Category Archives: Movies
Free outdoor screening of Pixar’s “Up” on Center Street
Several hundred Berkeleyans enjoyed the debut of free outdoor movies, organized by the Downtown Berkeley Association, last Saturday night. Tomorrow, the second in the series, Up, will play as the evening skies get dark around 8:30 p.m.
Before the main feature starts, moviegoers are encouraged to eat al fresco (Center Street is pedestrianized for the evening), enjoy musical entertainment, and enter a costume contest at 7:30 p.m. Last week, for The Princess Bride, is was pirates; this week, … Continue reading »
What about that vacant lot on Haste and Telegraph?
The lot on the northeast corner of Haste and Telegraph has been vacant for more than 20 years. A few weeds grow fitfully, and, as Berkeleyside has reported, rats come out at night.
A group of UC Berkeley students taking the class “American Cyberculture,” taught by Reggie Royston, were asked to select a question posed on the civic website City Sandbox and use social media to galvanize people to act. Lily Lin, who is double majoring in physics and molecular cell biology, decided to explore why the Haste and Telegraph lot was vacant and ask people what they thought should go there.
Lin and other members of her class interviewed long-time Telegraph Avenue storekeepers and vendors, as well as relative newcomers. The result is a 12-minute meditation on the role the vacant lot plays on Telegraph, and what might be achieved by building a park, a memorial, a bar, or even a store there.
“The point of the video is to let people know about the lot and create momentum to get something done, said Lin.
Other members of the group built a website where people can post ideas for the lot. There is also a Facebook page to gather ideas.
Interestingly, neither the video’s narrator nor those interviewed mention the owner of the lot, Ken Sarachan, by name. Lin said this was intentional: she was more interested in exploring what could be done with the space than ascribing blame for its unsightly nature.
Buffers take on taggers in Berkeley-based documentary
Max Good and Nathan Wollman’s new documentary, Vigilante Vigilante, focuses on a little known aspect of the street-art scene. Rather than exploring the work of street artists like Banksy or Richard Hambleton, and the many artists who have followed in their wake, the new film shines a light instead on taggers’ most outspoken adversaries.
“It’s not a graffiti movie in the traditional sense,” Wollman said. “It’s not stereotypical. It’s more about human behavior.”
The documentary chronicles the lives of “buffers” – impassioned vigilantes who combat graffiti with more graffiti.
Good and Wollman fell into the turf war when they noticed recurring silver blotches on Berkeley buildings and street signs. The dripping silver paint markings were not city-regulated, yet they appeared with some regularity.
Curiosity turned into obsession once the two men began pointing hidden cameras at fresh Berkeley tags, waiting to capture the elusive “Silver Buff” on camera. … Continue reading »
Berkeley’s Summer Cinema event kicks off on Center St
The night was less than balmy, but that didn’t deter around 250 people making their way to Center Street Saturday evening for the first of four Summer Cinema free outdoor screenings.
Some participants brought their own chairs and blankets, others rented fold-up chairs at the booth of the organizers, the Downtown Berkeley Association. Radiant Brand’s Steven Donaldson was spotted carrying in a whole selection of seating possibilities, including a wooden chair wrenched from the ground in his garden.
Pre-movie entertainment … Continue reading »
Berkeley filmmakers on issues of Jewish identity, Israel
Between Two Worlds, the new documentary from Berkeley filmmakers Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman, tackles the ongoing divisions within the American Jewish community over Israel and Jewish identity by telling five riveting stories.
The film is being shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and is playing in Berkeley on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., at the Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison Street. A Q&A with the filmmakers follows the screening.
Watch a scene from Between Two Worlds above, and listen to an interview with Snitow and Kaufman with Cy Musiker on KQED Radio.
The last Harry Potter keeps Berkeley up late
It’s 10:40 p.m. in Downtown Berkeley, and the line at the United Artists Theater near Shattuck and Bancroft has already started moving. The last Harry Potter movie has officially hit cinemas nationwide.
Hundreds of excited moviegoers banded around the edge of the Berkeley Public Library in anticipation of the midnight showing on Thursday night. According to theater employee Yurida Ramos, devoted fans started lining up for the film at least around 1:00 p.m.
“Since this is the last one, people are more excited,” said Ramos, … Continue reading »
Summer movie series launches in downtown Berkeley: Vote for the films you want to see
Today sees the launch of “Center Street Summer Cinema” — free screenings of movies under the stars in downtown Berkeley on four consecutive Saturdays in August. Berkeleyside is proud to be the lead media sponsor of this exciting new addition to the Berkeley summer calendar.
Center Street will be the place to be on the evenings of August 6, 13, 20 and 27. At least 15 local restaurants — including Alborz Persian Restaurant and Sportivo – will serve café-style specials on or near the street, which will be closed to traffic between Shattuck and Oxford starting at 6:30pm.
Movie-goers can come early to dine al fresco while being entertained by performers from the Downtown Berkeley MusicFest. Other fun activities being planned for the events — which are being orchestrated by the Downtown Berkeley Association — include cartoons, short features, face painting, all of which will precede the main movie screenings. … Continue reading »
Berkeley-born Mike Mills on his new movie “Beginners”
Beginners, which opened in Berkeley on Friday, is by turns moving, sad, and funny. Its director, Mike Mills, has roots in Berkeley. He was born in 1966 at Alta Bates Hospital and lived in the Bay Area for a few years before his family moved to Santa Barbara.
The movie — which is Mills’s second, his first was Thumbsucker — tells the story of his father, Paul Mills, who, after many years of marriage, came out to his son as being gay after his wife had passed away. Soon afterwards, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It stars Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer and Mélanie Laurent.
Mills spoke to Berkeleyside on Friday June 17, the day Beginners opened in the East Bay, about his early years, including his mother’s endeavors to preserve some local architecture, his personal style as a filmmaker, and about why none of his three leading actors are American.
How close to your own life is the narrative of the film?
Well, I had to turn it into a story and have it talk to an audience, but many of the elements are from my experience. My parents really were married in the Swedenborgian church in San Francisco and the map shown in the movie is right in that they lived very close to where Ginsberg wrote “Howl”. … Continue reading »
Born in Berkeley: Joan Lowell
This week, Berkeleyside’s film writer, John Seal, delves into the archives to introduce us to a remarkable Berkeleyan who made her name in the movies.
Joan Lowell was born in Berkeley on November 23rd, 1902. Her film career began in 1919 at Goldwyn Studios, where she worked as an extra, and, though her earliest screen appearances are lost to posterity, she can be spotted in Souls for Sale (1923), a delightful comedy-drama about the movie business highlighted by a scene of Erich von Stroheim directing his legendary epic Greed.
Directed by Rupert Hughes, Souls for Sale relates the “Hollywood or bust” adventures of Remember Steddon (Eleanor Boardman), an unhappily married young woman with dreams of movie stardom. Remember gets her big break when the leading lady on a big-budget circus picture is seriously injured on-set, and Lowell appears as a script girl during the film’s final half hour. … Continue reading »
A trolley trip in Berkeley in 1906
Check out this three-minute video of a streetcar making its way north on Oxford and east on Hearst shot in 1906. The streets are rudimentary, (in fact Hearst east of Euclid is still a hill, not a street,) there’s not a lot of housing, (except you can see the chancellor’s white house in the segment showing Hearst) and people don’t seem to be in a hurry.
The best part of the video comes towards the end, when the conductors get in a dust-up with a passenger who won’t clear the tracks. A woman in a white cotton lawn dress even gets involved in the fracas.
Warning: the video takes a few minutes to load, but it’s worth it
Hat tip: Steven Donaldson.
