THE LAST CLASS

American political economist, professor, author and social media sensation Robert Reich worked under presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. He served as Secretary of Labor in President Bill Clinton’s cabinet, and as a member of President Barack Obama's economic transition advisory board. Reich is known for his work on economic inequality and as a champion of public education and American democracy. He is among one of America's most prominent public intellectuals. The Last Class is a nuanced and deeply personal portrait of Reich as he reflects on a period of immense transformation, personally and globally. It is also a love letter to education. The former Secretary of Labor might be famous for his public service, best-selling books, and viral social media posts, but he always considered teaching his true calling. Now, after over 40 years and an extraordinary 40,000 students, Reich is preparing for his last class. Over the course of the film, Reich confronts the impending finality, and his own aging, with increasing candor, introspection, and, ultimately, emotion. He displays a rawness of feeling he has never shared publicly before. Drawing on his lifetime in politics, he uses his class, "Wealth and Poverty," to offer us all a deeper look at why inequalities of income and wealth have widened significantly since the late 1970s, and why this poses dangerous risks to our society. One thousand students fill the biggest lecture hall on the UC Berkeley campus, the last class to receive Reich's wisdom and exhortations not to accept that the world has to stay the way it is. His belief in the next generation's ability to take on the fight is inspiring.

28th annual MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

MANHATTAN SHORT Film Festival: You Be the Judge!

Discover your inner film critic by casting your vote for Best Film and Best Actor in the 28th Annual MANHATTAN SHORT Film Festival screening Sept.25 - Oct. 5 at the MV Film Center. You'll join film lovers in over 500 venues across the globe gathering to see the Ten Finalist in this year's event. With past finalists garnering Oscar nominations and short films continuing to move into the Hollywood mainstream, come see this entertaining program featuring the best short films in the world today! Ballots supplied upon entry.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

A film of and about deceptive appear­ances, The Garden of Eden starts as a Viennese drama but soon morphs into a Riviera comedy. Its script was penned by Hans Kraly, Ernst Lubitsch’s collaborator on 30 films, and was briskly directed by Lewis Milestone in a joyful, light-heart­ed mood. Corinne Griffith plays Toni, a young woman raised by her baker guardians in Vienna. Unsatisfied with baking pretzels for life, she dreams of becoming an opera singer. She departs for Budapest, under the impression she is auditioning for a serious singing role. However, on her first night on stage, Toni is shocked to discov­er – unbeknownst to her – that she has been dressed in a see-through costume. Further revelations follow: the venue is a disreputable music hall, and its patron­ess offers her girls to wealthy men. Disil­lusioned and pursued by a persistent rich man, Toni finds solace with the theatre’s grandmotherly wardrobe mistress (Lou­ise Dresser). The two women pack up and leave…for Monte Carlo. Even more surprises await: the wardrobe mistress is actually a baroness. They soon check into the Hotel Eden, a playground for the sexual escapades of the wealthy, lav­ishly designed by the film’s art director and Milestone’s frequent collaborator, William Cameron Menzies. The hotel sets the stage for a series of further revela­tions, culminating in the second half of this charming comedy. The material could have easily been adapted into a screwball comedy in the sound era, and the film is undoubtedly ahead of its time. Milestone elaborates on some of his earlier mise-en-scène ideas, such as characters circling and be­ing circled. Described by Milestone’s bi­ographer Harlow Robinson as the direc­tor’s “most successful romantic comedy,” the original film featured a sequence in colour of which only a few frames have survived.

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: HALF SEASON PASS 2025-26

This pass is good for any 5 performances during the 2025-26 Metropolitan Opera season

Season includes our traditional Holiday encore screening of the MAGIC FLUTE - Julie Taymor’s version as well as an encore screening of CINDERELLA.

The 19th season of the Met’s Live in HD series will feature eight live Met performances transmitted to movie theaters and other venues across the globe, beginning with Bellini’s La Sonnambula (October 18, 2025) and continuing with Puccini’s La Bohème (November 8, 2025), Strauss’s Arabella (November 22, 2025), Giordano’s Andrea Chénier (December 13, 2025), Bellini’s I Puritani (January 10, 2026), Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (March 21, 2026), Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (May 2, 2026), and Gabriela Lena Frank’s El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego (May 30, 2026).

PLEASE NOTE: When purchasing a pass, we will email you to ask which operas you would like to attend with your pass. And then we will send you individual tickets to the operas you have selected.  

AGE GROUP WINNER

Followed by a live discussion with director Alexandra Helgerson!

In 1980 Jay Helgerson shocked the world, becoming the first person to run a marathon a week for a year – each race completed in under three hours. For the last ten years, his daughter, filmmaker Alexandra Helgerson, followed him with a camera in order to understand the eccentric man who raised her. What she gets are his projected anxieties, his struggles with physical age and emotional distress, all while he endlessly trains for the Boston Marathon. But as Jay trains, the film is nearly derailed by Alexandra’s encounter with a life threatening illness. Ultimately, AGE GROUP WINNER is an affirmation of the will to live.