A chance here to give a two-for-one plug: The Lark Theater in Larkspur (CA) was recently renovated, looks fantastic, and is a non-profit, too, so it could use support from membership and from just having steady audiences. Another reason: It's also one of the few remaining single-screen theaters in California.
And a reason to go there this week (as I just did): they're showing David Zieger's Sir, No Sir! -- not only a well-crafted documentary, but with My Lai on our (hearts and) minds, given recent events in Iraq (the November massacre just now coming to light), is also certainly timely. (Of course, the Lark is also showing Poseidon, but, hey, they have to make a buck to stay afloat.)
Sir, No Sir! is one of the best documentaries about American protest movements since Mark Kitchell's Berkeley in the Sixties. Just when you think you've heard every last bit, every possible anecdote about Vietnam, comes this film to serve as a reminder that the story of the soldiers movement to end the war has up until now been a buried one. As with Berkeley, the film uses a mix of striking archival footage, modern interviews, newscasts, and newspaper stories - mixed, of course, with music of the period - to get out this story (and its many subplots - the film does go on perhaps ten minutes too long).
While the presence of Jane Fonda as one of the interviewees - while wholly appropriate - is a little jarring when compared to the previously anonymous (to me) soldiers who bravely risked their futures by speaking out while in the service of the military, but her interview clips are engaging, and the footage of her, Donald Sutherland, and other members of the sort of anti-Bob Hope traveling troupe of actors and musicians who entertained the demoralized troops is priceless. Also fascinating is the footage of the GI resistance cafes that sprung up near Army bases, such as the Oleo Strut in Killeen, Texas.
All in all, good stuff - timely, and goes a long way to correct some misconceptions about the make-up of the Vietnam protest movement.