeley’s best films of 2013
John Seal’s favorite film of 2013: Blancanieves John Seal’s favorite film of 2013: Blancanieves What lessons did I learn from cinema in 2013? First and foremost, that Somali pirates are very, very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. From mainstream Hollywood’s Captain Phillips (an extremely well-made Pentagon recruitment film) to little Denmark’s A […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Last Days on Mars
Directed by Ruairí Robinson, science fiction adventure Last Days on Mars is headlined by Liev Schreiber. Did you hear the one about the joint American-British-Chinese-Irish mission to Mars — the one that didn’t actually include any Chinese astronauts? No? Well, prepare to discover it in Last Days on Mars, a thoroughly average science fiction adventure opening […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Sweet Dreams
Produced in part by the Berkeley Film Foundation, Sweet Dreams falls into the ‘feel good’ documentary category. I have to admit I didn’t expect to be writing about another Rwanda documentary this year, but here we are. After being featured in cycling epic Rising from Ashes in a September review, the central African nation returns […]
