Curt Schleier is a freelance writer and author who covers business and the arts for a variety of publications. Follow him on Twitter at @tvsoundoff.
Curt Schleier
By Curt Schleier
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Film & TV How Iris Apfel Became a 93-Year-Old Style Icon
Iris Apfel is not your bubbe’s bubbe. But by the end of the documentary “Iris,” you’ll wish she was yours. Apfel, a spunky 93, has spent a lifetime successfully navigating the fine line between eccentric and icon. She mixed charity goods from flea markets with designer clothes to create looks that made her a fashion…
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Food Haute Middle Eastern Cuisine Arrives in New Jersey
Chef Elie Kahlon of Novo puts the finishing touch on a salmon dish. Diners at Novo, in Ridgewood, New Jersey, likely appreciate the spices, imported from the Middle East, that accent their meals. Some might even be aware that their food was cooked on an open-flame oven called a taboon or that a special Arabic…
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Film & TV ’24 Days’ Is a Real-Life French Horror Story
As the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s the sad take-away from the tense new drama, “24 Days.” The movie, which is about the kidnapping, torture and savage murder of a young French Jew, will likely fill you with a mixture of rage and despair, especially because the…
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Film & TV A Closer Look at Concentration Camp Artists
“Because I Was a Painter” is an occasionally interesting but rarely compelling documentary about art that came out of the concentration camps. It fails because director Christophe Cognet keeps the artists themselves at arm’s length. The result is an intellectual exercise devoid of emotion. The film begins with a shot of summer leaves blowing in…
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Culture Kevin Pollak Talks Comedy, Misery and Twitter Outrage
Kevin Pollak made his comedic debut a little more than 47 years ago, when his mother came home unexpectedly and caught him lip-syncing a bit about Noah and God from Bill Cosby’s first album. Her reaction: “You’ve got to do that for the Zuckers at Passover.” There were about 40 family and friends in attendance,…
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The Schmooze Anton Yelchin on Playing Star Trek’s Chekhov
Anton Yelchin is on a roll. His film, “5 to 7,” opened April 3, and another, “Broken Horses,” opened April 10. The 26-year-old started acting when he was just 9 years old. He’s appeared in over 40 films plus assorted TV shows since then. But stardom — at least in the traditional sense — has…
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Culture Will Helen Mirren Be Typecast as a Jew?
When I first meet Helen Mirren, the actress pauses before she shakes my hand. Instead, she goes for the hand sanitizer. “I’m appearing in a play,” she says, “and I’m deathly afraid of catching a cold.” I suggest a fist bump instead, but once sanitized she goes with the more traditional route. Mirren is currently…
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The Schmooze ‘The Dovekeepers’ Turns Masada Into Melodrama
It’s hard (and probably not kosher) to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. That’s largely the problem with CBS’s “The Dovekeepers,” airing March 31 and April 1. The filmmakers based this disappointing limited edition series on the best-selling Alice Hoffman novel of the same name, which chose to interpret the tale of…
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