If they could get Natalie Portman involved, it truly would be a Jewish dream team behind “Team of Rivals,” an upcoming Hollywood drama about the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Instead, they’ll have to make do with “just” the directing talents of Steven Spielberg and the writing gifts of Tony Kushner, who are collaborating for a…
Comcast, which bills itself as “one of the world’s leading media, entertainment and communications companies,” is about to launch an on-demand series of films connected to Steven Spielberg. But don’t expect “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Instead, as The New York Times reports today, Philadelphia-based Comcast “is distributing 10 films about the Holocaust in a…
Michael Weiss on why Boris Pasternak matters. Was Jewish humor created in 1661? Steven Spielberg has secured the rights to make a Wikileaks movie. The new edition of the Laba Journal, “Eros,” is out, featuring Stephen Hazan Arnoff on music and artificial memory, Shari Mendelson on the work of Charles LeDray, fiction by Jeremiah Lockwood,…
Yesterday I was watching Nightly News with Brian Williams and was surprised to see that Sparky Anderson got a five-minute tribute but Jerry Bock, the beloved composer of “Fiddler on the Roof,” didn’t get a mention. I have a personal stake in this, as I write musicals and often worry about posterity. Mr. Bock leaves…
Daniel F. Levin is a playwright, composer and lyricist living in Brooklyn. His newest play, “Hee-Haw: It’s a Wonderful Li_e,” was called a “delightful surprise” by the New York Times; his musical, “To Paint the Earth,” about resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto, won the Richard Rogers Development Award. This is the second in a…
Daniel F. Levin is a playwright, composer and lyricist living in Brooklyn. His newest play, “Hee-Haw: It’s a Wonderful Li_e,” was called a “delightful surprise” by the New York Times; his musical, “To Paint the Earth,” about resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto, won the Richard Rogers Development Award. This is the first in a…
Does your film have two women in it? Do they have names? Do they talk to each other? About things other than men? These are the questions, the only questions, of the Bechdel Test, otherwise known as the Mo Movie Measure. Like the APGAR test, it’s a flawed system. But in the same way that…
“Do you have to be handsome to play the role of a Nazi commander?” That was a question that actor Ralph Fiennes was asked during a January 9 discussion, titled “The Power of Film and the Holocaust” at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Fiennes didn’t have a clear answer. The British actor,…
100% of profits support our journalism
