JERUSALEM (JTA) — The first episode of the third season of the hit Israeli drama “Fauda” was viewed by Israelis about 1 million times in the 48 hours after it first aired. The Israeli drama, in Hebrew and Arabic, received a 12.6 percent share of viewers during its debut on Thursday night, according to a…
In honor of Kirk Douglas’s 103rd birthday, we reprint this tribute to the movie legend who was born Issur Danielovich to immigrant parents. Kirk Douglas, who turns 100 on December 9, is both a movie legend and a Hollywood anomaly: a star divided. Most stars lodge in our collective consciousness. Douglas, while a first-magnitude star,…
“Motherless Brooklyn” is the “La La Land” of noir, a work of exacting, exhausting competence that tries to summon the spirit of midcentury Hollywood films by recreating them shot for shot and trope for trope. Some things you’ll find in it: raincoated sleuths silhouetted by streetlights; garish neon mirrored in murky puddles; a pinstriped powerbroker…
Editor’s note: Filmmaker Chantal Akerman passed away on this date in 2015. To commemorate her life and work, we are revisiting this essay by Arun Chaudhary that speaks to Akerman’s wide-ranging impact. When I met Chantal Akerman, the famed film director whose alleged suicide was reported on October 6, I told her I was going…
Editor’s Note: Buster Keaton was born on this day in 1895. In honor of the 124th birthday of “The Great Stone Face, we look back on Keaton’s Jewish influences and collaborators. Had it not been for Erik Weisz, the Hungarian-born, Wisconsin-raised son of a rabbi, one of the most influential film artists of all time…
Even his face seemed as if could slouch. The bulbous nose, the folds of skin, the eyebrows always raised, the eternal smirk that seemed to call you a schmuck even if he never spoke that word. His voice brayed and drawled, Lower East Side schmatta salesman crossed with W.C. Fields. He was the dubious wise-ass,…
Charlotte Gainsbourg, 48, has little doubt that, over the course of her career, she has chosen, consciously or unconsciously, “transgressive” projects to compensate for her shyness. “So perhaps that’s why I am attracted to the unexpected,” she said during an interview. She has a soft voice with the hint of a British accent. “Also, I…
Five years ago, the murder of four teens sparked a 50-day war between Gaza and Israel. It began on June 12, 2014, when three Israeli Jewish adolescents hitchhiking home from an Israeli settlement in the West Bank went missing. Their disappearance led to a wide-ranging search for their abductors, called “Operation Brother’s Keeper,” which saw…
The American Jewish actress Sylvia Miles, who died on June 12 at age 94, proved that Jewish truth telling can simultaneously make and break a performance career. Miles’ devotion to verisimilitude was such that even fellow thespians were deceived by her artistry. After seeing John Schlesinger’s “Midnight Cowboy” (1969) one of her two Oscar-nominated performances,…
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A new lawsuit adds to an upsetting picture of longtime Marvel Comics editor Stan Lee’s final days, alleging that those close to Lee sought to profit off him by stealing from his home and working him to the point of exhaustion. The lawsuit, brought by Lee’s daughter, Joan Celia Lee, was filed in Los Angeles…
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