Three campaigns raised the most money in 2020: for Moe’s Books, Rialto Theaters and a West Berkeley metal shop making plastic face shields for health workers.
Rialto Cinemas Elmwood
Posted inArts
Big Screen Berkeley: How hard is it to make it as a gig worker? ‘Sorry We Missed You’ delivers the discouraging news
Also: Mick Jagger stars in a finely crafted slice of suspense opening this week, ‘The Burnt Orange Heresy,’ and ‘Brightness’ offers a magical realist examination of a father-son relationship.
Posted inBusiness
After 19 months, Elmwood Theatre finally changes marquee
“I don’t know why it took all this time to find out a ladder was fine,” said a Cal/OSHER staffer. “They could have gone to Home Depot that same day and gotten one.”
Posted inArts
Big Screen Berkeley: ‘Zero Days’ and ‘Nuts’
At the end of last year, I made a modest but achievable resolution: In 2016, I’d write about a few less documentaries (and a few more fictional features) than I’d written about in 2015. And so far, I think I’ve done pretty well: By my count, only four of the 33 films discussed this year in […]
Posted inArts, Events
Big Screen Berkeley: Frameline40 in the East Bay
It’s time once again for the annual San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival (more succinctly known as Frameline40). This year the Festival further expands in the East Bay, offering five days of programming at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood. I’ve always had a soft spot for biker movies, so when I read the précis for Ovarian Psycos […]
Posted inArts
Big Screen Berkeley: ‘The Winding Stream’
I don’t much care for country music – particularly what’s passed for it since ‘The Nashville Sound’ developed during the anti-rock ‘n’ roll backlash of the 1950s. Slick and overproduced (and now barely distinguishable from mainstream pop rock), country has long since lost its ability to reflect the hopes and fears of the dirt-poor white […]
Posted inArts, Events
Big Screen Berkeley: Wiseman’s ‘In Jackson Heights’
Three hours, eight minutes and thirty-one seconds: that’s the amount of time you’ll devote to In Jackson Heights (opening at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood on Friday, Dec. 18, the new feature from documentarian Frederick Wiseman. Is it a worthwhile investment, or is it one of the legendary director’s occasional snoozers? Happily (and in spite of its […]
Posted inBusiness, City
Berkeley merchants: New minimum wage proposal would ‘decimate’ businesses
By Lisa Tsering Berkeley business owners say a new proposed minimum wage hike will quite simply drive them out of business and, in the process, destroy the unique flavor of shopping districts such as the Elmwood, Telegraph Avenue, downtown and Fourth Street. At the same time, given that the city is at the forefront of progressive politics […]
Posted inArts, Events
Big Screen Berkeley: Experimenter; Amazing Nina Simone
Long time readers are familiar with my biopic rant by now. Regardless of the occasional exception (I’m still looking at you, Hannah Arendt), Seal’s First Law of Cinema states emphatically that biopics turn the lives of the most remarkable people into the most unremarkable films. At first, that seems the path likely to be taken […]
Posted inNosh
‘East Side Sushi’: Gratifying food film set in East Bay
‘East Side Sushi’ is both a food film set in Oakland, and a story about a woman forging her own path against traditional attitudes and expectations.
Posted inArts, Events
Story of Berkeley’s Moe’s Books comes to big screen
The film that was found at the Berkeley dump of the 1965 opening night party for Moe’s Books on Telegraph Avenue now has a film of its own. Thursday night was the premiere of New Mo’ Cut: David Peoples’ Lost Film of Moe’s Books, produced and directed by Siciliana Trevino. Dozens of people who had […]
Posted inArts, Events
Big Screen Berkeley: ‘We Come as Friends’
Hubert Sauper, apparently, is a man of many talents. First, he spent two years building his own ultra-light aircraft, which he then flew from France to Libya (hardly a pillar of stability, even prior to the overthrow of the Gaddafi government). Then he winged his way towards an even more dangerous destination – the nascent […]