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Berkeley museum goes deep on the New German Cinema
To a dedicated admirer of European movies, going to “Fassbinder and the New German Cinema,” a 20-title retrospective series now under way at the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), is like tucking into a deluxe...
Emotional Oasis: Oliver Laxe’s ‘Sirat’ opens in Bay Area
There are films that entertain, films that distract and films that politely flatter one’s intelligence. And then there are films that seem to look one in the eye and ask whether they’re prepared to lose something.
Sirat, the...
My Fair Lad(y) meets BDSM
After a brief separation dedicated to soul-searching, Eliza Doolittle returns to Professor Henry Higgins’ house. He greets her with a singular question that encapsulates the nature of their relationship—“Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?” The 1964...
Sneak peek: A preview of films to look forward to in 2026
I keep waiting to become more cynical about movies as a film critic. Every week I read one think piece after the next about how cinema is dying and no good movies are made anymore. But 2025...
Brazilian director exposes military dictatorship’s dark heart
The bodies of innocent citizens don’t stay buried, or submerged, for long in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent. Corruption in 1970s Brazil saturates the bodies and souls of politicians, police officers, the media, and industrialists. In...
Documentary tests one man’s prophetic mission
Behind a new documentary, The Man Who Saves the World?, is a man who just might save the world. Or, more specifically, be the spark that saves the Amazon and thereby prevents the destruction of a region...
‘Nuremberg’ reviewed: Evil on trial
James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg is a grand, complex, thought-provoking, intelligent piece of work, a combination war movie/courtroom drama/political beacon, on a subject that most of its audience might think is over and done with.
All the action takes place...
