On November 26 Stephen Hillenburg, the unassuming marine biologist who reached millions with his cartoon creation SpongeBob Squarepants passed away from complications of ALS. Hillenburg was 57. Eternally optimistic, absorbent, yellow and porous, Hillenburg’s signature creation truly needs no introduction, nor does his permanent residence in a pineapple under the sea. But how did such…
Filmmaker David Anton’s latest documentary for PBS is, like its subject, a family affair. Anton filmed “Hanukkah: A Festival of deLights” an hour-long special premiering Sunday November 25 on New York’s WLIW, with his father, retired rabbi Marvin Antonofsky, interviewing most of the movie’s subjects. “For me to be able to do a project like…
A welcome, if counterintuitive, symptom of the age of Netflix has been the revival of old Hollywood careers. It may have all started with 2015’s “Grace and Frankie” which gave a starring platform to Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, whom studios had tended to neglect or bury in grandma roles. In “Grace and Frankie” Tomlin…
The Israeli documentary “Family in Transition” has a happy ending. Sort of. The film, directed by Ofir Trainin, is about the Tzuk family — father Amit, mother Galit and their four children — who live in Nahariya, Israel’s northernmost coastal city. Amit and Galit run a successful software design and programming firm. But four years…
Nathaniel Kahn, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “My Architect” about his relationship with his architect father, Louis Kahn, thinks we’re confusing value with asking price. Over the last few years, Kahn infiltrated auction houses, the private galleries of well-heeled collectors and the grubby or extravagant studios of contemporary artists to get a panoramic view of…
Robin Hood is well known as a defender of oppressed populations. But one aspect of his story that has mostly been lost to time, however, is his role as protector of Jews, who figured prominently in ballads and dramatic texts that began appearing in 15th- and 16th-century England. Aside from his fundamental mission of tikkun…
Almost one year has passed since 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania sophomore Blaze Bernstein was killed allegedly for being gay and Jewish. On Saturday November 10, a special devoted to Bernstein’s story will air on CBS’ “48 Hours” which will include the first primetime TV interview with his parents. The show first approached Jeanne Pepper Bernstein…
It started three years ago. I was the lone staff member welcoming guests to Jewish Museum Milwaukee (JMM) on an Air Show Sunday. It had been a pretty slow day. My office was filled with the droning of jet engines, and people who weren’t into watching the Blue Angels were avoiding the Milwaukee Lakefront. I…
Stephen Sondheim, the lyricist for “West Side Story,” dislikes the movie version of the seminal musical for sticking too closely to the source material. “I don’t think ‘West Side Story’ [is] a good movie at all because it’s not a movie. It’s a photograph of a stage,” the Tony-winning composer said in a 2016 interview…
It looks like “The Big Lebowski” can count its three stars among its legion of fans. In a Today Show interview conducted by self-identified Lebowski “cultist” Harry Smith, Jeff Bridges, John Goodman and Steve Buscemi reunited to wax nostalgic over their time shooting the 1998 Coen Brothers’ classic. 20 years later, they’re still delighting in…
For most Americans, eugenics exists in the cobwebs of history. It’s a musty, bogus relic now universally dismissed by the scientific community as a racist doctrine that misunderstands sociological factors. But watching the documentary “The Eugenics Crusade,” which premieres on PBS October 16 at 8:00 PM, one finds eerie echoes of the current discourse around…
די ווערק פֿון דרײַ קינסטלער גיבן איבער אַנדערע קוקווינקלען אויף דער אויסראָטונג פֿון ייִדישן לעבן אין מיזרח־אייראָפּע.
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