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3 weeks ago | 
theberkshireedge.com | Sarah Wright
When I first read about “Rebel with a Clause,” I thought its star sounded a little zany. Indeed, Ellen Jovin is brainy and zany. What else explains her setting up a grammar table to take strangers’ questions about prepositions and past participles? Passion, pure and simple. Before the documentary film, Jovin had written “Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian,” which was published by HarperCollins and quickly became a national bestseller. The paperback version is out this month.
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1 month ago | 
ack.net | Sarah Wright
(May 8, 2025) Sunday afternoon’s community screening of “Nantucket’s Historic Coloured Cemetery: Stories Told by Nantucketers” showcased living history and oral tradition to a packed house of documentary film lovers at the Dreamland. Bravo to the Nantucket Cemetery Commission for advancing cultural knowledge and preserving Black history.
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1 month ago | 
theberkshireedge.com | Sarah Wright
Better late than never. Last Sunday I finally got around to watching Cheryl Duyne’s 1996 queer classic “The Watermelon Woman.” Although I had planned to catch this during Lesbian Visibility Week, which ended April 27, I still made good on a promise to myself. “The Watermelon Woman” is a quasi-mockumentary about a young Black lesbian filmmaker who explores a 1930s Black actress who played stereotypical “mammy” roles.
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1 month ago | 
ack.net | Sarah Wright
(May 1, 2025) If your memory of 2016’s “The Accountant” is a bit foggy, join the club. And forgive yourself if you do not recall Jean Smart, John Lithgow and Anna Kendrick from the original. In the sequel out now, Ben Affleck returns as Christian Wolff, Jon Bernthal as his estranged brother Brax and Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Marybeth Medina. Medina works as the deputy director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s FinCEN, short for Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
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1 month ago | 
theberkshireedge.com | Sarah Wright
Imagine my delight upon receiving the “BIFF 2025 Full Festival Lineup Announced!” email last week. Because BIFF is a film festival with soul, it speaks clearly to my heart. In fact, when BIFF’s 2025 festival program came out, I barely had time to process all the amazing information it conveyed: I simultaneously received similar messages about other film fests (e.g., the one on Nantucket and the one in Provincetown, to name a few).
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1 month ago | 
theberkshireedge.com | Sarah Wright
Dear Berkshire Edge readers:I am celebrating my birthday next week by hosting a film screening called “Live Till I Die,” a 73-minute documentary described as an emotional marathon about what it means to live life to the fullest. I would be thrilled beyond words if you would join me Monday, April 28, at 7 p.m., for a virtual screening of “Live Till I Die.” All the details are right here. Also, I hope your Patriots’ Day was everything you hoped it would be—and then some.
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1 month ago | 
ack.net | Sarah Wright
(April 17, 2025) What do a cryptographer, a comedian and a team of cyclists have in common? Before last weekend, I didn’t know, either. But seeing them all in their unique cinematic settings, the answer is clear: All of these men search for meaning. Consider “The Amateur.” As CIA decoder Charlie Heller, Rami Malek’s introverted character works at the George Bush Center for Intelligence, better known as Langley.
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1 month ago | 
theberkshireedge.com | Sarah Wright
Dearest readers, it is Holy Week, and all I want to do is move into an art house cinema and stay there for the rest of my life. Think “Secret Mall Apartment” for a movie house. Anyway, last month when I was checking out all my local listings, I got this:And this:Back in February, this nearly killed me:If you want to push Woman on the Verge right over the ledge, closing all the theaters will finish the job, no doubt.
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2 months ago | 
theberkshireedge.com | Sarah Wright
If you haven’t celebrated “Liberation Day” yet, no sweat. The new Errol Morris documentary “Tune Out The Noise” was made for this moment, and I kid you not. It is a super nerdy, wildly academic confab of Nobel Prize-winning economists who pioneered modern finance. See for yourself:Seriously, this is the one film you ought to see this week, in a “stop-what-you’re-doing-sit-down-and-just-watch-this” kind of way. Why?
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2 months ago | 
theberkshireedge.com | Sarah Wright
My fellow film lovers, I think you know by now that when I say, “Get up, get dressed, and go to the movies”—I am strongly endorsing the movie at hand. But The Triplex Cinema has such a stellar lineup this week, I want to say, “Get up, get dressed, and spend the whole weekend” at your local art house theater. No kidding. Let’s start with “The Red Shoes,” directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The magnificent 1948 film stars Moira Shearer, Marius Goring, and Anton Walbrook, among others.
