Category Archives: Movies
Berkeley FILM Foundation to air powerful documentary
By Emily S. Mendel
The Berkeley FILM Foundation will hold a benefit screening Thursday of Better This World, a powerful, award-winning documentary produced and directed by filmmakers Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega and funded, in part, by a grant by the foundation. Galloway, of Berkeley, and de la Vega will host a Q and A after the 7 pm screening at the Zaentz Media Center. The screening is part of the FILM Foundation’s monthly documentary series, held the third Thursday of every month
Better This World, which was partially funded and aired by PBS’s Point of View, follows two boyhood friends from Midland, Texas as their world spins out of control. David McKay, 22 and Bradley Crowder, 23, had been opposed to the Iraq War, yet had no idea of what, if any, action to take. Within six months, in a stunning turn of events, they wound up arrested on terrorism charges at the 2008 Republican National Convention.
The film explores their initial naiveté (“We just want to make the world a better place.”) and their bonds with the intense older Brandon Darby, a radical agent provocateur, who mentored and challenged them until their arrests. Much of the film is about the Feds’ relentless prosecution of McKay and Crowder, and the eventual (here, undisclosed) outcome. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: Best movies of 2011
This time last year I was moaning about what an Annus Horribilis it had been at the movies. This December the news is a bit better: whereas in 2010 I had a hard time scraping together a top 10, in 2011 I had a hard time whittling things down to a top 15.
Of course, any ‘best of’ list is subjective, anecdotal, and entirely based on personal opinion and whim. It could be that I missed a ton of great stuff in 2010, or perhaps this year’s sample is badly skewed: I did, after all, manage to avoid Jack and Jill, The Undefeated, The Smurfs, The Three Musketeers 3D, and Human Centipede 2 over the course of the last twelve months.
Or perhaps I totally nailed it, confirming that I am, indeed, the most astute film critic of this or any other age! Alternatively, I could be slipping into early dementia and have lost what few critical faculties I previously possessed. That’s a worrisome thought.
Whatever the case may be, here are the fifteen films I enjoyed most in 2011.
1. City of Life and Death—This powerful war film, set during Japan’s invasion of China during the late 1930s, gets the coveted number 1 spot thanks to its astonishingly realistic action sequences (eat your heart out, Steven Spielberg), skillful storytelling, and superb acting. Oh, and I’m a sucker for black and white cinematography, too.
2. Rubber—The strangest and most surreal film I’ve seen in ages. I’d be surprised if this shows up on too many other top 10 lists — it’s just as likely to get nominated for a Razzie — but I loved it. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: Outrage
Google the words ‘Beat Takeshi Clint Eastwood’, and you’ll get well over 5 millions hits: film fans know that actor-director ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano has been giving Clint a run for his stone-faced money since the late 1980s. But the similarities go well beyond the pair’s leathery, inanimate fizzogs: while neither Kitano nor Eastwood are great actors, each possess undeniable physical presence and are, arguably, more skilled behind the camera than in front of it.
Eastwood’s fame, of course, sprang from the trilogy of iconic westerns he made in Spain with Italian director Sergio Leone, while Kitano’s stems from gangster movies of more recent vintage such as Sonatine (1993) and Fireworks (Hana-bi, 1997). While it’s been many years since Clint wore a pair of chaps, however, Takeshi is still milking the yakuza genre cow with considerable success. … Continue reading »
Berkeley filmmakers shine light on American story
By Nathan Pensky
Berkeley filmmaker Ben Schuder is looking to shine a light on a wholly unique American story, that of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. Schuder and his crew are midway through the production of Village of Peace, a film about a group formerly hailing from a Chicago-based church that emigrated from America and settled in Israel during the late 60s.
Schuder said he and his brother, Sam, were inspired to make the film after going on a Birthright Israel trip, following Ben’s recent graduation from Berkeley High.
During this trip, the brothers were introduced to the African Hebrews in Dimona, Israel, a tightly knit, self-governing community of 500 people living on a compound the size of a city block. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: The Other F Word
What do you think of when you read the words ‘punk rock’? When you close your eyes, do visions of spiky-haired goons pogo in your head? Perhaps your imaginary miscreants are slam-dancing in the pit or doing fakie ollies down at the local skate park. They may even be partaking of some good old-fashioned sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, but what you probably won’t imagine them doing is raising a family.
It’s true that two members of the punk Holy Trinity — Johnny Ramone and Johnny Rotten — begat no offspring, but the third and arguably most irresponsible, Johnny (Thunders), blessed the world with four. It’s unclear whether members of Johnny Moped have since settled into lives of parental domesticity, but it’s also undeniable that a child sprang forth from the loins of cult punk icon Johnny Straightjacket. Despite Mr. Rotten’s assertion that sex is “two minutes of squelching noises”, it seems that some male punk rockers have engaged in the activity without taking precautions. … Continue reading »
Filmmaker favors multiple dimensions, timeframes
Berkeley-based filmmaker Peter Chang likes breaking boundaries in his work, be it in space or time. His latest oeuvre, Deus Ex Homine, is a beautiful stereoscopic 3D motion-controlled time-lapse short film. In it, the camera sweeps around the Bay Area: taking in server farms in Silicon Valley, indoor gardens, Berkeley’s Gather Restaurant, and Oakland artist Jeremy Mayer at work building astonishingly lifelike robots out of old typewriter parts.
Chang, who majored in English at UC Berkeley and worked for many years as a photo-journalist, established his production company Cinefugue in San Francisco in 2006. He said it focuses on innovative uses of cutting-edge technology with themes related to humanity’s future and the young generation. A previous project, Lightscapes, a TV show for Discovery HD Theater, was the first television program to feature mostly time-lapse photography.
Chang says he likes to think of time-lapse photography as a ”god’s eye” technique that compresses time. “It’s a way to get people thinking about the future, by making it seem as if time passes quickly. … Continue reading »
Berkeley filmmaker makes comedy about teenage angst
When Rob Richert returned home this summer from graduate school at Columbia, he went right back to his alma mater, Berkeley High School.
He wasn’t there to greet old teachers or to reminisce about his times wandering the halls. Instead he was on a mission: to recruit talent for a 30-minute film he planned to shoot over the summer.
Starting in mid June, Richert and his sister would head down to Berkeley High right around lunchtime. They would wander through … Continue reading »
Me and You and Miranda July and Berkeley
Miranda July’s films have been called everything from brilliant to hip to irritating, but they do one thing for certain: capture attention.
The first film made by the Berkeley-raised filmmaker, Me and You and Everyone We Know was released in 2005 and promptly won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Film critic Roger Ebert said it had a “fragile magic”.
July’s second film, The Future, will … Continue reading »
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.
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