Maria Heiskanen in Everlasting Moments If you’re in the mood for an old-fashioned drama bereft of flashy gimmicks and nausea-inducing shaky-cam, you may want to plan on spending the evening of Thursday March 4 at Pacific Film Archive. The Archive will be screening director Jan Troell’s Everlasting Moments, a Scandinavian co-production with primary funding supplied […]
Movies
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Top honor for Rita Moreno
Berkeley’s own Rita Moreno yesterday received the nation’s top cultural honor, the National Medal of Arts. President Obama presented the award to the star of stage and screen after spending the day in healthcare lock-down mode. Moreno is the only Latina actress to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony for her dance and acting […]
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Now showing: Berkeley Oscar nominee
A friend of Berkeleyside writes in to lament that she tried to go to the Shattuck screenings of Oscar-nominated The Most Dangerous Man in America last weekend but it was sold out. Our film writer, John Seal, pointed our readers to it last week. But don’t despair, it’s running all week at the Landmark Shattuck. […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Locally grown produce
Filmmaking has a long, rich history in the East Bay, extending from the World War I-era silent comedies produced at the Essanay-West Studio in Niles (now incorporated in Fremont) to the present-day animated blockbusters created by Emeryville’s Pixar Studios. Despite the best efforts of the Wayans Brothers, however, Oakland has never had its own film […]
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Videots closing down tomorrow
Videots, the video store that has been a fixture on College Avenue for 19 years, will be closing for good on Sunday. The downward spiraling economy has decimated business, according to Dave Hern, who has worked there for about a year. The store is taking in an average of $100 a day, down from $500 […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: In “North Face” a summit stars
There are plenty of human characters in North Face, a new German-Austrian drama opening this coming weekend at the Shattuck Cinemas. Unfortunately, none of them are particularly interesting characters, but the film does include one larger than life presence that will keep your attention throughout North Face’s two-hour running time: Switzerland’s Eiger Mountain. Previously Clint […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: “Terribly Happy” is awfully good
Kim Bodnia in "Terribly Happy" There’s a new Danish film coming to town on Friday, and it’s the best film I’ve seen so far this year. Terribly Happy tells the tale of Copenhagen copper Robert (Jakob Cedergren, looking a bit like a young Donald Sutherland), reassigned after a bitter divorce and a nervous breakdown to […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: A good trailer is hard to find
Do filmmakers and studios pay enough attention to the humble preview? Trailers have only a few minutes in which to pitch their product, but all too frequently they consist of hastily cobbled together collections of off-cuts. (I’ve seen countless previews featuring scenes or shots that ultimately didn’t appear in the movie.) Often they give away […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Bettany slums, Bridges sings
Some intriguing smaller pictures opened in Berkeley this past weekend, giving moviegoers ample opportunity to sample something a little more refined than, for example, the new wide-release apocalyptic thriller Legion. Truth be told, though, I’m probably going to check out Legion at some point (it’s currently playing at the UA Berkeley 7). For those of us who […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: Gilliam’s still got it
Just another sight you'll see on the streets of Terry Gilliam's London After the tempered enthusiasm I offered it last week, I’m delighted to report that Terry Gilliam’s latest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is the director’s best in ages. This comes as something of a relief after his two previous misfires—the off-kilter The […]
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‘Milk’ the clear winner in Berkeley
Time sink warning: once you start delving into The New York Times’ graphic display of Netflix data, it’s hard to stop. There are data on 100 titles that were frequently rented from Netflix last year. The most rented of the 100 nationally was “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. In Berkeley, Benjamin figures in the […]
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Big Screen Berkeley: The Imaginarium of Frank Capra
Frank Capra behind the camera Capra-corn: ever since 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life morphed into an American pop culture staple, that’s the pejorative term often used to describe the work of director Frank Capra. Pacific Film Archive is doing its part to put the term out to pasture with their new series, Before “Capraesque” (the […]
