Some images stick with you for a lifetime: here’s one that’s been haunting me since the 1970s. The alien brain from 1953’s Invaders from Mars gave me quite the scare when I was ten, and now you can experience the same frisson of fear thanks to Pacific Film Archive’s Friday night L@te program. Helmed by [...]
Posts under ‘Big Screen Berkeley’
Big Screen Berkeley: Locally Grown Produce
Sometimes you’ll find locally grown produce in the most unexpected and unusual places. Take, for example, a little industrial film entitled Tear Gas in Law Enforcement. Recently aired late one night on television’s best channel — Turner Classic Movies — this 25-minute film was (according to its prologue) ‘designed to supplement planned classroom and field [...]
Big Screen Berkeley: Up close in North Korea
On rare occasions, the North Korean government has granted European filmmakers permission to film inside The Hermit Kingdom, and the results are almost always fascinating. In Austria’s Hana, dul, sed, a new documentary screening at Pacific Film Archive this coming Thursday at 7:00 pm as part of the ongoing San Francisco International Asian American Film [...]
Big Screen Berkeley: In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee
The 28th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival gets under way this Thursday, March 11, with a gala opening at the Castro Theatre. Though the focus of this year’s festival is on Filipino cinema, it also features an impressive selection of films from other Asian countries, while the Asian diaspora is well represented by [...]
Big Screen Berkeley: Pick of the flicks
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 by Copenhagen’s Final Cut Productions. [...]
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 [...]
Big Screen Berkeley: “Terribly Happy” is awfully good
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 the remote Jutland town of [...]
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 [...]
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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