Bruce Bratton hosts University Grapevine, linking local and campus issues, every Tuesday 7:30-8:30 p.m. on KZSC 88.1 fm.
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YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE ON THE CONFERENCE CENTER. No matter what Mike Rotkin and The Sentinel say, the residents of Santa Cruz have a right, and should be given the right to vote on spending $66 million dollars of our city money over a period of 30 years on this proposed Coast Hotel Conference Center. There are more than 60 petition gatherers out collecting signatures right now so that we will be given the right to vote that was denied us by City Hall, namely Scott Kennedy, Ceil Cirillo, Dick Wilson, Rotkin, Mathews, and the new kids. This Saturday, February 26 and Saturday, March 5 there will be tables set up in front of Bookshop Santa Cruz and O'Neill's Surf Shop where the Cooperhouse used to be, between noon and 4 p.m. Come down, have a good time, ask questions, hear honest and true answers, enjoy the entertainment, and help us get thousands of extra signatures to show City Hall that we care about how our city grows, and in these tough financial times we want to have important city planning out in the open. See you on both Saturdays.
MORE ABOUT OUR COAST AND DEVELOPMENT. Read the article from California Coastal Coalition. It tells about Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz and the real competition between the two cities. It's more than Surf City titles, its development, hotels and who can sell out beach frontage the fastest.
KRONOS QUARTET AT STANFORD. The Kronos Quartet has been playing together since 1973, and they've been coming to Santa Cruz almost that long. Last week Stanford Lively Arts presented The Kronos Quartet in their excellent Dinkelspiel auditorium. You should have been there. That alone would have been enough of an experience. Kronos played works by Peter Sculthorpe, and the under 30 composer Alexandra du Bois. We've heard them play compositions by the Icelandic group Sigur Ros, and their rendition of Flugufrelsarinn was as beautiful as Pachelbel's famed hit, but the real treat of the evening was the solo playing of Rahman Asadollahi on his Azerbaijani accordion. Rahman comes from Iran and was banned there when they outlawed Azerbaijani music and has since won awards all over the world. The art of his folk style accordion, by transcending the ability to improvise endlessly, reaches far into an almost spiritual state and he transfixed the audience completely. The standing ovations were proof of that. Check out the full year of great presentations from the Stanford Lively Arts program at www.livelyarts.stanford.edu or call them at (650) 723-2551.
MANNY SANTANA NIGHT. Sunday March 6th 7p.m. at the Cabrilho College Auditorium is the celebration of Manuel's 40th year in business. The Cabrilho College Distinguished Artists Concert & Lecture series are staging all of this. The Quartet San Francisco will play a concert in the Cabrilho Auditorium consisting of works by Astor Piazzolla, Raymond Scott, Mozart, Carlos Gardel, Duke Ellington, Peter Schickele and even Henry Mancini. It'll be a special night and everybody will talk about it afterwards. Reserve seats at 479-6331. Food to follow in The Sesnon House.
LOCAL POWDER WORKS TALK. Barry Brown will be giving a talk titled "Boom Town: The Life and Times of The California Powder Works". If you have already become excited about the history of Santa Cruz County you know that a big part of our history is involved with explosives. Gunpowder, dynamite, you name it and it blew up here and took several lives too. The talk is at The Museum of Art & History 705 Front Street across from Trader Joe's Saturday, March 12 from 10 am to noon. The talk is sponsored by Researchers Anonymous. Call 429-1964 for information. Donations are welcome.
SCCTV NEWS. You can watch Amy Goodman live (all sold out) from UCSC at 6pm on Comcast 25 or Charter channel 71 this Wednesday night. You can also watch her and probably do, on Democracy Now! on Community TV. On Saturday the 26th SCCTV will broadcast a Special Social Security meeting with Sam Farr, Anna Eshoo, Mike Honda and somebody else. That'll be on Comcast 26 charter 72 from 10am to 11:30 am.
CONSTANTINE. Keanu Reeves' presence should warn have warned us, and I went one step further and tried to find any online film critic who wrote anything near positive about Constantine. Only Glenn Whipp said good things about this film. It's from a gothic novel and I like gothic novels but aside from the special effects which are too fast and too furious to be comprehended. Anyway just rent this if you desperately think you need one more concept of hell.
BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE. You don't have to see this movie to believe how bad it is. It is just plain bad on its' own. Even Cicely Tyson and Eva Marie Saint can't get around director Wayne Wang's simple but inept directing. Wang has gone exactly no where fast. He began with some fine films, Chan Is Missing, Eat a Bowl of Tea, (ten years ago) he did Smoke and Blue in The Face, but then came Maid in Manhattan and now this dog film. Besides that it's set in Florida, don't go no matter if you did read the book.
BORN INTO BROTHELS. This is a documentary about some very unusual children that were carefully chosen from Calcutta's red light district to become amateur photographers. The children's mothers are prostitutes and these kids don't have a chance of survival until the woman photographer comes along to make a film of their lives. She gives them cameras and tries to change their lives. She probably helps a couple of them, but the rolling credits at the end of the film say a lot between the lines.
NEW MUSIC WORKS CONCERT. The New Music Works conducted by Phil Collins and the San Jose Chamber Orchestra conducted by Barbara Day Turner are working together to "perform a resplendent spectrum of music" titled Lou Harrison in Memoriam. Both groups will perform each night. New Music'ers will play Tributes to Chiron, Sonata for Psaltery, Perilous Chapel, and Solo to Anthony Cirone. The San Jose group will play Elegy for Lou Harrison and Suite for Violin and String Orchestra. The first night is Saturday March 5 at 8p.m. at the First Congregational Church 900 High Street and the Second night is Sunday March 6 at 7 p.m. Le Petit Trianon in San Jose. Call 459-2159 at UCSC for tickets here, and 408 295-4416 for San Jose tickets.
QUOTES. "She would be a nymphomaniac if only they could calm her down a little." -Judy Garland. "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature affects the cure." -Voltaire. "My doctor gave me six months to live, but when I couldn't pay my bill he gave me six months more." -Walter Matthau. Noel Coward said to Peter O'Toole: "If you were any more beautiful in Lawrence of Arabia, they would have called it Florence of Arabia."
Bruce critiques films every Friday on KZSC-FM (88.1) on The Bushwhacker Breakfast Club at 8am.
It's free! Click here.
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COAST HOTEL & CONFERENCE CENTER. Times have changed and a 2% increase in the hotel tax would pass and it would equal the money that the hotel conference center would bring in. And it would do it immediately, not in 30 years.
The petition will bring the vote to the voters on whether the city should go into debt for $66 million dollars. As announced at the very successful SCRAP press conference, SCRAP is not against a conference center, only the location. Since Mayor Mike talks so much about money ask him how much of the Redevelopment Agency money has been spent so far on this Conference Center? Consultants, lobbyists, plans, drawings etc. (more than any election would cost, I'll bet). Yes, it's true: there have been close to 1,000 signatures gathered on the petition just over the weekend. For more information on petitions call Bill Malone 420-1133 or email santacruzansforresponsibleplan@yahoo.com
CONFERENCE CENTER CONFLAGRATION CONTINUES. I think Daryl Darling who supports the Conference Center either made the biggest lie or the most uninformed statement of the Hotel battle so far. He said at the People's Democratic Club meeting that when/if the Conference Center is built, the Darling House will lose money. The Darling House is of course the closest Bed and Breakfast to the Dream Inn site. Everyone knows that folks who don't want to pay those exorbitant rates at the proposed Dream Inn Conference Center will want to stay close by and chose Daryl's place. But then again, as we saw at the aforementioned Valentine's Day press conference Daryl gets very temperamental and says silly things. Daryl, Scott Kennedy, Don Lane, Tony Hill and Karen Darling were at the referendum press conference last Monday. They are apparently unable to create their own press information, or just desperate to get as much attention as they could. Either way theirs was a cheap shot, but indicative of how worried they are about a referendum, they know how a majority of the voters will vote.
SECRETARY OF STATE McPHERSON (last week's historical photo) If you scroll down to last week's column you can see the young Secretary of State and his MG. Eric Fingal of Covello & Covello and the supplier of almost every one of my historical photos emailed immediately to tell us the following... "Just in the interest of accuracy, I believe Bruce and Brad Elliot are standing in a spot that would be in the middle of the street now. The "Cedar-Vine cut through" (as I remember, an issue of that day) went through in 1968 or so. The old Sentinel building sat next door to the current one on the Pacific Avenue side- now a street. Cedar Street used to end at Church Street, and then Vine would start off of Walnut (or was it visa versa?). The Sentinel and some other buildings were in-between. They tore those structures down and united the streets into one long one. (There was also talk of uniting Broadway and Brommer in those days- another hot issue; but that never happened)...Eric Fingal Covello and Covello Photography. www.covellocovello.com
COASTAL COMMISSION LOSES DECISION TO SIERRA CLUB!! The Sierra Club fought a Coastal Commission decision for 18 months over a 3 story commercial residential development in Davenport and the Sierra Club won! The S. Club said that the proposed development violated the Coastal Act and the local coastal program in six significant aspects. It was the first court ruling that overturned a Coastal Commission permit for development in Santa Cruz County. Read about it here: [download pdf file] and read carefully because the Sierra Club also opposes the Coast Hotel and Conference Center.
TRADER JOE'S IS DOING FINE. Secret sources deep inside Trader Joe's new Santa Cruz store tell me that they are having $90,000 dollar days. That's even more than they anticipated. On the other hand I always feel guilty shopping for just a few things I can only find at the Safeway on Mission. That was until I saw Angela Davis shopping there too last week.
TRAVELLERS & MAGICIANS. This film all by itself can restore your faith in cinema's unique ability to tell a story. This is a simple story that is deep and profound and touches everyone who has made any decisions in life. Filmed in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan it is as beautiful a film as it is magical. You should see it on the big screen, and you won't forget it either.
IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL. This documentary film's subtitle is The Mysterious Life and Art of Henry Darger. Henry was one odd duck; he was an artist and writer but never showed or exposed his works to anybody. All his accomplishments, paintings, books, his entire fantasy world, were discovered only after he died. Sensual, sexual, naïve, his works spanned most of Henry's life. If you like, or love art and are attuned to its ability to communicate, see this film.
HITCH. Eminent film scholar Elza Minor and I went to see Will Smith's newest film Hitch. To be honest, neither of us expected much from the film, even after seeing the previews. We were happily wrong; it is a very funny film. You start out with a few guarded snickers, then slowly the laughs start and they keep coming. It's clever, well written, plausibly implausible but possible and, if you can remember dating, this film is for you. Go for it.
MERCHANT OF VENICE. I went to see this wonderful film for the second time. Its seven better the second time. Many critics, including Morton Marcus, spend too many words comparing it to Shakespeare's text and whether or not they agree with the director's interpretation. What these critics forget or avoid telling us is...is it a good film? Forget Shakespeare, forget the homosexual thing, forget what anti-Semitism was left in, or out, (from the play) was it a good film? I think it is an excellent film, go see it.
THE SKRIKER. This 1994 play by England's award winning playwright Caryl Churchill is about an old scary fairy that comes to earth and changes shapes and causes havoc. Reviewers have called it a demented arcane fairy tale and some say it's nonsensical. It's directed by Kimberly Jannarone, asst. director of directing at UCSC. It plays Fri-Sun Feb 18-20 and Thurs-Sun Feb. 24-28. Evenings at 7 pm and Sundays at 3p.m. UCSC's Theatre Arts Department is presenting it in the Experimental Theatre up near the Mainstage theatre. If you haven't been in the experimental theatre on campus it means the theatre seats are experimental too!! They must be experimenting to see if any single human can sit in them more than 3 minutes. Bring cushions or anything to help make you comfortable. Call 459-2159 or go to http://events.ucsc.edu/tickets
TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY. UCSC's Arts & Lectures is presenting the Trisha Brown Dance Company in just one performance in Watsonville's Mello Center, Wednesday night February 23, at 8 p.m. A&L director Michelle Witt says that the Mello Center is absolutely the best place in the County to have dance programs. Trisha has won modern dance awards all over the world. Her company will be performing Present Tense, dancing to the music of John Cage and two other pieces. Get tickets at 459-2159 or tickets@ucsc.edu.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. I've been lax in putting some very important letters I've received in the Letters to the Editors department. Check out Paul Elerick's letter on The Highway Wideners are baaaack, read Cedar Geiger's letter about what's happening on the Wilson property up by Lenz Arts, and his concern about our hardware and lumber stores. Read too what TritonPSH had to say to The Sentinel!! Just go to the top of this column and click where it says letters to the editor...some great reading and thanks so much for the continued support.
