When my parents landed in New York in 1947 they were assigned a case worker. I’m not sure who did the assigning, but I remember my father saying how puzzled he was. “Case” was German for cheese, and he didn’t understand why he needed a cheese worker. My parents didn’t tell many stories about their…
Henry Winkler is on the phone. Finally. We missed our connection a couple of days earlier and by missed connection I mean he forgot to call. He had two performances of his new Broadway play, “The Performers,” that day — as though that should take priority — and The Forward got lost in the shuffle….
“Scandalous,” the new Broadway musical about evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, was written by Kathie Lee Gifford. No surprise there. Gifford is a well-known born-again Christian with, presumably, an interest in the work of a crusading missionary. But in a fit of ecumenical irony (or common sense), the two guys she picked to supply the bouncy,…
Amy Heckerling is the auteur behind two iconic movies: “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Clueless.” She was also the director of “National Lampoon’s European Vacation” and the writer and director of “Look Who’s Talking,” among other successes. Heckerling’s latest, “Vamps,” starring veteran Heckerlingers Alicia Silverstone and Wallace Shawn, is a smart comedy, not an…
Eli Roth, 40, is a Hollywood multi-hyphenate. He’s part of a group of filmmakers known as the “Splat Pack” because of the violent and bloody nature of their movies. He’s an actor, most notably playing Donny “the bear Jew” Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds.” He’s also a screenwriter and director of “Cabin Fever” and…
“The Other Josh Cohen” may be the reason they invented off-Broadway. On the face of it, this clever and original musical about fate and Jewish guilt may seem too slight for the Great White Way. But in truth, it is witty and smart and far more entertaining than many of the projects that open (and…
Henry Jaglom’s 18th film, “Just 45 Minutes From Broadway,” is, in Jaglom’s words, “a love song to actors.” It follows the Isaacs, a family of thespians with roots in the Yiddish theater, and the “45 minutes” in the title refers to the time it takes the family to get from midtown Manhattan to their vacation…
In “Excuse Me For Living,” Dan Topler (Tom Pelphrey) is rich, smart and, when the film opens, poised on a bridge ready to end it all. A judge remands the drug-addicted Yale graduate and medical school dropout to a posh rehab center, where he is treated by a Dr. Jacob Bernstein (the renowned actor Robert…
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