Film
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The Schmooze There Will Be No Second ‘Lebowski’
Jeff Bridges, with his new “The Dude and the Zen Master” book, may be having a hard time saying goodbye to his “Big Lebowski” alter-ego. But that is not at all the case with the Coen brothers, who recently said quite definitively that there would be no sequel to the 1998 cult classic, whose popularity…
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The Schmooze Is There an Orthodox Film Industry?
Orthodox filmmaker Rama Burshtein is a special case. Not only does she come from a community that frowns on film-watching — never mind film-making — but she has managed to create “Fill the Void,” a movie that has won awards and acclaim around the world. (You can read my recent profile of Burshtein here.) Burshtein…
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The Schmooze Coen Brothers’ Latest Draws Raves at Cannes
I have a lot of faith in the Coen brothers. But when I heard that their next film, “Inside Llewyn Davis,” was going to be about a singer-songwriter in Greenwhich Village during the folk revival, I was a little worried. If there’s a period ripe for nostalgia among beardy folk music types, this one is…
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Culture Orthodox World Provides Backdrop for Rama Burshtein’s Universal Story
The night before Rama Burshtein shot the last scene of “Fill the Void,” she couldn’t sleep. It was going to be her last day on set, and a large group of extras was scheduled to arrive, including her own children. More daunting, she was going to be shooting a wedding scene, one of the film’s…
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The Schmooze What Mel Brooks can teach us about racism
“Blazing Saddles” is generally regarded as Mel Brooks’s best movie: It was ranked sixth on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest American comedies and it was nominated for three Academy Awards. “Best,” though, is a relative term. Brooks’s Borscht Belt-meets-absurdism style is so unique and so indelible that what we call the…
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The Schmooze Palestinian Film Breaks New Ground at Cannes
A tragic love story between two Palestinians living under Israeli occupation received a standing ovation at the Cannes film festival on Monday and broke new ground as the first film fully funded by the Palestinian cinema industry. “Omar” by director Hany Abu-Assad, known for the 2005 award-winning film “Paradise Now,” is a political thriller interwoven…
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The Schmooze Renee Zellweger’s Favorite Laundry Lady
Not everyone has Zack Galifianakis renting an apartment for them, or Renee Zellweger paying to furnish it. But then again, not everyone is Mimi. Mimi is an 88-year-old woman who, until very recently, lived in a laundromat on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, Calif. She is the subject of a film being made by Israeli…
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The Schmooze First Peek at Ari Folman’s New Film
The first trailer is out for Ari Folman’s new film, “The Congress” (see here for background), and though I hate to say it, it’s a little disappointing. I’ve been looking forward to this movie for ages, mainly because it seems like the perfect creative pairing. Folman, in his 2008 film “Waltz With Bashir,” used groundbreaking…
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