QUOTES. Johnna Tipton sent this one, "The most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." -H.P. Lovecraft. (Very deep, but that's good old H.P for you). "I've knocked everything in this play except the chorus girls' knees, and there God anticipated me." -Percy Hammond. "Chevy Chase couldn't ad-lib a fart after a baked bean dinner." -Johnny Carson. end
Bruce critiques films every Friday on KZSC-FM (88.1) on The Bushwhacker Breakfast Club at 8am.
It's free! Click here.
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COAST HOTEL AND CONFERENCE CENTER, SOME MORE!! Articles on the Coast Hotel Conference Center abound everywhere. Good Times, the San Jose Mercury, the S.F. Chronicle and of course The Sentinel have all had a go at relating this saga. None of them bothered to go beneath the easy top story and tell that the $30 million dollars that the proponents want the city of Santa Cruz to get into debt for, really amounts to $66 million dollars if/when the city pays it back with interest in 30 years. So change the 30 year debt to $66 million, and then take that to the voters. There were no mentions made that Maggie Ivy of the Tourist Bureau and Ceil Cirillo of the Redevelopment Agency have been saying that this $66 million dollar debt is "not real money" and that it's something called "public money"!! No one mentioned that "some small coalition of business owners" had been paying former City Council member Don Lane $1200 to lobby for this Coast Hotel Conference Center. None of the articles mentioned that the present Dream Inn is non-conforming to existing codes and that the City Council's 4-3 vote to support the new Coast Hotel which, if built, would be even more non-conforming. All of this hassle, and the still unknown and never revealed expenses that the city has invested so far, could have been avoided if the City had acted openly and asked for input before plotting in secret with the hotel developers.
THREE CHEERS AND CONGRATULATIONS. City Council members Emily Reilly, Tim Fitzmaurice and Ed Porter must have faced pressures nearly beyond belief to vote No or slow down Mayor Mike Rotkin's railroading of the Coast Hotel Conference Center. They listened to what the nearby neighbors in Clear View Court had to say, they listened to what the Sierra Club stated, they acted on what they knew to be the will of the people is and what the people will say and how they will vote when the referendum gives them that chance. Congratulations, and thanks from all of us for your courage and wisdom and sense of standing up for what you know to be right and fair.
OUR SAD NEW CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS. I don't think many Santa Cruzans ever had much hope Tony Madrigal would vote any other way than his much hyped so called pro-union pose on the Coast Hotel Convention Center, but Ryan Coonerty was another matter. Environmentalists, planners, former city council members, and citizens from every point of view supported him, hoping against hope that he would buck the LOBA backing and vote for at least slowing down the Coast Hotel plot. But like Madrigal, Coonerty too voted with his small, but dedicated group of business backers who stand to make huge profits if this conference hotel should go through. Coonerty's puny mitigations remind me of the last city council asking Louie Rittenhouse if he'd have room to park bicycles in his mythical building at Church and Pacific before giving him a 7-0 support vote plus another extension so he could continue his search for investors. What's sad about Coonerty and Madrigal's support in racing this hotel scheme past the voters is that they voted as tools for their self interest groups. They did not represent the people they were elected to serve. The referendum will prove to the new kids they made a mistake, and it'll give all the voters the chance to tell the entire City Council and all those newspapers, that this hotel plan needs and deserves better planning, or it needs to be stopped.
REDTREE PLANS FOR LIPTONS PROPERTY. Last week I wrote about how the SCRAP group supported Redtree Properties managing director Craig French when he told us about their plans for the 20 acres of the Lipton property. I just didn't tell what those plans are. They want to make the property into a light industrial condominium park. They'll build small buildings on a circular drive with entrance and exit on Delaware. These will be to buy or rent, and be around 5000 square feet each. Craig says it's the anti big box approach. And there will be no huge retail stores there to attract traffic. Business incubators are certainly possible. French stated that this is all just in the planning stage and things could happen but SCRAP members all thought this seemed doable. French and Scrap will get together anytime either group has concerns. Now why can't the Santa Cruz City's Redevelopment agency operate like that, instead of all the secret planning before going public?
MISSION AGAINST TERROR. Filmmaker Bernie Dwyer will be in Santa Cruz to introduce her newest film Mission Against Terror. Dwyer has made films about revolutionaries like Che Guevara, and this film shows historical footage of US terrorism against Cuba. The Cuban Five infiltrated groups of Miami Cuban émigrés and revealed their plans of terrorist activities against Cuba. They are still in USA prisons. See the film; learn more about Bush's government and their plans to deal with Cuba. Mission Against Terror was featured at the 2004 Havana Film Festival last October. It'll be at the Rio Thursday, February 17 at 7pm tickets at the door or call 465-8272.
CITY COUNCIL REMINDER. Mike Rotkin and Cynthia Mathews will be up for re-election in only one and a half years. End of reminder.
WALLY TRABING RETURNS! Long time friend Wally Trabing (we first met when I was a clerk at East Side Hardware in 1970) will have a signing for his new book on Friday, February 18 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the First Congregational Church 900 High Street. The book is called "The Best of Wally Trabing- Mostly about Friends". It's published by Rising Star Press and former Santa Cruzan Donna Jacobsen is the publisher. It'll be on sale at all the finest book stores plus the MAH shop on Cooper Street.
WE NEED A CLUE. Don Stevens of Nuclear Whales fame and Empire Grade activist Hal Levin are part of the group called CLUE: Coalition Limiting University Expansion. Don sent Bratton Online.com an email bulletin telling of the concerns CLUE has about UCSC's projected growth. It's a huge project, larger than Home Depot and the proposed entrance on Empire Grade will change many lives. Read about it in the letters to the editor for this week. There's a meeting coming up when you can express your concerns about UCSC's monster plans on February 16th at the Holiday Inn or UCSC Hotel on Ocean Street from 6 to 8 p.m.
THE CRITICS VERSUS OSCAR. Cinema Scene's Morton Marcus, The Sentinel's Wallace Baine, Good Times' Lisa Jensen, and yours truly will once again hold forth on who we think will win the big deal Oscar. This is a sequel to the morning we spent last month giving forth with our ten top films of the year. It turns out that few of our favorites ended up in the Oscar nominated group, but it is great fun. The audience will have plenty of opportunity to add their two cents. Trying to guess at the political and financial games involved with the Oscar selection is like trying to figure out the Bush White House but join us. It's 11a.m. at the Nickelodeon Saturday Feb. 26. The Oscar night is Feb. 27. But equally nutty are the Independent Spirit Awards live from Santa Monica Beach on Saturday night Feb. 26.
HIDE AND SEEK. Robert De Niro does a better job than you think in this horror film but it still sucks. Simple movie rule, if you don't like scary movies- don't go to scary movies. This one tries to be scary and so does Boogeyman. They both have many of the same old scare items, bathtubs full of blood, ghostly hands, weird mirrors, weird mothers, weird fathers and of course, weird kids. Avoid this film. But Dakota Fanning is still one of the best Hollywood young actors ever!
BOOGEYMAN. Another scary film (see above). I forgot to mention other scare items like scary stairs, scary basements, scary attics and the biggest of all for this film is scary closets. Wow, does it have scary closets. No actors you've ever heard of, just those closets. Avoid this film, too.
WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL. This is a documentary, not a great documentary but the subject of wild parrots and the guy who takes care of them in the wilderness of San Francisco's Telegraph Hill makes you want to drive up there this weekend and see them. The story is wonderful, you know the scenery is legendary, the photography is certainly not close to Frans Lanting or Chris Eckstrom's but go anyway.
WEDDING DATE. Dermot Mulroney and Debra Messing really don't display much magnetism in this wedding comedy. You keep trying to figure why they're even together since it isn't about the money. Each of them probably has some hidden acting talent and you do get flashes of intelligence now and then but you could save even more of your hard earned money and see something good or even great.
ONLY IN SANTA CRUZ. Part one. The Santa Cruz City Museum sold out two Frans Lanting Extreme Hawaii slide shows last Saturday. Two sold out 600 seat slide shows on Hawaii in Santa Cruz, only means one or three things. Considering that every one in both audiences probably has several shoe boxes full of their own Hawaii photos, that they love Frans Lanting's photography that much, they want to especially see the parts of Hawaii that normal people don't see (just photographers) and that they love their Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. Check out the museums many events and programs, go to www.santacruzmuseums.org
ONLY IN SANTA CRUZ part two, or THE OTHER SUPER BOWL SUNDAY. UCSC's Arts & Lectures packed the Music Recital hall at 7pm on Super Bowl night with the outstanding Amadeus Trio. Not only did the Amadeus get a standing ovation but the lobby actually buzzed with discussion of their playing of Shostakovich's Trio in e minor opus 67. Shostakovich paid tribute to a Jewish friend and to all Jews who died in the Holocaust. Click here to check out recordings of this remarkable piece of music. Amadeus hasn't recorded it yet, but they should. http://home.wanadoo.nl/ovar/shopuscd/op67.htm Next year A&L should plan an entire Super Sunday afternoon and evening of music and performance for folks who don't care for football.
QUOTES. Constant column reader Doug Pomeroy, who lives in Brooklyn, sends this one, "The food there is poison. And such small portions!" he says it's from "Mrs. Cohen at the Beach", by Fanny Brice. Probably referring to the same restaurant... "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded." -Yogi Berra. "I'm really a timid person-I was beaten up by Quakers." -Woody Allen.
Do send in your quotes, seeing as how since Bush was elected, we no longer have the courage to display gutsy bumper stickers. end
Bruce critiques films every Friday on KZSC-FM (88.1) on The Bushwhacker Breakfast Club at 8am.
It's free! Click here.
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Part 1. SANTA CRUZANS for RESPONSIBLE PLANNING. An amazing meeting happened last week. In my own 30 plus years of watching and fighting inappropriate development in this county I had never seen anything like it. First the background...The Santa Cruzans for Responsible Planning or SCRAP has been meeting for about a year. Their aim is to bring responsible planning to Westside Santa Cruz, instead of accepting the first proposal by any developer that comes along. Or, in the case of the Coast Hotel, any developer that the city of Santa Cruz begs to build. SCRAP doesn't have any formal members or even any rules. They sometimes meet every week or maybe once a month. During the recent city council election and the ongoing battle over the Coast Hotel and working out problems with the old Wrigley's and Lipton's properties, SCRAP invited and interviewed every council member of the City Council, even the new ones, except Cynthia Mathews.
Part 2. FREQUENT ATTENDEES OF SCRAP MEETINGS include Dick Dubrava, Ralph Meyberg, Katherine Beiers, Aldo Giacchino, Lynn Robinson, Celia Scott, Gordon Pusser, Diane Dubrava, Wolfgang Rosenberg, Nancy Curry, Ron Pomerantz, Gillian Greensite, Ren Curry, Bill Malone, Debbie Bulger, Pat Matejcek, Chris Krohn plus visitors from several organizations at each meeting, and me too.
