13 stories by "Bari Biern"
First, take out your No. 2 pencils and answer this question:Â Where did the traditional Jewish song, "Hava Nagila" originate? (1)Â Â Â Jerusalem (2)Â Â Â Warsaw (3)Â Â �…
The Queen of Versailles illustrates perfectly the roller-coaster-flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants aspect of documentary filmmaking. The director straps herself in, points the camera and hold…
Wagner's Dream (USA) 112 minutes Richard Wagner spent 25 years composing the Ring Cycle, a 16-hour magnum opus, largely based on Norse and German myths. The Ring is comprised of four oper…
The World Before Her (Canada) 90 minutes With the arrival of foreign corporations in India, as well as satellite tv and the Internet, some young Indian women are now eager to escape thei…
Ann Richards was a whip-smart feisty feminist elected to govern the state of Texas. She was the second woman and the last Democrat to hold that office. Richards attained national prominence …
In 2008, a young Canadian singer/songwriter named Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube by the man who later became his manager. Halfway across the globe, another YouTube Cinderella story …
A Brief History of John Baldessari (USA) 6 minutes In slightly more time than it takes to read this review, you can learn an impressive amount of knowledge about American artist, John Bal…
Yesterday the AFI-Discovery Channel SILVERDOCS Documentary Festival opened and will run through June 24th. SILVERDOCS is celebrating its tenth anniversary at the historic AFI Silver Theat…
The plot is a bit complicated, so I'll defer to the description provided by the National Theatre (London's, not DC's), where One Man, Two Guvnors premiered last year: "Fired from his skiffle…
On March 31, 1960, Gore Vidal's political drama, The Best Man, premiered on Broadway. The play was set in two posh hotel suites at a national political convention, as one presidential candid…
Not since Mr. Joyboy, the mortuary cosmetician from Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One, has there been a more memorable mortician than Bernie Tiede. In addition to making the residents of Carth…
Steve Taylor directs this indie film, adapted from a 2003 memoir by American author, Don Miller. Â Â In Blue Like Jazz, nineteen-year-old Miller (Marshall Allman) is a dedicated parishio…
His restaurant seats ten. He serves no appetizers, no side dishes, no desserts. He consistently earns three Michelin stars, a rating that implies that the dining experience alone is worth a …
