David Berke

Modifying Dean Valentini’s initiative

The "3, 2, 1" plan needs to foster community, not just finance the College.

By David Berke | Oct 9 08:16 pm ET

Cinema politico: Irish fight for their rights in political films

It would be difficult to find films more disparate in style than The Wind That Shakes the Barley and The Crying Game. But the two films are, at their core, about the same thing—the Irish fight for independence from Great Britain.

By David Berke | Apr 27 10:06 pm ET

Romania and the future of film

The Romanian New Wave? Discussing cinematic trends in a single Eastern European country with, as New York Times critic A.O. Scott pointed out, only about 80 movie theaters for its 22 million citizens, sounds like an exercise in arcane futility.

By David Berke | Apr 13 10:16 pm ET

Cinema Politico: hot politics, cool movies

Before Bush left office, Oliver Stone’s W premiered, films like Rendition and Stop-Loss maligned his policies, and a British filmmaker released a mock documentary about an imagined assassination of poor George.

By David Berke | Mar 30 11:13 pm ET

Cinema Politico: The Gems of Political Documentary

The most popular documentaries of our time generally seem to border on propaganda. Michael Moore whispers grave condemnations about anything left of socialism when discussing health care in SiCKO, and Ben Stein babbles rightist nonsense in his idiotic intelligent design diatribe Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, going as far as conflating Darwinism with Nazism.

By David Berke | Feb 23 11:34 pm ET

Cinema Politico: Mid-East’s Cinematic Achievement

From partisan protests on college walk to rockets in Gaza, antagonism between Palestinian and Israeli factions seems more entrenched than ever.

By David Berke | Feb 10 12:04 am ET

Cinema Politico: India’s Art Stifled by its Extremism

Slumdog Millionaire, the Oscar nominee set in Mumbai, is a menagerie of many things—social realism, fantasy, and black comedy.

By David Berke | Jan 26 11:06 pm ET

Cadillac Entertaining, but Swiped From Predecessors Dreamgirls and Ray

In case you had not realized that drugs and sex are often found with rock and roll, director Darnell Martin is here with Cadillac Records—a biopic cataloguing the rise and fall of the historic American music label Chess Records—to remind us.

By David Berke | Dec 5 03:41 am ET

Carole Lombard’s Films Cure the Bail-Out Blues

Just in time for the sub-8,000-point Dow Jones Industrial Average, Film Forum is running a movie series fraught with droll films and good ticket deals. From Nov. 22 until Dec.

By David Berke | Nov 24 08:22 pm ET

Students Make Background Noise as Extras on Big and Small Screens

Want to be paid to dress in bell bottoms and an Afro? Olivia Whelan, BC ’08, spent a recent weekday doing just that. She was working as an extra for the new network TV show Life on Mars.

By David Berke | Nov 5 07:03 pm ET

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