This is more than a mere documentary of the history of political activism at the University of California at Berkeley; it’s an oral history of a struggle (the good and the bad and the downright foolish) that has never gone away, but has merely metamorphosed over time into different forms. It’s as relevant today as ever.
“Shawney Cohen calls himself a filmmaker, but he’s actually been a strip club manager for longer. When he was six years old his father bought “The Manor,” a strip club attached to a seedy 32-room motel in Guelph, Ontario. Years later, his father has seen his weight balloon to 400 pounds, while his mother struggles to survive at 85 pounds.
The stand-up comedian is a special breed, both an artist and an artisan. They work by painstakingly developing a persona, scripting and editing an act, and revising it on the spot to suit the energy of a given audience. If the audience does not grasp the countless hours crafting the routine, and the empathic micro-calculations, then the act was a success... well, as long as it was funny.
“Aesthetics and eco-advocacy are a perfect match in Chasing Ice, a documentary so stuffed with eye-soothing images one prays it can seduce a climate-change skeptic or two.
“William Wilson wasn’t just any guy with a thirst for liquor; he founded Alcoholics Anonymous, which now counts about 2 million members. This is the inspiring story of the man behind the 12 steps. Wilson was born in 1895 and downed his first drink in his early 20s. For the often-depressed Wilson, imbibing seemed like a cure-all.
“The Gatekeepers tells the story of Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet. Director Dror Moreh manages to get all six of the surviving former heads of the organization to discuss in detail the evolution of Shin Bet since the 1967 Six-Day War.
“In 1994, a 13-year-old boy named Nicholas Barclay was reported missing from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three and a half years later, he turned up in Spain. Or did he? Who this person is and how he insinuated himself into the lives of unsuspecting strangers is the subject of The Imposter.
solution.
