Heidi Ewing’s and Rachel Grant’s documentary “One of Us,” recently shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Film, portrays with compassion and thoroughness the lives and world of three young Hasidic Jews — Ari, Etty and Luzer — who have, at tremendous personal cost, abandoned their insular communities in Brooklyn and Monsey, New York…
It’s difficult to think of a more compelling title for a Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic than that of one forthcoming in 2018: “On the Basis of Sex.” Yet that phrase, which evokes the still-relevant endeavor to ensure that women will not be treated differently than men because of their gender, was not originated by the…
In the post-Weinstein moment, Woody Allen is something of an anomaly. His adopted daughter Dylan Farrow has publicly restated her decades-old accusation that Allen sexually assaulted her when she was seven years old; in 2016, Allen’s son Ronan Farrow, whose deeply reported stories in the New Yorker on the allegations against Weinstein and Weinstein’s attempts…
One little-discussed aspect of all of the problems in the world is that they can distract people from the news about movies. The world is an endless conveyor belt of horrors, and this can keep one from finding out about what films exists. The Forward considers it a mission to help remedy this; read on…
There’s an old joke: Two fish are swimming around in a fishbowl when one asks, “How’s the water?” “What the hell is water?” the other fish responds. In “The Shape Of Water,” Guillermo del Toro’s newest tour de force film, the lonely, mute Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is miserably acclimated to her everyday, mundane routine —…
The announcements of most Hollywood remakes prompts groans and eye rolls. Yesterday, however, heralded news interesting enough to make one say, “OK. Let’s see where this goes.” The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that the directors of “Good Time,” brothers Ben and Josh Safdie, are set to remake Walter Hill’s 1982 buddy cop film “48…
A century ago the world was in the throes of the Great War, women didn’t yet have the vote and the movie industry was in its infancy. Two Jewish refugees from the wine-growing Tokaji region of Hungary — Adoph Zukor and William Fox (born Fuchs) — were beginning to make their mark on the fledgling…
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there were lots of Nazis. But no Jews. The Empire in the “Star Wars” franchise, the totalitarian regime which serves as the antagonist throughout the series, is modeled on the Nazis both visually and throughout the films’ narratives. References to fascist totalitarianism give the genocidal…
Winter is dark and terrible, but it is also the best time of the year because of the Oscars. From the most handsome actor to the richest producer, everyone in Hollywood dreams of the Academy Awards, and these dreams consist of golden Oscar men holding hands and frolicking with each other in a nude roundelay,…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The film “Finding Babel” portrays theater professor Andrei Malaev-Babel’s journey across the former USSR seeking traces of his grandfather, Russian-Jewish author Isaac Babel. The film was recently released on Vimeo in English-, Russian- and Ukrainian-language versions. In the English version of the film, Isaac Babel’s quotes are…
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…
מישעל ווײַס, אַ רעפּובליקאַנערין, האָט געוווּנען די וואַלן אין יוניווערסיטי הײַטס — אַ טיף דעמאָקראַטישער פֿאָרשטאָט פֿון קליוולאַנד, אָהײַאָ
100% of profits support our journalism
