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Up-and-comer Dudamel takes on the Israel Philharmonic
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Naomi Pfefferman
Q&A with Yair Hochner—founder of Tel Aviv’s first gay and lesbian film festival
Before the 33-year-old Hochner made "Antarctica," he shot his award-winning "Good Boys," for $500; and founded Tel Aviv's first gay and lesbian film festival.
Q&A with Betsy Brown Braun—Hollywood’s go-to parenting guru
" . . . I'd met so many parents who are talented career people, but can be humbled to their knees by a 4-year-old. They'd say, 'Betsy, what do I say? What do I do? Help!' -- so I offer actual scripts that can be a starting point for parents . . . '
‘The Longing’ documents crypto-Jews caught between two worlds
When Gabriela Böhm set out to create her documentary, "The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America," several years ago, she hoped to profile an as-yet-undiscovered secret community of Crypto Jews -- descendants of Jews forced to flee the Spanish Inquisition who continued practicing rituals covertly.
In ‘Adam Resurrected,’ Jeff Goldblum reanimates controversial Shoah survivor
In order to play the lead in "Adam Resurrected," Jeff Goldblum said he spent "months crying and crawling around on all fours."
Habonim spirit influences work of director Mike Leigh in ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’
Leigh's physician father and midwife mother met through Habonim, the Labor Zionist youth movement, in 1936. Mike Leigh, in turn, became a Habonim leader and traveled with the group to Israel on a ship as a teenager. The experience had a dramatic effect on his future work as an artist: "The atmosphere was one of chevrah, of sharing, openness and coming together -- of making things happen by colluding -- which describes the spirit of how I work with actors and the atmosphere of my rehearsals."
Emily Stern—Howard Stern’s daughter—on stage and off
As a child, Emily first performed in the choir at her Reform temple in Roslyn, N.Y., where she sang at children's services and Jewish camp. She continued to perform in high school; but studying acting at New York University did not mesh well with her intuitive approach to theater, she said.
Robert Schimmel: Cancer, through a lens comedic
He realized that even though he had just been told he had cancer, he hadn't been told he was going to die. To prove it, he was going to do the one thing that showed he was very much alive, which was to make people laugh.
Producer David Heyman and the lives of outsiders, from ‘Potter’ to ‘Pajamas’
The story is told from the perspective of 8-year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield), who is chagrined when his father (David Thewlis, who plays Remus Lupin in the "Potter" films) takes over as commandant of a remote labor-turned-death camp.
Documentary goes behind the music video with Chutzpah
"My big idea for the CD was, 'Let's give this to our families for Chanukah,'" Hyams said. "I never thought we'd get a record deal, because I figured 'This is stupid and Jewish and no one cares except us.'"
Documentary explores UCLA alumna’s past as a child prostitute
Her chance came when she heard Sauvage say he intended to create financing for a movie as his summer MBA project in 2005. "You should make your movie about me," she told him. Sauvage, who at the time did not know she had been abused, cavalierly replied that unless she had been a child prostitute, he wasn't interested.
Bob Saget: Clean-cut and filthy (uncensored version) [VIDEOS]
" . . . Bob is particularly funny because he has this dual, schizophrenic reputation from the G-rated family shows to the X-rated stand-up show . . ."
Bob Saget: Clean-cut and filthy (G-rated version)
". . . Bob is particularly funny because he has this dual, schizophrenic reputation from the G-rated family shows to the X-rated stand-up show . . ."
Comic rewrite of bar mitzvah fiasco fuels ‘Sixty Six’
"It was one of the most hilarious speeches I had ever heard," Bonham Carter recalled of Weiland's spiel. "Afterwards Paul was absolutely mobbed with people who thought he should turn the story into a movie. And I asked if I could play his mum."
Helena Bonham Carter—Jewish mother?
"I had not 'done' Jewish before," Helena Bonham Carter said breezily of why she chose to play a Jewish character in Paul Weiland's semi-autobiographical film, "Sixty Six."
A Mensh on the radiowaves to recovery
Over the next 13 years, Mensh snorted cocaine (sometimes off the turntables at his disc jockey gigs), added acid and Quaaludes to the mix, and imbibed to the point that he blacked out, only to awaken in a ditch or a stranger's car or bed.
Leigh Silverman: Nurturing novel ideas, one play at a time
One day, when Leigh Silverman was 15 and the youngest student in a college summer drama program, her teacher pointedly asked her to stay after class.
"She said, 'Leigh, you shouldn't be an actress; you're terrible,'" Silverman, now 33, recalled with a laugh. "I was horrified. But then she said I had good insights about the plays, and that instead of acting I should be her assistant.
Brooks Arthur brings stars’ hearts and humor to ‘Jewish Songbook’ CD
Music producer Brooks Arthur turns nostalgic with a new CD of classic Jewish music
The heavy metal band that could
Stars expected to shine at Israel Film Festival
Rubbernecking the Holocaust
In this way, Kofman says he is "unfortunately" a bit like the anti-hero of his debut feature film, "The Memory Thief," who becomes so obsessed with the grotesque details of videotaped survivors' testimonies that he is "virtually rubbernecking the Holocaust."
Sexcapades of ‘Sex in the City’ actor often rival show’s
Evan Handler's offscreen life is as wild as his video adventures,
Balancing the seen and unseen is a juggling act
In the defining moment of Sara Felder's performance piece, "Out of Sight" -- about a mother and daughter who clash over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- she juggles machetes while precariously balancing on a rola bola.
Theater: ‘Immigrant’ sings the story of the ‘Only Jew in Town’
In 1909, an impoverished Jewish immigrant arrived in Hamilton, Texas, hawking 1-cent bananas from his pushcart.
Haskell Harelik had fled Russia to escape pogroms, docking not in Ellis Island but in Galveston, Texas, via a plan to route Eastern European Jews to the West. He spoke no English and was the first Jew the Hamilton residents had ever seen. But he found some friendly faces, and he stayed in that Baptist town, founding a dry goods store and raising three sons there.
Teen angst bring laughs film director won’t ‘Forget’
Nicholas Stoller remembers the day he joined the "Jew-Tang Clan," the creative posse led by comedy wunderkind Judd Apatow ("The 40-year-old Virgin," "Knocked Up").
Apatow was interviewing the then-24-year-old writer for a job on his 2000 college sitcom, "Undeclared."
Scholar explores ancient Jewish reactions to ancient pagan statues
Professor Yaron Z. Eliav, who recently spoke about Jews and statues at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, co-directs the multidisciplinary Statuary Project at the University of Michigan, which, among other endeavors, peruses classical Jewish texts for references to statues (there are at least 6,000 of them -- many appreciative of the figures' beauty and tolerant of female nudes).
Books: Pot-smoking antihero proves cathartic for her creator
Twenty-nine-year-old Dahlia Finger, the antihero of Elisa Albert's debut novel, "The Book of Dahlia," has an inoperable brain tumor and an attitude.
Rabbi-impresario brings Broadway to Beverly Hills
But as other venues closed in Beverly Hills (the Canon Theatre was demolished in 2005), Rabbi David Baron, Los Angeles' rabbi-impresario, saw an opportunity: "a home for my temple and also something much bigger," he says. "People hate shlepping to the Pantages in Hollywood or downtown to see Broadway-caliber shows.... I had a dream of being able to preserve, restore, maintain and revitalize this complex and this theater (Wilshire Theatre Beverly Hills), and to make it a real community hub, a cultural, performing arts center for the entire area."
Opera: Restoring Nazi-suppressed ‘Recovered Voices’
When James Conlon premiered the "Recovered Voices" program at Los Angeles Opera last year, the Los Angeles Times noted the "evangelical zeal" with which he conducted works that had been suppressed by the Nazis -- Conlon's musical mission since discovering the vast (and largely forgotten) repertoire in the 1990s. "We presented the work of seven composers to offer a glimpse of the immensity and the variety of the music -- and we had a standing ovation even at intermission," Conlon said between rehearsals for the next "Voices" concerts, which will be performed Feb. 17 through March 8.
Theater: Mark Feuerstein is the “Some Girls” guy
Jewish themes on tap at Sundance festival
"I never sold weed after high school -- I swear," said 31-year-old filmmaker Jonathan Levine.
Instead, he said, "The Wackness," which revolves around a dealer who trades pot for therapy sessions (and premieres in competition at the Sundance Film Festival this week), was inspired by his teen angst back in 1994, as he bemoaned his social status, bickered with his Jewish parents and obsessed about what he calls life's "wackness, the awful stuff, rather than living in the moment."
Joan Rivers’ ‘Life’—audacious, as always
Sad encounter prompts sex trafficking docudrama
The inspiration for "Holly," a docudrama about child sex-trafficking, came as Israeli-born producer Guy Jacobson inadvertently wandered into a notorious red light district in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh five years ago.
UJ’s Levy crafts confab to celebrate authors
A new bookshelf, overflowing with volumes, testifies to Gady Levy's latest and perhaps most ambitious endeavor: the Celebration of Jewish Books, which begins on Monday and extends through an all-day festival on Sunday. The celebration will offer lectures and signings with 40 authors -- including big names, such as Larry King, Michael Chabon, Kirk Douglas and Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) -- plus music and dance performances, food and a thousand titles for sale, provided by Borders and the Hebrew-language bookseller Steimatzky.
Kushner’s (old) testament to Lincoln
Interview with playwright Tony Kushner.
Film: Child prodigy documentary spotlights director’s ethical struggle
Amir Bar-Lev began his documentary, "My Kid Could Paint That," after he tired of creating television programs about pop culture for networks such as VH-1.
Theater: De-fusing ‘Random Sharp Objects’
In the semi-autobiographical play "Random Sharp Objects," two Jewish women engage in a kind of impromptu psychoanalysis session.
