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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Culture One Nation, Under Various Divinities
Listen to certain sections of the body politic today, and you get the impression that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were part-time — if not full-time — evangelicals. Not so, say s Marilyn Mellowes, who spent the better part of the past several years grappling with what she calls “the intersection of religion…
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Culture Bliss, By Way of Adult Movies
‘Finding Bliss” stars Leelee Sobieski as Jody Balaban, a young film school graduate who heads out to Los Angeles with high and naive hopes for a bright future. Ultimately, the only job she can get is editing porn flicks at the same studio where “Gladiator” was shot. Well, not exactly “Gladiator.” It was “Glad He…
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Film & TV ‘Holy Rollers’ and the 10-Minute Bar Mitzvah
In preparation for his upcoming film, “Holy Rollers,” based on actual events in the late 1990s, when members of the Hasidic community were recruited as drug mules, actor Jesse Eisenberg, 26, became a bar mitzvah. The Queens native spent time at the Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn. “They asked me if I’d been bar mitzvahed,” he…
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Culture A Life of Breath
At the start of Ruedi Gerber’s documentary film, “Breath Made Visible,” a dancer moves onstage with the supple grace of a cat. She takes off an outer garment to reveal legs that, under other circumstances, would draw the eyes and wolf-whistles of construction workers. Fluidly, she takes off her gloves and then her mask. And…
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Culture Barry Knows Jack
Len Amato, head of HBO films, called up director Barry Levinson. “He said, ‘We’ve got this script [by Adam Mazer].’” Levinson said. “I talked to [Amato], and said I was interested.” Levinson is talking on the phone about “You Don’t Know Jack,” about Jack Kevorkian. Known as “Dr. Death,” Kevorkian went to prison in his…
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Israel News On Playing Anne Frank
Actress Ellie Kendrick is best known to American audiences for her supporting role in the Oscar-nominated “An Education.” But in her native England, she is best known for playing the title character in “The Diary of Anne Frank,” a film broadcast over five nights on the BBC in early 2009. That film will air in…
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Israel News Five Questions For David Bryan
David Bryan is a founding member of Bon Jovi, the iconic rock group that has sold more than 130 million records and played to audiences around the world. But the classically trained pianist should also be known for a different accomplishment: Broadway composer. He wrote the music and co-wrote the lyrics for “Memphis,” the hit…
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News Kudrow Explores Her Roots and Takes Other Friends With Her
A simple monument stands outside the town of Ilya in what is now Belarus. It is in memory of the hundreds of Jews taken from their home to this very spot, shot two or three at a time and pushed into a pit that had served as an ice cellar. Lisa Kudrow — best known…
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Holy Ground A Jewish farmer broke ground on a synagogue in an Illinois cornfield. His neighbors showed up to help.
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Opinion I discovered anti-Zionism at the University of Michigan. I’m glad it lives on there
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Opinion An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel
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Opinion I run The Jewish Theological Seminary. Here’s the real story about President Isaac Herzog speaking at our commencement
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Opinion Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point
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News Why do some people think Mike Lawler is Jewish?
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Art At the Venice Biennale, protests, self-mutilation and rage against Israel and Russia. Is anyone left to talk about the art?