“Up Heartbreak Hill,” the POV documentary that premieres July 26 on PBS, is centered on two teenagers, Thomas Martinez and Tamara Hardy, who run like the wind. Not hurricane fast, but swiftly enough to place among the top finishers in state cross country and track meets; swiftly enough to attract the attention of college coaches….
Israel not only provides ideas to the American entertainment industry (as I reported in an article for the Forward this week), but a warm welcome to its filmmakers, as well. David Nevins, President of Entertainment for Showtime, took advantage of that hospitality when he okayed three weeks of shooting there for the network’s hit series,…
The Showtime hit dramedy, “Weeds,” returned for its eighth and final season yesterday, starting off with a bang. Literally. Fans of the show will recall that it finished last year with a cliffhanger: a rifle aimed at protagonist Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker). Would Nancy be shot? Would the assassin switch to another target before…
Alex Kurtzman is best known for writing Big Summer Movies, the so-called tent pole films. If it has a Roman numeral in the title — “Transformers,” “Star Trek,” “Mission Impossible” — there’s a good chance that Alex and his writing partner Roberto Orsi are involved. June 29 marks the release of “People Like Us,” a…
There is a heart-wrenching moment in “We Were Here,” David Weissman’s documentary about the AIDS crisis in San Francisco, which stands out from the rest of the film. Ed Wolf, an activist and one of the five people extensively interviewed by Weissman, remembers a conversation he had with the father of a hospitalized and infected…
In the 1970s, Paul Williams was a star, penning chart-topping songs such as “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Evergreen” and “Rainbow Connection.” But Williams and his fame burned out, and six years ago he was selling CDs in the lobby of a casino. Now filmmaker Stephen Kessler has written and directed “Paul Williams Still Alive” a…
In his documentary, “U.N. Me,” opening in cities around the U.S. today, first-time filmmaker Ami Horowitz takes shots at the United Nations and most of them land squarely on target. Horowitz charges that U.N. brass knew about the potential for genocide in Rwanda — and could have prevented it; that U.N. peacekeeping troops opened fire…
The film “Mighty Fine” is ostensibly about the fictional Fine family — a Holocaust survivor mother, a father with temper issues and two daughters who bear the weight of his problems. Joe Fine (Chazz Palminteri) means well. It’s the 1970s, he’s in the rag trade and business is bad. Even moving the family and business…
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