Theater: ‘A’ is for ‘angst’ when you’re the creators of ‘Avenue Q’
The musical is "how 'Friends' might be if it had Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy arguing about their one-night stand but with more angst, expletives and full-on puppet sex," The Times of London said.
Documentary: Sao Paolo nightmare gives lesson in class warfare
In "Manda Bala" ("Send a Bullet"), Jason Kohn portrays a dystopian nation where the rich steal from the poor and the poor literally "steal" the rich. The movie won best documentary and documentary cinematography awards at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and "is as well directed as a thriller," according to a review in The Hollywood Reporter.
Matisyahu—reggae king without a crown?
Has Orthodox reggae star Matishayu severed his ties with Chabad-Lubavitch? Is he a bad influence on religious youth? And is he still frum? Blogs have been buzzing over these questions since Matisyahu appeared to distance himself from Chabad last month.
Film: Teen’s victory over stuttering ignites ‘Rocket Science’
Jeffrey Blitz was a chronic stutterer who in high school won his state's debating championship. The 37-year-old writer-director admits that this background is ripe for Hollywood humor, so it should come as no surprise that his latest film, "Rocket Science," spotlights a teenage stutterer's attempts to become a debater.
Paris is not always for lovers in edgy film comedy ‘2 Days in Paris’
In Julie Delpy's edgy comic film, "2 Days in Paris," a French expatriate and her American Jewish lover travel to Paris in an attempt to revive their stagnant relationship. Instead, they find that the cultural differences only exacerbate their problems.
The musical Baron Cohen brother comes into his own
"We used to develop and perform material after Shabbat dinner in our parents' house," recalls Erran Baron Cohen.
Mia Goldman’s film is an ‘Open Window’ into trauma and recovery
Mia Goldman says it took her six years to work through her depression and to heal, which she did with the help of her psychoanalyst, her family and her growing spiritual connection to Judaism. She drew on her experience to write and direct her debut feature, "Open Window," which premieres on Showtime July 16 at 8 p.m.
The odyssey of the Dead Sea Scrolls
-- what a long, strange trip it's been
The Dead Sea scrolls will arrive this summer at the San Diego Natural History Museum after a long, convoluted journey - one that was often interrupted by controversy.
Two musical ‘inventors’ get Felder fanfare
"I want to take viewers through three different generations, to meet three of the greatest music-makers -- actually musical inventors -- who ever lived," says Felder. "What connects these composers, thematically, is the price that each paid in order to create his work."
Don't 'knock' Seth Rogen, the new overweight Canadian Jewish boy leading man
Seth Rogen feigned surprise when a CBS host joked that he did not see the actor in a Hollywood manual about leading men. "You didn't see 'overweight Canadian Jewish boy' in there?" the actor replied.
Composer’s hit musical spells success ‘B-E-E’
William Finn, composer, lyricist and creator of the hit musical, "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," says his own surname is the result of a misspelling. "When my great-uncle came from Russia, he kept saying he was looking for someone named Fein, so the genius at Ellis Island gave him the name Finn," he breezily explains from his Manhattan apartment.
Controversial bioethicist pounces on animals in art
Bioethicist Peter Singer has received death threats for his views on incendiary topics such as infanticide and animals rights. Singer -- an Australian Jew who is considered to be one of the most influential living philosophers -- will lecture about how art depicts animals on May 24 at the Getty Center, in conjunction with the Getty Museum exhibition, "Oudry's Painted Menagerie."
Reasons to book it to UCLA
Political provocateur Gore Vidal, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, industrialist Lee Iacocca, fantasy maven Ray Bradbury, Los Angeles crime novelist Lee Ellroy and Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua. Add more than 700 additional authors, readings, performances and panels, and you get a sense of the scope of the 12th annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books -- the largest event of its kind on the West Coast -- which will take place April 28 and 29 at UCLA.
Diary writer Hillman says sharing story is ‘my duty’
It was not until several years ago that Laura Hillman completed her Holocaust memoir, "I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree" (Atheneum, 2005), which reads like a teenager's journal of life in eight labor and concentration camps. The lyrical, brutally honest book recreates her youthful musings -- echoing the most famous of the Holocaust diarists, Anne Frank.
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Current Print Edition
November 14-20, 2008
This week we examine President-elect Obama's choice of Rep. Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff -- he's an IDF veteran, a serious Jew and a tough cookie. So is his brother Ari, Hollywood super macher. Julie Gruenbaum-Fax considers efforts to heal the community after an intense election campaign, and Rob Eshman deconstructs the passage Prop. 8 from a Swiftian perspective. Marty Kaplan, Danielle Berrin, David Suissa, Tom Teicholz, Brad Greenberg and the regular gang of homies.
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Television
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The start of the event was running late -- did I mention it was a Jewish event? -- and midway through our green room conversation, Hitchens pulled out a small bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. He emptied it into a 16-ounce clear-plastic cup and drizzled in some Crystal Geyser
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