Israeli actors Gera Sandler and his wife Ronit Asheri-Sandler, now starring in Clifford Odets’ “Awake and Sing!” with the New Yiddish Rep at the 14th Street Y, can’t help comparing New York and Israeli audiences for Yiddish-language Theater. “In New York you’ll see people of many backgrounds sitting in the theater, also a surprising number…
James Franco has won rave reviews for his work on “The Disaster Artist,” a Tommy Wiseau biopic he directed and in which he stars as the legendarily weird creator of “The Room.” The project has, apparently, given him the biopic bug; today, the Hollywood Reporter wrote that Franco’s next project will be a film about…
Best known for the zany TV comedies “The State” and “Stella” and feel-good films “Wet Hot American Summer” and “The Big Sick,” Michael Showalter might not be the person you’d expect to find behind an ambitious new noir. Yet as producer of the TBS comedy “Search Party,” the second season of which premiered on Sunday,…
There are three billboards right outside the town of Ebbing, Missouri, that have the power to start a war between the police department and one furious woman. “Still no arrests?” reads the first one, followed by “How come, Chief Willoughby?” and finished off with “Raped while dying.” Mildred Hayes, played by a scathing Frances McDormand,…
Throughout “Finding Frances,” the movie-length finale to the fourth season of his Comedy Central show, “Nathan for You,” we see Nathan Fielder sitting in a moving car beside his septuagenarian co-star Bill Heath. Viewers of the show’s third season may remember Heath as a Bill Gates impersonator brought in to assist with a fraudulent film…
As Thursday’s puckish sun rises on the horizon, the mind of man turns to film. So things have stood since time immemorial, or at least since two weeks ago, when the Forward debuted Movie Thursday. If you’re disconsolate over your inability to find movie news, analysis, and recommendations never fear: Movie Thursday will be your…
Louis C.K. says that the “stories are true.” We knew that Louis C.K.’s world was dark and conflicted. But we hoped that he had transmuted all of those roiling observations and desires into comedy gold. Now it turns out that he had some desires that found an end not in comedy, but in tragedy. Rather…
The voice. The hair. The unpretentious, absolute Jewishness. Fran Drescher, creator, writer and star of the hit 1990s sitcom “The Nanny,” healthcare advocate and recent “Broad City” guest star, is an essential figure in contemporary Jewish American culture. Luckily for the Forward, she’s also serving as Master of Ceremonies at our 120th Anniversary Gala on…
Set in post-Holocaust Hungary, “1945” is a stunning, black and white film which explores the culpability and dread that is aroused among local Christians, many of whom were Nazi collaborators, when two Orthodox Jews arrive in town on an unspoken mission. The timing for this multi-award winning film couldn’t be more on target, say writer-director…
Jewish Comedy: A Serious History By Jeremy Dauber W. W. Norton & Company, 416 pages, $28.95 Jews are hilarious. We know this, or at least think we do. Just look at all the Jewish cut-ups out there. At the moment, Judd Apatow, Jenji Kohan, Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman are some of the top performers…
When she was a child, Hedy Lamarr’s mother would refer to her as a chameleon. Living up to the moniker, she would go on to lead a surpassingly dramatic life as a Viennese socialite, Hollywood actress, and influential inventor. Her trials and transformations are the subject of Alexandra Dean’s new film, “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr…
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