Hal Holbrook has over 120 film and television credits stretching back to 1954.  In addition to his Tony Award for portraying Mark Twain and four Emmy Awards (with six additional nominations), he became the oldest male actor nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in 2007's "into the Wild." His new film "That Evening Sun," a co-presentation of the Crest Theatre and the Sacramento Film & Music Festival, opens at the Crest on Friday, March 5th.  Holbrook plays an aging farmer who escapes a nursing home only to have to fight to regain his family farm. "That Evening Sun" has won at least 15 film festival honors, including two Special Jury Awards from South by Southwest.  Joe Ley

Image 1: Composer John Bucchino works with actor Nanci Zoppi and Musical Director Graham Sobelman at the It's Only Life masterclass Image 2: John Bucchino explains his process of writing and composing during the It's Only Life masterclass Image 3: New Helvetia Founder and Artistic Director Connor Mickiewicz sings "Playbill", accompanied by composer John Bucchino at the It's Only Life masterclass   It's Only Life After an amazing first year, which included the critically praised productions of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and also Tick, Tick...BOOM (so good they had to bring it back), New Helvetia Theater hosts a unique musical event tonight at the Crest Theatre.  Tonight's one-night p

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus Directed by Terry Gilliam By Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly This is a movie that will be seen for two reasons: The movie itself and morbid curiosity associated with the death of its star, Heath Ledger. Ledger had completed “The Dark Knight” and was shooting this when he died of an accidental drug overdose, leaving Director Terry Gilliam with half a movie, no lead actor, and an uncertain future for the project. Gilliam is still best known by some of us as the wacky animator for the original Monty Python shows. But he’s also an accomplished director of not just Python movies, but also “Brazil,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” and “Twelve Monkeys,” amongst

A Single Man Directed by Tom Ford By Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly Colin Firth plays George Falconer, a professor in 1962 Los Angeles who loses his long time partner in a distant car wreck and struggles through the lonely aftermath, trying to get through each day without him. There’s nothing unique about losing a loved one but Falconer, as a gay man in that period, has only one person he can share his feelings with, his best friend Charley (Julianne Moore) with whom he also shares a complicated past. At work and in his daily life, he maintains a stoicism that hides the lost romance that was always hidden. “A Single Man” is based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood – the Chris of “Chris

The Messenger Directed by Oren Moverman By Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson are an Army Casualty Notification Detail, tasked with informing the N.O.K. (next of kin) when their loved ones have been killed in action. It’s a soul-destroying assignment and, as explained by the older man (Harrelson) to his younger colleague (Foster), it’s not one that can be made easier by staged shows of understanding. But it’s a necessary function in a time of webcams and cable news shows. They race to get to the N.O.K. before they hear the news from anybody else. Foster has been on the edge of stardom for a decade and may be best recognized recently as Angel in “X-Men: The Last

It's such a neat event and it has been a pleasure to be involved as a sponsor for the past few years. Tony, Co-Director, Sac Film & Music Fest.

I see now what your intended meaning was, but that was a highly ambiguous post.

And the UC Regents system doesn't cover the CSU. I used the Calpers example because the CSU uses Calpers - I know, because I'm in it. I know UC has a different system but my point remains the same - to suggest that "all the retiring employees can receive 90% retirement pay plus benefits" is false, even if some senior, long-serving UC professors can.

The tuition that out of state and international students pay is the full cost of college. That difference is paid for by taxpayers for in-state students. For the past few years, the costs of summer school have been similarly subsidized by taxpayers but that is changing. Summer fees will return to unsubsidized tuition rates, as they were several years ago. Stephen, you're right, it's about priorities. Taxpayers are often asked "do you like A?" and "do you like B?" They don't often get asked "do you prefer A or B?" or "if you like both A and B but only had enough for one or the other or part of both, what would you choose?" Some of the rhetoric gets a little too crude for meaningful comparison. A statement like "schools not prisons" on a protester's sign loses its utility as presumably we don't want no prisons at all. But it is worth noting that every time we send a casual marijuana user to prison, or send a non-violent felon to prison for life on a three strikes conviction, the amount we spend per year to incarcerate them stops something like 6 potential students from entering college. So a message like "fewer prisons to allow for more schools" is quite meaningful - it just happens to be harder to fit on a sign. We somehow manage to spend so much on every prisoner that you could take somebody out of prison, enroll them in school, AND pay for a dorm room and a meal plan and still save money! I'm not saying that would be a good idea, merely pointing out how expensive prisons have become - we spend more on them than on all of higher education.

All the retiring employees can receive 90% retirement!? Under the relatively standard Calpers plan, employees would need to work 36 years in the system and retire at 65 to achieve a 90% pension - and a lot of professors could never reach that point even if they stayed for their entire careers as they don't tend to start in their late 20's after master's and PhD's have been completed. It's a somewhat complicated sliding scale of years of service and age at retirement and, for example, 25 years of service at age 60 would yield less than 60%. Looking at the way the table works, I'd be surprised if the majority were higher than somewhere in the 50-60% range.