YOUTUBE: The Majestic Plastic Bag Mockumentary

Through the use of nature show style documentary, the Heal the Bay organization has created an ingenius public service announcement urging Californians to become more conscious of their polluting habits, most specifically the use of plastic shopping bags. According to the PSA, Californians alone use 19 billion plastic bags a year, with mnay of them contributing to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a continent-sized area north of the Hawaiian islands filled with refuse. Hopefully the reaction to this mockumentary will be as effective as the spot is clever.

Visit healthebay.org/bagbill to see what you can do!

Sergio del Limonar

MOVIE: Die Welle (The Wave)

Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008 and several dozen others throughout the next year, the German film Die Welle - translated literally as The Wave - has been a hit with critics and audiences alike. The story is based on book of the same title by Todd Strasser, and occurs at a German high school where a teacher, attempting to engage his pupils in a week-long civics lesson on autocracies, ends up turning his class into a dictatorship that extends beyond the walls of the classroom and even the school itself. Both book and film were inspired by a Palo Alto, California, history teacher named Ron Jones who performed a similar social experiment at Cubberley High School in April of 1967.

Powerful both in the fact that it takes place in contemporary society and in the realistic dialogue between the students in and out of class, the film shows the viewer just how easily ideas can be manipulated and people can be coerced. Near the beginning of the movie, on the first day of the course, many of the students claim that a dictatorship could and would never be allowed to happen in modern Germany again. By the end of the story - all dressed alike with new "recruits" and gang-style greeting gesture - gathered together in the school auditorium, they get a good look at what they've become.

Sergio del Limonar

MUSICAL: American Idiot

If you are in the Berkeley, California area, or will be in the next month and a half, be sure to check out punk-rock band, Green Day's newest project - a punk-rock musical adaptation of their 2004 album, American Idiot. This world premier performance - which has already been extended twice - is being held at the beautiful Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where you can also purchase tickets.

The show, also called American Idiot, a one act piece featuring an live rock band on stage, follows the lives of three post-high school aged friends who want out of their humdrum lives in a small town and to experience life in an urban metropolis. A variety of Gothamesque problem arise, with various characters dealing with pregnancy, drugs, war deployment, loneliness, dreams, and immaturity. The cast is young and fresh with various members having experience on Broadway and with touring shows.

While the look may scream "RENT," the vibe is an electric guitar resonating about life many of us can actually relate to. Check out this amazing show while you still can in it's infancy before it becomes Broadway's next big thing!

Sergio del Limónar

MOVIE: Milk

Sean Penn deserved every bit of his Oscar for this performance. The movie was heartwrenching and informative and raw. It's funny (not haha) that it was only 30 years ago when they were fighting Proposition 6 (trying to get gays and those supporting gays out of teaching jobs etc) and here we are, decades later, no better off as we try to undo the last 8 months of legalized gay marriage in California. Definitely a movie that makes you think and consider what you stand for and what the world we live in stands for. SEE IT!

Mrs. Fitz 1