How Quincy Jones scored with the gritty story of a Harlem Holocaust survivor
Jones' 1964 score for 'The Pawnbroker' became an instant classic
Jones' 1964 score for 'The Pawnbroker' became an instant classic
Why the cab scene in 'Bye Bye Braverman' is still a riot
As Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un engage in nuclear brinkmanship, very real fears of a nuclear Armageddon have emerged. Given that Armageddon has a Hebrew origin (via the Greek translation of Har Meggido), it is not surprising that Jews have had a considerable interest in nuclear apocalypse. Consider the title of MAD magazine, echoing 1950s…
Television’s golden age ran roughly from the late 1940s to the early 1960s — a quaint period in which not a single Jersey housewife or Kardashian made it on the air. Instead, viewers were treated to classical theater and original productions from the likes of Paddy Chayefsky, Gore Vidal and Rod Serling. Great actors and…
Jay Michaelson pays a visit to John Zorn’s Masada Marathon at the New York City Opera, and re-interprets the four sons of the Haggadah as characters from “Glee.” Eli Valley re-interprets the four sons in light of the Egyptian Revolution. Philologos has difficulties and questions, both. Meredith Ganzman looks back on the career of Rochelle…
Sidney Lumet, the acclaimed director more than 50 films, died April 9 in Manhattan at the age of 86. Best known for taut psychodramas such as “Serpico” (1973), “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975), “Network” (1976) and “The Verdict” (1982), Lumet’s work demonstrated an enduring interest in social realism and the difficulty of obtaining justice, a concern…
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish. On March 12 the Yiddish theater lost one of its most beloved stars. Shifra Lerer, an Argentine-born actress who toured the world and who later appeared in films by Woody Allen and Sidney Lumet, died in Manhattan at the age of 95. I met Shifra during my…
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