Film / TV / Video
83 posts found
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Churchill's Stand
Who do we have to thank for Hitler's eventual defeat? What was World War II's turning point? Who, by his actions during the war, inspired Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, Israel's early leaders? The answer, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center's stirring new documentary, "Walking With Destiny," is Winston Churchill. Churchill, who died in 1965, is hardly a forgotten figure. To the contrary, there is a large and healthy Churchill industry producing new books, one after another, season after season.… -
The man who was Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was so famous, so iconic an American movie star that I don't really need to tell you who he was. He was Tony Curtis, and he lived that role with childish delight, relishing where his life had taken him, and the pleasures and opportunities fame had afforded him. By the time he died last week at age 85 at his home in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, Nev., he was known the world over - for the… -
Is LA Ready for its Dose of "Law & Order"
Following last year’s cancellation of the original New York version of the series after a venerable 20-year run — a record matched in drama only by the classic Western “Gunsmoke†— a new spawn will appear this fall: “Law & Order: Los Angeles.†While some may dismiss this latest iteration of Dick Wolf’s procedural formula as “more of the same, only different,†to me, the creation of a “Law & Order†in Los Angeles signals a cultural watershed, a moment… -
What We Say When We Talk about Mel Gibson
The recent news that Mel Gibson is no longer a client of William Morris Endeavor should come as no surprise. Many news and entertainment programs, including NBC's "Today Show," pegged the delisting to Gibson's recent domestic assault allegations and tabloid leak of surreptitious tapes of racist rants he allegedly made, all arising from his custody dispute with his baby-mama Oksana Grigorieva. But Gibson was already on borrowed time at the agency. In 2006, following his Malibu arrest and anti-Semitic rant,… -
"Sons of Tucson": A Cult Hit in the Making?
"Sons of Tucson" is a clever and subversive new sitcom about three sons who've fled to Tucson, Ariz., because their father was imprisoned for financial fraud. They then go on to recruit a ne'er-do-well, played by Taylor Labine (of "Reaper" fame), to pose as their father for school and other official purposes. The show is generating some drama of its own. Fox, which bought the comedy to help revive its sitcom fortunes - dormant since "Malcom in the Middle" ended… -
Q & A with Mel Brooks
JewishJournal.com exclusive audio: Interview with Mel Brooks Mel Brooks sings Mel Brooks is on a hot streak: He was just a Kennedy Center Honoree (along with Dave Brubeck, Robert De Niro, Grace Bumbry and Bruce Springsteen); 20th Century Fox just released "The Mel Brooks Collection" in Blu-ray - a nine-DVD set that includes "Blazing Saddles," "Young Frankenstein" and "Spaceballs," among other classics; and Shout! Factory has released "The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History," a three-CD, one-DVD set that… -
The Kraft of Movie Music
"If there's music in a movie," said Robert Kraft, president of Fox Music, "whether on screen, or underscore, or someone is playing guitar in a scene, I'm involved." That includes the decisions concerning music at every level. "How it's paid for, is it creatively appropriate to the film, is it legal, is it focused on selling more movie tickets if it can be ... basically every musical aspect of a film at Fox is my responsibility," he said. Kraft is… -
Vidiots
If you believe all the tech pundits, the future of home movie watching will be moving to “the cloud.†We’re already well on the way to where Netflix DVDs will no longer arrive in the mail and sit, unwatched, on an entryway table. Soon all films and many reruns of TV shows will be downloaded and sit on your hard drive — indeed, this option is already available in many cases. It all sounds great — if you know just… -
Laud the Life of Sid Grauman, Hollywood's Gold Standard
Ever wonder how the movie industry went from five-cent nickelodeons in New York to the glamour of Hollywood with red carpet premieres and the highest of artistic aspirations? Or why a certain pagoda-like Hollywood movie theater in whose courtyard rest footprints of actors is one of the most beloved and frequented tourist sites on the planet? Look no further than the story of Sid Grauman, whose birth 130 years ago will be celebrated this Saturday, March 14, by the American… -
Holocaust Movies: Winners & Losers
"The Reader" Are Holocaust movies good for the Jews? Or even, for that matter, for society at large? This year's offerings include "Defiance," a story of a group of Jews who were heroic resistance fighters; "The Reader," a story of post-war revelation about a Nazi woman who beds down with a German boy; "Good," about the moral compromises of a German university professor in the Nazi era; "Adam Resurrected," based on Yoram Kaniuk's novel about a demented Holocaust survivor living… -
"Doc" The Life and Fictions of Harold Humes
Watching wasted genius, a life gone wrong, is compelling and poignant, but with "Doc" airing December 9, at 10PM on PBS' Independent Lens (Check your local listings for actual times), we feel much more like guests doing a post-mortem on a private party where the drinks may have been dosed. "Doc" is a documentary by Immy Humes about her father, the novelist and cultural figure, Harold L. "Doc" Humes, who was by many measures a success: he was a founder… -
Wild about Diamond
David Wild wants you to know that he is an unabashed Neil Diamond fan. So much so that he has written a book titled, "He Is ... I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond" (Da Capo Press) that is less biography, according to Wild, than "tribute album." Being a Diamond fan (dare we call him a Diamond head?) is as much a part of Wild as, well ... being Jewish. Wild grew up in Tenafly,…