Money for Nothing, a new documentary, screens at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday Dec. 4. The Federal Reserve Bank is a favorite whipping boy for both left- and right-wing conspiracy theorists, its role in manipulating currency — and (by extension) managing the economy — the source of endless controversy. Calls to ‘audit […]
John Seal
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Big Screen Berkeley: Fassbinder’s Favorites
Anna Karina plays Nana in Godard’s Vivre sa vie Anna Karina plays Nana in Godard’s Vivre sa vie Throughout his remarkably prolific but all too brief career, German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed numerous films focused on strong female characters. Features such as The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, The Marriage of Maria Braun, […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Great Expectations
Would you want this man looming out of the fog? Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch in Mike Newell’s Great Expectations According to the Internet Movie Database, 1897’s Death of Nancy Sykes — a long lost production based on a single scene from Oliver Twist — was the first screen adaptation of Charles Dickens’ work. Since then, of […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Let the Fire Burn
A still from Let the Fire Burn, showing the devastation caused in Philadelphia On May 17, 1974, my impressionable 11-year-old eyes watched an after-school special I would never forget: the live television broadcast of a police shootout. Hundreds of heavily armed officers were besieging a Los Angeles house occupied by a revolutionary group known, cryptically, […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Torn, a terrorist plot set in East Bay
Torn, a movie set in the East Bay, opens at Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas on Friday, a movie set in the East Bay, opens at Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas on Friday What kind of person would detonate a bomb in the middle of a busy suburban mall – a Muslim teenager seeking revenge for the mistreatment of […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Muscle Shoals
Muscle Shoals opens at Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas on Friday, Oct. 11 Memo to filmmakers: if you’re planning to make a music documentary, please resist the temptation to call Bono’s agent. Judging from his recent appearances in rockumentaries about The Ramones, Leonard Cohen, Joe Strummer, and B. B. King, the world’s most annoying and pompous tax-evading […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: ‘Parkland’ revives interest in JFK
Parkland: ‘”A small but handsomely mounted recreation of the events that rang down the curtain on Camelot”: ‘”A small but handsomely mounted recreation of the events that rang down the curtain on Camelot” Where were you on November 22nd, 1963? For many years most American adults could answer that question in their sleep, but November […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers is interested in the changing nature of personal relationships in the wake of the sexual revolution Which big screen version of Jack Finney’s classic novel ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ is your favorite – the original 1956 black and white adaptation, 1978’s full color remake, or Abel Ferrara’s […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: C.O.G.: a fine American indie film
C.O.G. stars Glee regular Jonathan Groff as a Yale graduate who’s abandoned his comfortable Connecticut home for an opportunity to get his hands dirty and experience a ‘Grapes of Wrath’-style slice of working-class life. C.O.G. stars Glee regular Jonathan Groff as a Yale graduate who’s abandoned his comfortable Connecticut home for an opportunity to get […]
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Reviewed: ‘Rising from Ashes,’ ‘The Boys in the Band’
Rising from Ashes, an uplifting documentary about the redemptive power of pedaling, opens at Rialto’s Elmwood on Friday, Sept. 13 I’ve never been much for bicycles, and now I know why: according to cycling legend Jonathan (Jock) Boyer, it’s an activity predicated upon suffering – an opinion borne out by personal experience, as I invariably […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Sorry, Wrong Number
We’ve reached the telephonic point of no return: according to data collected by CTIA – the industry lobbying group supporting the wireless industry – there’s now more than one active cell phone for every man, woman and child in the United States. Unless (like me) you don’t own or carry a mobile, there’s simply no […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: ‘Hannah Arendt’ is a superior biopic
Hannah Arendt, focusing on the philosopher’s writing of her book “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” does the biopic well. focusing on the philosopher’s writing of her book “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” does the biopic well. Along with Jeanette McDonald-Nelson Eddy musicals and John Wayne westerns, biopics are, generally speaking, among my least favorite films. More often than not, […]
