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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	The Schmooze Cote de Pablo To Play ‘Witch of Moab’ in ‘The Dovekeepers’
Cote de Pablo is a Chilean-born actress who seems to specializing in playing Jews. She is most famous for playing Mossad agent Ziva David in the long-running CBS hit “NCIS.” Now comes news that she has been cast in “The Dovekeepers,” a four-hour mini-series based on Alice Hoffman’s best selling novel, which, in turn is…
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	The Schmooze Should ‘The Goldbergs’ Be More Jewish?
Paul Lee, ABC’s group president of entertainment, met with reporters this morning during the Television Critics Association semi-annual meeting in Hollywood. Not unexpectedly, the subject of “The Goldbergs” came up. Lee,who recently renewed his own contract with the network (though ABC has languished in fourth place for the last four years), recently renewed the Jewish-themed…
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	The Schmooze When Having It All Is Too Much
Director Kevin Asch’s film, “Affluenza,” is about a “disease” that seems to strike people with too much money and too much time but not enough of a moral compass to guide them. Its symptoms are a sense of entitlement and self-indulgence. The movie is set in Great Gatsby country, on Long Island’s Gold Coast, where…
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	Books How Lee Grant Recovered From the Blacklist
“Some working actors lost the best years of their lives and don’t know why.” Those words were written by actress/director Lee Grant in her new memoir, “I Said Yes To Everything.” And she should know. She was one of them. Grant was the “surprise discovery” of the 1950 Broadway season for her role in “Detective…
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	The Schmooze Lessons of Aaron Swartz, the ‘Internet’s Own Boy’
“The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz” is likely to accomplish something no politician has been able to do: unite the Tea Party and liberal Democrats. The documentary, which goes into limited release and video on demand June 27, tells the story of the government’s overzealous prosecution of a bright young man whose…
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	The Schmooze David Wain Is Back Again
David Wain is a co-founder of two sketch comedy troupes, The State and Stella. He is executive producer and occasional star of the Emmy-winning Adult Swim series, “Children’s Hospital.” He also has his own online show, “Wainy Days,” about his (mis)adventures with women. But certainly his greatest claim to fame is his 2001 cult classic,…
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	The Schmooze ‘Tyrant’ Is Brutal, But Not Anti-Arab
“Tyrant” is a new series made possible by the combination of a network willing to take chances with a producer/writer/director who understands the Middle East and international intrigue. The network is FX, which long ago decided that an audience for intelligent TV existed, and you didn’t need Kardashians to goose ratings. There followed a series…
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	The Schmooze Learning the Wrong Lessons From the Rosenbergs
Photo: Rahav Segev/Photopass There are lessons to be learned from “Ethel Sings,” the new play about the Rosenbergs running through mid-July in Manhattan. The most obvious is about the dangers of governmental overreach. Also: less is more. And both playwright Joan Beber and director Will Pomerantz would do well to learn that. “Ethel Sings” is…
 
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