01/05/09
The other day I posted a Popcorn Pick about Berkeley author Michael Chabon's movie deals with some pretty exciting directors. I just found out that tonight, January 5, Chabon is being interviewed by Jon Carroll at Berkeley Repertory Theatre as a benefit of Oakland's Park Day School. Information below. Berkeley Repertory Theatre
2025 Addison Street
Berkeley, CA, California 94704
Category: Media
Michael Chabon is "one of the most celebrated writers of his generation." His first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), was published when Chabon was 25 and catapulted him to literary celebrity. He followed it with a...
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01/05/09
The folks at Berkeley's Another Planet Entertainment have sent out a great Happy New Year gift to East Bay music lovers today: announcing the first show bookings for the fabulous Fox Oakland, which is opening in February. I can not wait to see legendary rockers Social Distortion (Feb. 6) in this historic venue, the night after the Fox's opening gala. Michael Franti and Spearhead, B.B. King, and the Black keys are also booked—click here for more information about upcoming shows. And look for a story about the Fox in the February issue of Diablo—I've taken a couple of hard hat tours and this place is simply incredible—we're...
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01/01/09
In October, I wrote a Speak of the Devil story about Rawson Marshall Thurber's film adaptation of Michael Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. The Berkeley author has two more movies being made from his books. Director Stephen Daldry, whose current film, The Reader, is in theaters now, has been tapped to direct The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the Y2K novel that won Chabon a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Daldry, who also directed The Hours and Billy Elliott, is very good with book-to-film adaptations and seems like a smart choice for this sprawling story. The late Sydney Pollack and Sam Mendes had been...
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12/22/08
Brit rockers Coldplay sold a ton of copies of their most recent album, Viva la Vida, in 2008, apparantly to the chagrin of East Bay guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani. Satriani, who moved to Berkeley in the 1970s to record his well-reviewed catalogue of solo instrumental albums, and has taught guitar to famous players including Kirk Hammett (Metallica) and David Bryson (Counting Crows), sued Coldplay recently for copyright infringement, claiming that Viva la Vida's title track borrows from Satriani's 2004 song, "If I Could Fly". Here's
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12/19/08
This has not been my favorite year in cinema, in fact its been pretty weak. I'm hoping that the remaining weeks of 2008 bring some surprises, but for now, I can't imagine anything topping Let the Right One In. I caught this amazing Swedish vampire film on Monday night at the Cerrito Theater, and its playing there another week.
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12/19/08
Every December, Diablo bestows Threads of Hope awards upon five outstanding community volunteers. Click here to read about this year’s honorees. And in the spirit of giving back to our community, I enjoyed reading this story from a former Diablo colleague, Lisa Cecconi, about her Danville church’s experiment, seemingly inspired by the Y2K film Pay It Forward. I can’t recommend that film (for fans of sentimental cinema, try David Lynch’s understated masterpiece The Straight Story instead), but read on to see how members of a Danville church turned an anonymous $1,500 donation into...
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12/17/08
When you say “movie star”, Bruce Campbell might not come to mind as quickly as Brad Pitt, Will Smith, and Tom Cruise. But Campbell fits comfortably into the definition of “cult movie icon”, thanks to roles in popcorn flicks like The Evil Dead trilogy, the Spider-Man films, and the epic B-movie Bubba Ho-Tep, in which Campbell played a geriatric Elvis Presley who has to battle a mummy. Needless to say, I’m a fan.
Campbell is currently acting in the TV show Burn Notice on the USA network. He also recently directed and starred in My Name is Bruce, a movie that spoofs his status as a movie star who appeals to uber-geeks of the horror and sci-fi genres. In Bruce, Campbell plays a version of...
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12/10/08
So last night I'm getting on a Southwest flight from Las Vegas to come back to Oakland and I see the New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman boarding the plane in front of me. Cashman is the Yankees equivalent to the A's Billy Beane, only with many more millions to spend on star players. Looks like Cashman was headed to the East Bay to try to sign Vallejo native C.C Sabathia to a whopping seven-year, $160 million deal to pitch for the Bronx Bombers in their
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12/03/08
I'm behind on my mainstream movie watching of late, having yet to see stuff like Slumdog Millionaire and Milk. But I did catch a cool little film recently that opens this Friday at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco. Lake City is the kind of sleeper that sneaks under the radar at this time of the year when Oscar-bait movies and kiddie flicks like Bolt and Twilight rule the multiplex. Lake City is the first feature by co-directors Hunter Hill and Perry Moore. It's a Southern drama, combining a decades-old family tragedy with a contemporary bag-full-o'- drugs thriller plot that's not terribly original but goes down easy. The film's most interesting element is a terrific cast, with Sissy Spacek in the above-the-title- role as a Southern mom with some deep-seeded...
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11/28/08
In 2006, Sacha Baron Cohen’s guerilla comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, became a box office smash, raking in $260 million worldwide. I can't wait to see the follow-up, Bruno, which hits theaters next May. In Borat, one of Cohen's jaw-dropping pranks involved Borat inviting an African-American prostitute to a formal Southern dinner. If you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m talking about, if you haven’t you should bump it to the top of your Netflix and put the kids to bed. Anyway, the prostitute was performed by East Bay-raised comedienne Luenell, who happens to be performing stand-up comedy at Tommy T’s in Pleasanton tonight though...
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