Category: Marx Brothers

My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 1

On the evening of January 4, 2025, my wife Nell and I watched Saturday Night. Jason Reitman’s 2024 film chronicles the final 90 minutes before the first episode of what is now called Saturday Night Live aired at 11:30 pm EST on October 11, 1975. We thoroughly enjoyed the film’s you-are-there verisimilitude, strong performances and … Continue reading My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 1 →

Matt Berger Alphaville, Andrei Tarkovsky, Atheism, Back to the Future, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chan, David Fincher, David Lynch, Elevator to the Gallows, Eraserhead, Film, Inland Empire, Ivan's Childhood, Jean Cocteau, L'Age d'Or, Last Year At Marienbad, Le Samourai, Louis Malle, Luis Bunuel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marx Brothers, Miles Davis, Mirror, Mulholland Drive, Murder on the Orient Express, My life, No Country For Old Men, Nosferatu, One Hundred Years of Cinema, Salvador Dali, San Francisco, Saturday Night Live, Sidney Lumet, Solaris, Stalker, The Blood of a Poet, The Cinema Cartograpy, The Color of Pomegranates, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Game, The Hunger Games franchise, The Sure Thing, Wild at Heart, Zodiac 3 Comments May 7, 2025May 14, 2025 14 Minutes

My 100 Favorite Films…Probably

[Ed. note: This essay was updated on April 1, 2025] On December 1, 2022, Sight and Sound Magazine released the results of its decennial Greatest Films of All Time Critics’ Poll (“SS Poll”). The key result is that Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles dethroned Vertigo as the “greatest film of all time.”[1] … Continue reading My 100 Favorite Films…Probably →

Matt Berger A Night at the Opera, Alfred Hitchcock, Back to the Future, Charlie Chan, Data collection, David Lynch, Double Indemnity, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Film, Film Noir, Hammett, L.A. Confidential, Marx Brothers, Measurement, Murder on the Orient Express, My life, Neo Noir, Otto Preminger, Robert Siodmak, Sidney Lumet, Statistical reasonsing, Thank God Its Friday, The Cotton Club, The Maltese Falcon, The Public Eye, The Sure Thing, Times Square, Woody Allen 8 Comments January 14, 2023April 1, 2025 21 Minutes

How the Berger family flew to America…by steamship

When I completed the final draft of the first edition of Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History…and My Own in January 2021, I had already learned a great deal about my paternal great-grandfather David Louis Berger; I had known next to nothing about him before I began to write … Continue reading How the Berger family flew to America…by steamship →

Matt Berger 1900, A Night at the Opera, Documents, Immigration, Interrogating Memory, Investigating, Judaism, Liverpool, Marx Brothers, Pale of Settlement, Philadelphia, Ship manifests, Ukraine 5 Comments December 31, 2022August 14, 2023 21 Minutes

Moving, Non-Publication…and Dada?

I rarely break the fourth wall here: personal stories I tell are usually contextualized within some larger theme, like interrogating memory. Today, however, I speak directly to you – to explain why, after 16 posts in 3½ months, I have not posted since June 25. I will not, however, explain why I did not post … Continue reading Moving, Non-Publication…and Dada? →