Every shot is thrilling in Cold War, Pawel Pawlikowski's follow up to Ida. Like Roma, Cold War is an endorsement of the power of black and white cinema. This lean, fast film concerns the paradox of mid-20th century discontentment. Example: At great cost to yourself, you escape the workers' paradise of the Soviet empire, an Eden where they tie your hands. You then arrive in capitalist heaven to face what Joni Mitchell termed "the crazy you get from too much choice." It's the perplexity summed up by that famous shot of the milelong supermarket aisle in The Hurt Locker. Trauma makes it hard to appreciate bounty. » Read More

It makes sense to think of If Beale Street Could Talk as a Romeo and Juliet story in which white repression is the force keeping true lovers apart. The 22-year-old Fonny, short for Alfonso (Stephan James) is a young man with little money and the desire to be a sculptor. His lover, 19-year-old Tish (Kiki Layne) has just discovered she's pregnant. It all begins with Fonny in jail, wrongly accused of a violent rape. There's little or no money for the defense, the victim has fled to Puerto Rico and the New York politicians want the case prosecuted, no matter how fishy it is. When director and adapter Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) gets the lovers together, everything works. He seeks old-fashioned romantic movie intensity as they make love for the » Read More

"Muxeres Rising" is a group show of 13 "self-identified Latinx women," some of whose work "openly critiques the repressive qualities of American politics and Latino culture." Notable examples include an Elizabeth Blancas painting that contains the slogan, "The future is femme trans non binary now." She halves the background at a 90-degree angle, painting half of it yellow, the other half magenta. A figure on the left stares at the viewer with long manes of pink hair. Vanessa "Agana" Espinoza transforms the Statue of Liberty by depicting her in black and white, as an immigrant with an "indigenous connection" to the land. Instead of a torch held high above her head, she wields a stalk of corn. Her patterned dress recalls Incan and Mayan » Read More

The gnarled, ungainly shapes are at odds with the lack of pigment. On real trees, these branches could be claws reaching out to harm strangers lost in an enchanted forest. But here they're bleached out to the pale color of something mild and antiseptic. "In this particular show, I'm working with plaster and gauze bandage, which are the traditional materials for casts for broken bones, for things that need mending," Fredette explains. And while her sculptures may resemble the leafless limbs of deciduous trees or some spare, bare shrubbery that's been whitewashed, the artist discloses what that pregnant, lonely pod actually is. » Read More

Walk through the black curtain behind the back gallery at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art and you'll get a taste of Tracey Adams and Virginia Folkestad's "Primordial Soup." They've created a prehistoric, pantry-sized diorama that depicts the beginning of life on Earth (or, at least, one postulation of it). Tendrils hang down everywhere. Some float from above like chandeliers at an octopus' dinner party. Others jut straight out of the walls. Amoeba-shaped critters are fixed in place but the squiggles on their backs suggest a scurrying motion as if they had unfinished business to carry out. Electronic music, composed by Jennifer Trust Wilkerson, drifts in and pulses out, summoning up an underwater version of a Dead Can Dance » Read More

He was probably the least likely person on Earth to be taken for a seminal figure in the annals of the Beat literary movement, but lanky, easy-going, sweet-smiling Al Hinkle was certainly a critical lynchpin in that history. Raised in pool-hall Denver with his childhood pal, the iconic Beat figure (and writer) Neal Cassady, it was the recently married Hinkle (along with his bride, the former Helen Argee) who jumped into Cassady's brand-new maroon-and-silver Hudson sedan for a crisscross continental journey that eventually included Jack Kerouac (then an unknown writer), Luanne Henderson (one of Cassady's many girlfriends), and an assortment of other hitchhikers and hangers-on who were all immortalized in Kerouac's seminal 1957 Beat novel, » Read More

Some serious political tightrope-walking took place, right from the initial idea stage and through the fundraising process, then with the request for proposal, and all the way to the final unveiling in October of 2005. None of it was a piece of cake. Now, thanks to local gadfly and filmmaker Cotton Stevenson, a 20-minute documentary, STAND, includes original rare footage of the statue being created, as well as footage of Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Peter Norman speaking at the unveiling ceremony in 2005, an event this columnist attended. On Friday, Jan. 18, the San Jose Peace and Justice Center at 48 S. Seventh St. will screen the film at 7pm, followed by a Q&A session with the filmmaker. » Read More

If your girlfriend imagined what you'd be doing in her absence, it probably wasn't standing over the phone for 72 hours straight, willing it to ring. Chances are she isn't entirely tuned in to how insecure you are about her commitment to you. Also, wedding weekends these days tend to be packed with activities from breakfast to nightcap. So...there's an initial idea of how much alone time one would have, and then there's the actual free time between sleep, showering, and "Our ride's here! You can take your rollers out on the way to the church!" » Read More

In 1917, leaders of the Christian sect Jehovah's Witnesses prophesied that all earthly governments would soon disappear and Christianity would perish. In 1924, they predicted that the ancient Hebrew prophet Moses would be resurrected and speak to people everywhere over the radio. In 1938, they advised their followers not to get married or have children, because the end of civilization was nigh. In 1974, they said there was only a "short time remaining before the wicked world's end." I bring these failed predictions to your attention, Aries, so as to get you in the mood for my prediction, which is that all prophecies that have been made about your life up until now are as wrong as the Jehovah Witnesses' visions. In 2019, your life will be » Read More