
PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
I have a theory. Sometime in 2018, Marjorie Taylor Greene, recovering from periodontal surgery and still coming down from anesthesia, was flipping through channels and got very confused. First she landed on Norman Jewison’s “Fiddler on the Roof,” got bored with the character of the old butcher, and found her way to “Star Wars.” Somewhere…
“Every time I hear a horse whinny I will forever think of Cloris’ unforgettable Frau Blücher,” Mel Brooks wrote Wednesday on Twitter, as the media reported Cloris Leachman’s death at the age of 94. Indeed, few characters or performances have been so linked to Foley sound as Leachman’s turn as the eldritch housekeeper from Brooks’…
Newly-minted Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is already a less problematic fave than Alexander Hamilton, an adulterer, elitist social climber and — despite Lin-Manuel Miranda’s protestations — a possible slave owner. But does a song about her slap? We now know: Yes. About a week ago, Marketplace, inspired by an off-handed remark from Joe Biden, asked…
I’m reasonably confident you won’t be quick to solve the murder mystery at the heart of “Possessions.” If you do work out the exact whys and wherefores — before, say, episode four of six — I’m more than a bit worried about you. Debuting on HBO Max on Thursday, the French and Hebrew language thriller…
During the pandemic, Jessica Tamar Deutsch has been considering exile as she relearns how to paint. Specifically, she’s been thinking about the title character in “The Lost Princess,” a story by Rabbi Nachman, the mystic founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement, about a young woman who disappears from her home after displeasing her kingly father….
Depictions of shtetl life — with their pogroms, close knit community and at times provincial ways — invite nostalgia and criticism all at once. Many of the shtetls’ most famous chroniclers in fiction were also moralists of the old world, critiquing the pieties and superstitions of the Pale of Settlement, often from the safe distance…
Chuck Schumer has been the Senate majority leader for less than a week and already his oratory has risen to our attention. Taking to the Senate floor on Jan. 22, Schumer pushed for the prosecution of ex-President Trump, saying “There will be a trial, and when the trial ends, Senators will have to decide if…
Say what you will about Ted Cruz, he is a senator uniquely enamored of — and despised by — Hollywood. The guy quotes entire scenes from “The Princess Bride” to the discomfort of all around him, and to the chagrin of its star, Mandy Patinkin. Former Senator Al Franken said the two got along OK…
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