Part 3. THE AMAZING SCRAP MEETING. So what happened was that SCRAP invited Craig French, the managing director of Redtree Properties to come to their January 27th meeting and tell us what Redtree had in mind for the 20 acre old Lipton property on Delaware Avenue. He did!!! Now Redtree properties are the folks who brought us such miracles as Circuit City, Borders Books, Toys R Us, and the Neary Building. Now The Sentinel and others have accused some progressives as waiting for the chance and loving to oppose any development. So you'd figure this French- SCRAP meeting would be a wild free for all and a development travesty. Ha! SCRAP heard Redtree's plans and.... gave French great encouragement!!! Statements such as "let's work together", "keep in touch", it was workable, and that meeting produced some of the most promising development plans I've ever seen. IT can be done. The City doesn't have to develop in secret; developers don't have to pay people to lobby council members. Development doesn't have to mean referendums and citizen divisions between neighbors. Progressives, environmentalists, politicians, planners, developers, and the public can work together and work in the open. Growth is happening, times are tough, the future isn't particularly bright politically, but we can work together.
MERCHANT OF VENICE. First of all, no matter what any of us think of Shakespeare's play we have to realize film versions of any of his plays rarely please Shakespeare purists. Because of the Jewish character Shylock, this is actually the first time this play has been made into a sound film anywhere in the world! No other major Shakespeare play has been avoided like this. Pressures from some folks in Santa Cruz even stopped Shakespeare Santa Cruz from presenting it for many years. This film starring Al Pacino as Shylock deals with both the anti-Semitic plot, and the comedy side of the wedding plans with straight on gusto. The director made cuts, filmed it beautifully in Venice (Shakespeare never went to Venice!) and for me, made an excellent film. This is not the final film of this play because like all of Shakespeare's works there is no definitive way to even do the plays, let alone make a film of them. If you like Shakespeare, see this film especially on the big screen.
MILLION DOLLAR BABY. After several arguments with friends I realized that my problem with every film Clint Eastwood makes is that he can't do anything subtle. Each problem, emotion, reaction, joke, or tragedy has to be so heavy handed that the audience leaves in a stunned state of mind. Baby is like Mel Gibson's Christ film, you are just drained of gut level feelings. Million Dollar Baby is a very simple film, nothing to figure out, Clint lays it all out there and we react. It isn't a bad film, and it does make you think of relationships, love, death, and life, but it certainly is no deep film. Yes, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman prove they are fine actors. Go see it, its better that The Aviator, but nowhere near as good as the Woodsman, Bad Education, A Very Long Engagement, or Hotel Rwanda.
BERKELEY OPERA'S IL TRITTICO. The Berkeley Opera's production of Puccini's three one act operas, Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicci all together as Puccini intended, works beautifully. The savage and brutal love of Il Tabarro opens the trio followed by the sensitive, sacred, sadness of Suor Angelica and the three hours of Puccini's music closes with the hilarity and hypocrisy of Gianni Scicchi. Berkeley Opera trimmed the plots slightly and wisely. The staging is done with clever cost-saving staging, the singing, acting, and the orchestra are first rate and I hope all opera lovers get to hear the voices of soprano Ayelet Cohen and tenor Brian Thorsett, they were standouts in Schicchi. There is one performance left on February 6th at 2 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center For The Arts in Berkeley. Go to www.berkeleyopera.org or call 925 798-1300 immediately, or just get on their mailing list. They'll be doing Verdi's Macbeth in May and Wagner's Meistersinger in July.
EL CHIPOTLE TAQUERIA. After reading Donna Maurillo's recommendation in the Sentinel I tried a meal at El Chipotle Taqueria in Soquel. Donna was right; El Chipotle has wonderful food and "affordable" prices. Truth is, I only had the menudo, and I love good menudo. Just the right kind of spicy. Loaded with all the trimmings, and everybody who works there are friendly. El Chipotle Taqueria is at 4724 Soquel Drive in the heart of Soquel right next to the post office. Phone 477-1048.
QUOTES. "Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment." -Robert Benchley. "There is nothing like the sight of an old enemy down on his luck." -Euripides. "Blown his brains out, you say? He must have been an incredibly good shot." -Noel Coward.
Bruce critiques films every Friday on KZSC-FM (88.1) on The Bushwhacker Breakfast Club at 8am.
It's free! Click here.
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