“The Guard” (shouldn’t that be, The Garda?) is a terrific Irish film that showcases Brendan Gleeson, a wry and splendid actor who plays a small time village cop, Sergeant Gerry Boyle. (The film was a critical and popular hit in Ireland.) When three drug traffickers make their way to his area, he suddenly has to deal with the rather up-tight FBI agent Wendell Everett played with fitting cultural confusion by Don Cheadle.

Adam Curtis’ new documentary, All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, gives hope that at least some of the world is waking up from the mass hallucination of disembodied information. The documentary, which is subtitled, “The Rise of the Machines,” explores how in the later part of the 20th Century, and the first decade of the 21st, much of the world became organized around the old gnostic fantasy that information or souls can be separated from the constraints of the material world, becoming free to circulate through time and space. This way of seeing the world has always unleashed powerful fantasies of power among the powerful. And it has recently led some to the ludicrous conclusion that, “information wants to be free,” or that human beings are merely meat vehicles for the transport of genetic information through time.

So what’s funny about being in my 60s? It’s funny to be at an age where historical documentaries are being made about political actions I was involved in. Am I history?

Recently, on the exact fortieth anniversary of our takeover of a Harvard building, the final cut of “Left on Pearl” was shown to a sold-out crowd at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is a documentary about the 1971 feminist takeover of a Harvard University building – one of very few such incidents ever – leading to 10 days of occupation, political agitation, individual transformation and media hysteria. We activists were told to scurry back to our husbands’ kitchens. The press could not get enough of us, or rather of bashing us.

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Wars make poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”

More than sixty years after the war that cemented Israel’s statehood, known both as the War of Independence and The Catastrophe, Jews and Palestinians alike can affirm the truth in King’s declaration. In the film, Little Town of Bethlehem, coming out this October, three men from either side of the concrete wall that now separates Israel and Palestine, talk about growing up under the cloud of this long conflict and how it has shaped each of their lives.

The “Art of the Steal,” which just opened at the Kendall Square Theatre, Cambridge, documents a true Horatio Alger story and how it went awry.



A boy grows up in a working class Philadelphia neighborhood, attends public schools, and, after earning an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, studies chemistry and pharmacology in Berlin. He meets a German scientist. Together they develop a new antiseptic silver compound. The American returns to the United States and partners with the German in a firm to manufacture and market their invention. Their product is phenomenally successful. When the American buys out his partner five years later, it provides him with vast financial resources.

Michael Moore has wrestled with Congress, insurance companies, the National Rifle Association, General Motors, and various players in the “military-industrial complex."

But Goliath has never been this big…

In his new film, “Capitalism: A Love Story” which opened nationwide on Friday, Michael Moore (playing David) “volunteers” to save his tribe by taking on the behemoths that sit atop our economic system; i.e. the banks and mega-financial services corporations – companies such as AIG, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs – who many believe are responsible for the global economic disaster that erupted into public view 18 months ago.

Press Pass TV joined forces with Dongoson Productions to create this powerful video, featuring some of Boston's top talent and an important message for the President.

FOOD INC: A Must See Film. Viewing doesn't require a strong stomach; it does require a clear mind.

BOSTON/Back Bay - My conversation Saturday with actress and comedienne Marla Gibbs and her daughter Angela Gibbs - actress, director, and producer - could have gone on for hours. But the two women, visiting Boston for the Roxbury Film Festival this weekend, were required to meet with festival organizers, and of course, see some movies.

BOSTON/Dudley Square and various other locations - A person only has one heart. But a city has multiple centers of life-giving blood. In Boston, known for its multiplicity of neighborhoods, one of those cultural organs beats at the Hibernian Hall in Dudley Square.

Home to ACT Roxbury - an arts, culture, and economic development program sponsored by the Madison Park Development Corporation - and the 11th Annual Roxbury Film Festival, the building was buzzing with activity this week as staff members prepared for the weekend line-up of film showings and special events.