Eitan Kensky
By Eitan Kensky
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News They’re the Top!
It’s no secret that Jews and Jewish-themed movies have heavily influenced American filmmaking. This year, stalwarts such as Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg have been nominated for Academy Awards, as were the Israeli film “Footnote” and the Polish Holocaust movie “In Darkness.” In addition to celebrated directors, actors and screenwriters, there are plenty of artists…
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Food Gail Simmons Talks With Her Mouth (Overly) Full
I never thought that I would yearn for Andy Cohen, the host of Bravo TV’s surprisingly popular talk show, “Watch What Happens Live,” but that’s exactly what Gail Simmons’s new memoir, “Talking With My Mouth Full,” made me do. Simmons, a frequent judge on “Top Chef”, and the host of “Top Chef: Just Desserts,” writes…
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The Schmooze Where Is the Occupy Wall Street Sitcom?
“Selling New York,” HGTV’s hit show about luxury real estate and boutique brokerage firms, largely succeeds as escapism. When it isn’t affirming the idea that New York real estate is still one of the most Jewish professions on the planet, “Selling New York” takes viewers into fantastic, glimmering spaces that they would otherwise never get…
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The Schmooze Friday Film: Movies That Make You Want to Read
Both Jonathan Lee’s “Paul Goodman Changed My Life,” a biography of the now obscure New York Intellectual, and Pony Brzezinski and Lina Chaplin’s “Writing as I Should,” a documentary about the late Israeli author Batya Gur, make you want to read more of their subjects’ work, though for opposite reasons. The two films screened November…
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Food Food Noir: Adam Richman Plays Culinary Detective, Part 2
In this two-part series Eitan Kensky takes a sharp look at food travel shows and the evolution of Adam Richman’s popular show “Man vs. Food.” Read Part 1 here. One of the most striking elements of “Man vs. Food” was the way it flattened all ethnicities into generic American challenges. The idea of de-emphasizing difference…
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Food Food Noir: Adam Richman Plays Culinary Detective, Part 1
In this two-part series Eitan Kensky takes a sharp look at food travel shows and the evolution of Adam Richman’s popular show “Man vs. Food.” Travel food shows are mysteries with the host as detective. Our host takes us to a dark, unknown corner of the globe to try to discover something new and ostensibly…
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The Schmooze How Larry David Creates a Jewish Universe All His Own
Jessica Miglio/HBO Larry David is a clown. Or the last schlemiel who found a way to make Jews the uncomfortable outsiders again. Or a man whose “imbricated” sense of humor “challenges essentialist categories of comic performance,” as well as the tenets of Judaism and Christianity. (By the way, I agree with that take.) And the…
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Culture Beneath Black Hats and Shtreimels
It used to be that if you saw a Hasid in a movie or a TV show, he (and it was nearly always a “he”) was there as a visual signifier of urban diversity and little more. Hasidim appeared only in crowd scenes, or in montages intent on showing the multicultural essence of the American…
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