Sally Ogle Davis

Dark currents surface in surfing clan’s idyllic life

Published on May 21, 2008

A nice Jewish doctor decides his family must live on in a camper and surf . . . all the time; and here's the documentary to prove it

Oxnard Kosher Dining Is a Sur Thing

Published on February 2, 2006

Oxnard's population is more than 70 percent Latino, which could explain why Tierra Sur, the finest new kosher restaurant on this coast (or almost any other), has decided to open with a decidedly Mediterranean-Spanish flavor, with a large dose of Tuscany thrown in for good measure.

Lessons From a Film Festival

Published on March 18, 2004

Three Jews, four opinions -- right? Of course right. Now mix in something as subjective as one's taste in movies.

A Kushner Series That Will Offend All

Published on December 4, 2003

After director Mike Nichols took his wife, Diane Sawyer, to the first screening of his six-hour HBO film of Tony Kushner's epoch-defining, "Angels in America." She said, "I know what this is about. It's about being Jewish."

She's right, but it's also about being gay in the latter 20 years of the 20th century. It's about friendship and redemption. It's about the feeling we all have in our darker hours that as a species, we could be on the verge of extinction. It's about the struggle for the soul of America between the right and the left, and it's about so many other things that it's virtually impossible to describe.

Cry, Argentina

Published on February 27, 2003

It's a balmy night as we join those filing into the basement social hall of the venerable Libertad Synagogue in the heart of downtown Buenos Aires. It resembles any Friday night service crowd anywhere in the United States, except that it's standing-room only. An elderly man sings Yiddish songs in a still-strong tenor followed by a young duo on saxophone and clarinet playing selections from "Fiddler on the Roof."

Europe’s Harms   to China’s Arms

Published on October 3, 2002

Just when it seems that all the World War II and Holocaust stories have been told, a little-known tale from a far corner of the world comes along to add another dimension to the saga of the Shoah.

Hitler, Still in Development

Published on August 22, 2002

CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves says major changes are being made to the first draft script of their planned miniseries on the early life of Adolf Hitler.

Furor Over Der Fuhrer

Published on August 15, 2002

"Attempts to find in the youngster 'the warped person within the murderous dictator' have proved unpersuasive. If we exclude our knowledge of what was to come, his family circumstances invoke, for the most part, sympathy for the child exposed to them."
-- Ian Kershaw,

"Hitler: l889-l936 Hubris."

Der Fuhrer on Der Screen

Published on August 1, 2002

Adolf Hitler is no stranger to big screen and small. Charlie Chaplin first parodied Adolf Schickelgruber in the 1940 movie "The Great Dictator," and since then Der Führer has become a part of screen history. Mel Brooks poked fun at him in the movie "The Producers" in 1968 which was robustly reincarnated as a musical on Broadway.

Prime Time for Hitler

Published on August 1, 2002

Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS and Nancy Tellem, his entertainment chief, confirmed what had been up until then only a frisson: The network would air a young Adolf Hitler miniseries right in the middle of next year's sweeps.

Shades of ‘Gray’

Published on January 10, 2002

When Australian director Gillian Armstrong decided to make a movie from Sebastian Faulk's best-selling novel "Charlotte Gray," about a British woman spy who parachuted into wartime France to work with the resistance, Armstrong's knowledge of the period and the place was limited.

Television Jews: How Jewish Is Too Jewish?

Published on September 6, 2001

The new television season is upon us. African American and Latino groups are making the expected protests about the lack of people who look like them before and aft of the camera, and the Jews are -- as usual -- adding up their TV IQ on the fingers of one hand.

If there aren't many "brothers" out there, there are even fewer "Members of the Tribe," and those that are there are not particularly Jewish Jews, if you know what I mean.

Hollywood and the Holocaust

Published on April 19, 2001

One wet night 15 years after the end of World War II, in the student union of my university in Northern Ireland, I watched a documentary film made up of home movies taken by Soviet troops at the liberation of the concentration camps. Unlike some similar Allied footage, the Soviets, interested in the propaganda value of the material, had made no attempt to sanitize it for public consumption. They wanted the film to be every bit as hellish as the reality.

The Arts

Published on March 26, 1998

What a peculiar piece of work is "Bent." The film version ofMartin Sherman's play, first presented on the London stage in 1979,and later on Broadway, has taken almost 20 years to come to thescreen. It's not difficult to see why. Not only is it turgid stuff,with a paucity of unfilmable ideas, but in an industry that sometimesseems to specialize in specious history, it will be hard to matchthis one for irresponsibility.

Life on the Wry Side

Published on March 19, 1998

Israel: The Arts

Published on January 4, 1998

This was thestory that had everything: a suffering, underdog people, outnumberedand surrounded by enemies, old and new, battling insuperable odds totriumph in a desert they had made bloom. It was "Rocky" before"Rocky," and Hollywood knew a good story when they saw it.

Deconstructing Woody

Published on December 11, 1997

Piggybacking on Jewish Suffering

Published on December 4, 1997

What a peculiar piece of work is "Bent." The film version of Martin Sherman's play, first presented on the London stage in 1979,and later on Broadway, has taken almost 20 years to come to the screen. It's not difficult to see why. Not only is it turgid stuff,with a paucity of unfilmable ideas, but in an industry that sometimes seems to specialize in specious history, it will be hard to match this one for irresponsibility.

Redemption, Hollywood Style

Published on October 9, 1997

Let me be direct and come to the point right off the mark:
"Seven Years in Tibet," appropriately filmed in Argentina -- whereold Nazis go to be rehabilitated or to die, whichever comes first --is a turgid piece of filmmaking and as dishonest as, well, "TheDevil's Own," Brad Pitt's last outing on film.

Fast Forward

Published on August 28, 1997

To some of us who were in college in the early 1960s, the nameTom Lehrer comes, in our pantheon, just below the Almighty andsomewhere above the Beatles.