Film
The Latest
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The Schmooze ‘American Hustle’ Inspired by Real-Life Jewish Conman
“American Hustle,” David O. Russell’s inventive and energetic take on the Abscam scandal, starts with a tone-setting (and laugh-inducing) placard on the screen: “Some of this actually happened.” But, of course, a lot of it didn’t, and in that terrain between fact and fiction, Russell and co-screenwriter Eric Warren Singer have re-imagined the story as…
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The Schmooze Eric Roberts on What It’s Like to Play a Nazi
Actor Eric Roberts is pretty busy but he likes it that way. Roberts just wrapped “Escaping the Holocaust,” Josh A. Weber’s film about his own family. Weber’s grandfather, Max Fronenberg, spent a year digging a tunnel to escape a prison camp and saved 15 people but couldn’t convince the woman he loved to come with…
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The Schmooze Claude Lanzmann and the Boss of Theresienstadt
“The Last of the Unjust” is at once a documentary on the Holocaust, a character portrait, an inquiry into the nature of evil, a rumination on drawing moral distinctions, and a lesson on the pedagogical limits of film. This well over three-hour documentary, directed — or should we say “constructed”? — by Claude Lanzmann, whose…
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The Schmooze ‘S#x Acts’ Explores Dark Side of Sexuality
Israeli-born director Jonathan Gurfinkel’s first film is officially called “S#x Acts.” You can substitute an “I” for the asterisk, because the movie has six acts. Or you can put in an “E,” because there are numerous erotic scenes. But mostly it is an emotionally charged film about bullying that is both fascinating and depressing. In…
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Culture What Cornelius Gurlitt Could Have Learned From Monsieur Robert Klein
Until recently, Cornelius Gurlitt, 80, possessed 1,280 pieces of art — some already known to be major works — which he kept wrapped and stored in his apartment in Munich. He enjoyed the cache, but only furtively; the man was in hiding alongside his art. Now that he’s been flushed out and interviewed, Gurlitt comes…
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Culture Stuck Inside of Greenwich Village With the Coen Brothers Blues Again
Success always seems inevitable in retrospect. Once you’ve arrived, it must have been destined all along. But failure — especially dream-crushing, life-destroying failure — is plagued by what-ifs and what-might-have-beens. Was it just bad luck, or did you really not have what it takes? Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), the tortured protagonist of Joel and Ethan…
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The Schmooze Meet Israel’s Newest Superhero
Turns out that Wonder Woman is Israeli. Director Zack Snyder announced that he’s cast Gal Gadot as the iconic super hero for his “Batman vs. Superman” film, joining Henry Cavill (reprising his role as Superman) and Ben Affleck (recently named to play Batman). Gadot has been in three “Fast & Furious” films, among others. Said…
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Fast Forward Best-Selling German Satirical Novel About Return of Hitler To Be Made Into Film
A best-selling German satirical novel about the return of Adolf Hitler to modern-day Germany is being adapted into a film. “Er Ist Wieder Da,” German for “He’s Back,” sold 1.3 million copies in Germany after its 2012 release. In the book, Hitler awakens in modern-day Berlin and garners enough attention to become host of his…
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Culture He works at a Holocaust museum by day. How’d he end up in ‘Marty Supreme’?
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News The ADL’s turn away from civil rights was years in the making — Oct. 7 accelerated it
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News The Holocaust Torah that survived a Mississippi synagogue fire was brought there by the state’s only survivor
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Culture The mysterious case of Barbra Streisand and the missing half-pound of Zabar’s sturgeon
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Opinion Is the ‘Board of Peace’ just another Trump scam, or a real move toward Middle East peace?
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Fast Forward Penn calls Trump administration demand for list of Jewish employees ‘disturbing and unconstitutional’
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