Film
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The Schmooze Animating Brodsky In a Room and a Half of His Own
When the Russian-born American poet Joseph Brodsky won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1987, he was asked whether he thought of himself as an American or a Russian writer. “I am Jewish — a Russian poet and an English essayist,” he replied. Born into a Jewish family in Leningrad in 1940, he was exiled…
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The Schmooze Koch vs. Cohen
Septuagenarian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen recently wrapped up a triumphant world tour (though he’ll be back on the road in March,) including a much-praised show in Tel Aviv in September. But apparently not everyone is a fan. In a recent review of “Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wight” for The Atlantic, former New York…
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The Schmooze Too Gross for the 21st Century? Jewish American Cartoonist Milt Gross
On February 7, at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, a new publication from New York University Press, “Is Diss A System? A Milt Gross Comic Reader” edited by Ari Y. Kelman, will be presented. Gross (born in 1895) of Russian Jewish ancestry, drew comic strips of wild slapstick energy, following in the violence-for-laughs tradition…
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The Schmooze Fred Melamed, The Most Serious Man of All
Larry Gopnik, the main character in the Coen brothers most recent and most Jewish film, “A Serious Man,” has been widely understood as Job-like figure. But what would Job be without Satan to test him? (Besides having more children and fewer boils, that is.) Enter Sy Ableman, Larry’s beardy nemesis, whose role as self-righteous cuckolder…
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The Schmooze Funny Nazis? The Return (In Bulk) of Hogan’s Heroes
The CBS Home Entertainment/Paramount Release of a 28 DVD-set, “Hogan’s Heroes: The Komplete Series, Kommandant’s Kollection” reminds us of this early effort to find belated humor in Hitler’s war machine. Writer/director Billy Wilder’s much-admired 1953 film “Stalag 17,” was adapted from a play of the same name by two former POWs, and subtitled: “a comedy…
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The Schmooze Admiring Blum: A Great French Jewish Statesman Celebrated on Film
For visitors to the New York Jewish Film Festival, a must-see on January 18-20 is a new hour-length documentary, “Leon Blum: For All Mankind” about the French socialist politician. Written by Blum’s grandson Antoine Malamoud and directed by University of Alabama Professor Jean Bodon, the film offers a mere sketch of an eventful life, and…
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Life So How Many Jewish, Female Film Characters Are There?
The fact that nice Jewish actress Natalie Portman told Elle UK that she “she stays away from Jewish roles” (the full interview isn’t posted yet) prompted Double X’s Jessica Grose to ask how many major studio movies in recent years have actually had explicitly Jewish female protagonists outside the Holocaust genre. She came up with…
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The Schmooze Ralph Fiennes on Playing Nazis, Holocaust Victims and Mohammed Atta
“Do you have to be handsome to play the role of a Nazi commander?” That was a question that actor Ralph Fiennes was asked during a January 9 discussion, titled “The Power of Film and the Holocaust” at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Fiennes didn’t have a clear answer. The British actor,…
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