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'Parasite': For Richer or PoorerBy Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
03:44PM / Thursday, November 14, 2019 | |
 "You see, sir, rich people and theorists, who are usually rich people, think of poverty in the negative, as the lack of riches, as disease might be called the lack of health. But it isn't, sir. Poverty is not the lack of anything, but a positive plague, virulent in itself, contagious as cholera, with filth, criminality, vice and despair as only a few of its symptoms. It is to be stayed away from, even for purposes of study. It is to be shunned." I think I was about 6 or 7 when someone thought it whimsically wise to inform me that, "The rich get richer and the poor have more children." If memory serves, I at first thought the aphorism rather 0 Comments
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Miss Hall's School to Present 'Gut Girls'| 01:04PM / Tuesday, November 12, 2019 | |
 PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Take a step back in time to late-Victorian England and the "gutting" sheds of a South London cattle market, where the lives of the women working there are about to be turned upside down.
The Miss Hall's School Theater Ensemble will present "Gut Girls," a gritty drama about working women at the turn of the 20th century. Performances are at 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 15; 8 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 16; and 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 17. All shows will take place in the Woods Theater of the Elizabeth Gatchell Klein Arts Center on the Miss Hall's School campus.
Call 413-395-7023 to reserve tickets. General admission is $10, and reservations are
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'Motherless Brooklyn': Yes, CollusionBy Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
04:35PM / Thursday, November 07, 2019 | |
 Borrowing a smidgen of wiseacre snazziness from "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) and an acidic splash of scandal from "Chinatown" (1974), Edward Norton writes, directs and stars in the best film noir detective yarn to come down the cinema pike since "The Usual Suspects" (1995). And in the process, he probably puts himself in consideration for an Oscar via his Tourette syndrome-afflicted gumshoe, Lionel Essrog, deprived early in the doings of his only friend and mentor, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). So, we're talking loyalty, revenge and all the stumbling blocks those corrupt powers that be will toss in Lionel's way to deter his retribution, all done to the 0 Comments
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MCLA's Berkshire Cultural Resource Center Names New Director| 12:42PM / Thursday, October 31, 2019 | |
 NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts' Berkshire Cultural Resource Center has appointed Erica Wall as its new director.
As director, she will assume oversight of MCLA's public art spaces and programs, including MCLA's Gallery 51, its performing arts program, MCLA Presents!, and its four-month summer arts festival, DownStreet Art.
Wall is the founder of the Erica Broussard Gallery in Santa Ana, Calif. and has worked as director of school and community programs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and as director of education at The Crocker Museum in Sacramento. Prior to that, she worked as an educator at The Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Los
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'Judy': As Illustrated by RenéeBy Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
05:22PM / Thursday, October 24, 2019 | |
 Years ago, as I walked on Bleecker Street in The Village, a fellow weekend hippie in a granny dress ran up to me and excitedly exclaimed, "Chuck Berry is at So and So's apartment playing for donations." I didn't go, so I don't know if it was true. But I was gratified several years later during the Oldies Revival when a rediscovered Chuck Berry probably raked in more cash and deserved accolades than when first he queried, "Maybellene, why can't you be true?" Unfortunately, director Rupert Goold's "Judy," a traditionally constructed biopic about the great Judy Garland, while detailing an attempted career resurrection during a winter of 0 Comments
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'Pain & Glory': Regret & JoyBy Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
01:42PM / Thursday, October 17, 2019 | |
 "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent," said the poet, John Donne. But Antonio Banderas' Salvador Mallo, the famed director whose poetic sensibilities are woven throughout Pedro Almodóvar's expertly crafted "Pain & Glory," sure tries to prove him wrong. In self-imposed hiatus and exile from his storied career when we meet him, Mallo is an anxious confluence of nostalgia, regret, uncertainty and just a little glimmer of hope that might just be our wishful thinking. Born into more than humble roots of which we are apprised in beautifully etched flashbacks as Salvador painfully and painstakingly tries 0 Comments
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'Joker': Doesn't Kid AroundBy Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
05:12PM / Wednesday, October 09, 2019 | |
 If van Gogh were alive today and dabbling in film, I expect that he might create something as artistically maddening as Todd Phillips' "Joker." But we must tread carefully. The controversy is there for the taking. Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck, who will ultimately evolve into his alter ego, the Joker, before the closing credits fall on this fantastically directed, acted and produced "Batman" offshoot, is off the hook in every definition of the term. Thus the question is begged: Is it OK to derive entertainment from the criminally insane? Phillips, who co-wrote this magnum opus with Scott Silver, throws all decorum and caution to the wind as 0 Comments
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'Ad Astra': Stellar Search for SelfBy Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
06:28PM / Friday, October 04, 2019 | |
 — Shakespeare While I don't love director James Gray's "Ad Astra," a space cowboy adventure about an accomplished astronaut's (Brad Pitt) mission to locate his legendary astronaut dad (Tommy Lee Jones), previously presumed dead but perhaps gone rogue, I must extol its valuable subtext. You know how you might just be fantasizing about that dream house on a lake in Vermont and suddenly you start getting email advertisements on your phone about just such an abode? Well, per this highly prescient movie set "in the near future," the thought is we are just about there. In this predicted tomorrow, that sort of mind intrusion has been honed to a 0 Comments
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HiLo North Adams Welcomes Comedy Night to the RegionBy Rick Duteau, iBerkshires Correspondent
07:07PM / Saturday, September 28, 2019 | |
 NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — We enjoyed a live comedy show in North Adams on Thursday night. HiLo North Adams entertained a near-capacity audience on Thursday night for its inaugural Comedy Night, headlined by comedian Monroe Martin. The venue at Canal and Union streets opened just a few weeks ago to bring a local home for live music and nightlife entertainment, and Comedy Night is another extension of that vision. Both audiences and performers alike were unsure what to expect of one another, and yet almost immediately the atmosphere felt comfortable and exciting in a way that suggested this was anything but the first time this was happening there. The feel of the 0 Comments
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'Downton Abbey': King of the Soap OperasBy Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
01:46PM / Thursday, September 26, 2019 | |
 Director Michael Engler's "Downton Abbey," a feature film continuation of the TV series that eluded me in its entirety during its very successful run, is full up with the stuff of royalty. I shouldn't laugh at the silliness of the outmoded form of government, which is truly my first inclination, big democrat that I am. But I'm reminded that I'm still counting on being invited to the coronation ball and hanging out a bit with the newly invested King Charles, should he yet ascend to the throne. OK, OK, I still haven't written the letter. I've been putting it off for several decades, but still plan to get to it. It would explain that we are about the 0 Comments
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