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‘Wood Street’ documentary brings Oakland’s homeless encampment story home
A crowd gathered under the multicolored bulbs of Oakland’s historic Grand Lake Theatre on July 15 for the sold-out red carpet premiere of Wood Street, a feature-length documentary portraying the eviction of what was once the largest...
The Old Furiosity Shop: ‘The Furious,’ reviewed
In the first five minutes of the new Hong Kong/China action pic The Furious, we’re reminded of one of the time-tested truths of the exploitation subgenre: In real life, a character cannot get repeatedly slammed in the...
Who wore it better?
In the late 1990s, the films The Truman Show (1998) and EDtv (1999) were noted for their uncannily similar premises, in which reality TV shows go to increasingly invasive and unethical extremes in the pursuit of higher...
‘Meals That Made Us’ talks legacy, care and future
Nisha Balaram’s doc series, Meals That Made Us, premieres at the Center for Asian American Media’s 2026 CAAMFest (May 7–10). In three short episodes, Balaram travels around the Bay Area asking the question, “What is a meal?”...
She asks questions
Amy Goodman travels to places many of us are afraid to venture. She walked the chemical-dust-clouded streets of Lower Manhattan during the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, searching for survivors and examining the damage. She also visited...
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...
