By Gary Meyer This year the 44th Mill Valley Film Festival has created a true hybrid with a full schedule of movies showing at the Rafael in San Rafael, Sequoia in Mill Valley and BAMPFA in Berkeley through Sunday, October 17. 40 of the programs will be streaming in your home via several platforms.
By Meredith Brody I really didn’t know if I was going to the 48th Telluride Film Festival this year. I had a pass in hand, but booking flights, finding a place to stay, and especially reserving a rental car seemed beyond me.
By C.J. Hirschfield This meme regarding the controversial teaching of critical race theory in schools showed up in my Facebook feed this week: “If black and brown children are old enough to experience racism, white children are old enough to learn about it.”
Just as reading a great short story can have an impact in a relatively few pages, short films also can entertain, inform and challenge us with limited running times. Most of our favorite filmmakers started their careers making short subjects. Which of this year’s Oscar™ nominated creators will be the makers of the next breakout […]
By C.J. Hirschfield When the feature documentary Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives was released in 1977, it rocked my world. I already loved documentaries, but this one–widely considered to be the first feature film about lesbian and gay identity–by gay people, quickly became a symbol of the emerging gay rights movement. […]
By Gary Meyer The other morning I woke up and read on my phone that it was National Waffle Day. Why not celebrate?
by Kim Nalley Within the first seconds of Ella Fitzgerald: Just One Of Those Things British Eagle Rock’s documentary on the jazz vocalist, the seamless connection between the tempo and lyrics of Ella Fitzgerald singing How High The Moon and the shaky black and white images of Ella racing down the highway in a car […]
By Monica Nolan For seventeen years now I’ve devoted the last week of January to Noir City, and the festival never fails to thrill me. This year’s annual valentine to the dark side of the dream factory opens at the Castro on Friday, January 24, and all over the Bay Area cinephiles like me are […]
By C.J. Hirschfield A number of documentaries that feature the work and process of artists have gone on to reach and captivate large audiences. RIVERS AND TIDES featuring Andy Goldsworthy, and the more recent FACES PLACES with Agnes Varda and JR are good examples. And now we have SERENDIPITY, a deeply personal film that opens […]
by C.J. Hirschfield Coming of age in San Francisco in the seventies, I had definitely heard of Ram Dass, né Richard Alpert, an American spiritual teacher, former academic, and Harvard clinical psychologist. I knew that he hung with Timothy Leary, and that the use of psychedelics and time spent in India with his guru propelled […]
by Eric Khoo I have always been intrigued by food and the role that it plays in our lives. As the noted food historian Ben Rogers says, “Food is, after language, the most important bearer of cultural identity”. I feel that what food signifies goes beyond that, it defines who we are and shapes the […]
