Cinema
The 2021 Oscars had Borscht Belt resort vibes
They celebrated a “creative family of storytellers.” The theme carried the evening and it certainly had its Yiddishkeit.
In Brighton Beach, a gay teen seeks easy answers and finds only enigmas
A gay Jewish teen comes of age in a world of plastic-covered couches and Brutalist public buildings glimmering with gray afternoon light.
How Laemmle Theatres is weathering the coronavirus storm
How Laemmle Theatres is weathering the coronavirus storm
It’s Not All Politics In Israeli Films
The 5th annual Israel Film Center Festival launches this May with a diverse selection of Israel’s latest hit films.
Ultra-Orthodox Demonstrate Against Movie Theater on Shabbat
Thousands of haredi Orthodox Jewish men clashed with police during protests against a new cinema in Jerusalem that stays open on Shabbat.
The Best Documentary Filmmaker You've Never Heard Of
Manny Kirchheimer is one of New York’s least-appreciated filmmakers. Now, thanks to the re-release of the 83-year-old’s ‘Stations of the Elevated,’ that may be changing.
Where Jonathan Tropper Departs From Reality
If you can ignore the fact that few Jews appear in the purportedly Jewish ‘This Is Where I Leave You,’ it’s a delightful movie. At least that’s what our critic Anna Goldenberg says.
The Spy Who Came In From Hamas
An unusually timely and captivating documentary, ‘The Green Prince,’ tells of a Hamas leader’s son who came to spy for Shin Bet. Anna Goldenberg sits down with the film’s director and star.
How Roman Polanski and Jonathan Demme Blur the Line Between Fiction and Reality
‘Venus in Fur’ and ‘A Master Builder’ are two new movies that evoke a strange magic: Both blur the line between fantasy and reality, and both are about the art of acting, writes Ezra Glinter.
Remembering the Life and Films of Paul Mazursky
The critic Irving Howe was not thinking of the writer-director Paul Mazursky, who has died at the age of 84, when he wrote of Jewish humor: “Laughter and trembling are so curiously intermingled that it is not easy to determine the relation between the two.” Yet he might as well have been. Born Irwin Mazursky in Brooklyn of Ukrainian Jewish ancestry, the filmmaker addressed often-somber problems such as marital strife, old age, and oppressive parents, yet his films were also gems of humor. “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice”; “Blume in Love”; “Harry and Tonto”; “Next Stop, Greenwich Village”; “An Unmarried Woman”; “Moscow on the Hudson”; “Down and Out in Beverly Hills”; and “Enemies, a Love Story” were empathetic and warm-heartedly accessible, seemingly about real people, not just characters put onscreen. Of “Blume in Love” starring George Segal, Mazursky told Filmmaker Magazine in 2013: