April 29, 2011 | 12:16 pm

The Jewish Film Festival and This Day of Beauty

Posted by  Joan Hyler

Aside from the obvious news of the day, the other great news, the launch of the Endeavor (now postponed) has the regal splendor of Representative Gabrielle Gifford’s recovery.  This Hadassah member is truly a Woman of Valor.  Kabbalistically (since we are in the Omer counting period, it is a true Day of Beauty) it is also a day to honor Linda Shayne and her ascension to the Chairwomanship of the Morningstar Commission as Olivia Cohen Cutler (ABC executive extraordinaire) has been succeeded by Linda and both followed the honor I had of being it’s first Chairwoman.  Morningstar filmmaker Hillary Helstein continues to be involved in the Jewish Film Festival which opens at the Writer’s Guild May 5th.  Check the Jewish Film Festival’s website for all the info and join us for this yearly film tribute to among the best in film making with Jewish involvement.

March 17, 2011 | 1:08 pm

Purim and “Miral”

Posted by  Joan Hyler

Much has been made of this Julian Schnabel movie. The hue and cry has been heard internationally from leading Jewish and Israeli groups. Although I have not seen this movie, it has occurred to me in reading the Purim story that it feels like a good time for us Jews in show business, who care, to think about the Esther story in terms of developing a quality movie based on her plight and great success. Queen Esther is one of my personal heroines. Especially when she decides to reveal her true Jewish identity to her husband, a notorious Anti-Semite and King. In a touching scene, he says to her Uncle Mordechi “If I die, then I die.” Her resignation to her faith is heroic, tragic, and very touching. Of course we all know the end of the story…that she does not die, is accepted as the Queen, and presides over a great victory that we celebrate to this day. Natalie Portman would make a phenomenal Queen Esther, and her personal commitment to being Jewish really qualifies her for this role. Have a wonderful holiday, and don’t forget the mitzvah of the day includes “hearing the Migella.” We must not just listen to the Migella, but “hear it” as well. Happy holiday.

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January 14, 2011 | 1:21 pm

In the culture Jewish women rule the News Cycle

Posted by  Joan Hyler

Aside from the blogosphere and the public affairs news cycle, Hollywood has not dealt with yet this weeks’ heroics of two Jewish women: Debbie Friedman and Gabby Gifford. Debbie Friedman was buried this week after a December appearance for Limmud UK. Her songs are seminal in Jewish music especially the song “For Miriam,” which is particularly timely as it ties in with this weeks Torah portion - Miriam leading the women celebrating in song with their timbrels at the Red Sea. A cultural force, Debbie was hailed in many circles and her influence has been felt in music in general for the last few decades, and not just Jewish music. I knew her personally and she was as gracious and vibrant as her music.

I had also the pleasure of meeting Gabrielle Gifford at a few Hollywood fundraisers for Hilary Clinton a few years ago. As we can all see by her example, she exemplifies the true Jewish woman as a warrior. She is a lifelong member of Hadassah, and we at the Morningstar Commission, founded by Hadassah, particularly take her journey personally and as an example of “grace under pressure.” With the rest of the world, we wish her a speedy recovery and look forward to her presence again on the international scene. She is truly a Woman of Valor. Have a good Shabbos.

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October 21, 2010 | 6:18 pm

Bravo! Israeli Film Festival Celebrating 25 Years

Posted by  Joan Hyler

It is that time of year to once again celebrate Israeli films with the 25th Annual Israeli Film Festival honoring two of my old friends, producer Avi Lerner and actor Richard Dreyfuss who opens off Broadway next month in a two hand play about the great Rabbi and social justice advocate Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Dreyfuss, an important advocate for social justice has been embracing his Jewish roots as along as I have known him, almost 30 years. He has also studied with me in a famous class run by Rabbi Schlomo Schwartz which dates back to the mid 80’s. The class in Chassidut brought in many friends from the film and music industry before classes of this nature were as popular as they are now.

It is no surprise that Dreyfuss would be attracted to Heschel, who among other achievements marched with Dr. Martin Luther King in the 60’s. 

A big nod to Israeli Film festival executive director Meir Fenigstein who created the festival and housed it here bringing in some of the most important contemporary Israeli artists. The festival runs through November 4th.

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October 14, 2010 | 11:45 am

The 34th Miner and Rebbe Nachman

Posted by  Joan Hyler

I have not blogged since June!  The summer and early Fall got away from me with my first trip to NYC since my accident, and lots of work and life!  Saw the play “Red” on Broadway with client Alfred Molina and helped client Diane Lane open the well-reviewed movie “Secretariat.”

However, yesterday’s spectacular rescue of the 33 Chilean miners reminded me to be publicly grateful for all I have and reminded me that the 34th Miner is Hashem!  It also reminded me to re-read and reflect upon the famous Rebbe Nachman’s books and his saying:  “Gevalt!  Never give up!!”.  I am also inspired to call upon my own LA community with gratitude including Rabbi and Rebbetzim Schlomo and Olivia Schwartz; Rabbi Mendel Schwartz and my friends at the Jewish Journal who lifted me up last year as I was (and am) recovering (well, thank Hashem) from my accident.  More next week….

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June 11, 2010 | 11:45 am

Esther Blueberger and Joan Rivers

Posted by  Joan Hyler

Two films, which has as the subject Jewish women, are making their debut this weekend:  one is fictional (Esther) and one is non-fiction - the inimitable Joan Rivers.  Both movies capture the Jewish female spirit in its complexity:  brilliant, insecure and unstoppable.  Both are works of Art, both are triumphs of personality, both exemplify ‘coming of age angst’ and both are conflicted about being a Jewish woman.

I knew Joan Rivers when her husband Edgar Rosenberg was alive and although being funny and relevant always trumped being Jewish, Joan Rivers shared a comic point of view, much like the early Mike Nichols and Elaine May, that was topical as well as a tribute to the Borscht Belt comedians of the l940’s, 50’s and 60’s.  She was, and still is, one of a kind.

The movie “Esther Blueberger” an Australian film (that has a wonderful appearance by Toni Collette) is a slice of interior life of a Jewish girl who feels like an outsider in a non-Jewish world - a familiar topic in our assimilated American life.  Both movies are very much worth seeing.

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May 12, 2010 | 3:19 pm

Get Chai In Cannes

Posted by  Joan Hyler

This Shabbat, the Los Angeles based Chai Center of Rabbi Schlomo and Olivia Schwartz is hosting a Shabbat dinner at the Cannes Film Festival at a Kosher restauraunt near the Palais. Sponsored, as it has been for the past six years by Hollywood heavyweights, including yours truly, this has been a well-attended annual Kosher Friday evening affair presided over by Rabbi Mendel Schwartz.

This year the one and only Schwartz pere “Schwartzie” will be doing the hosting honors surrounded by such Chai Center regulars as attorney Craig Emanuel, producer Scott Einbinder, and entrepreneurs Max Gottlieb and Steve Kaplan among others. There is even a Lubovitch of Cannes who will join in the festivities.

Rabbi Schwartz came to visit me yesterday to seek council for Cannes as I had been there a few years ago with Craig Emmanuel’s clientTom Hanks and Alfred Molina. I had two choice tips…1) hold court at the Carlton Hotel, stay close to Craig Emanuel who knows everyone worth knowing at Cannes, and have fun!

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April 5, 2010 | 11:41 am

Passover, The Omer and 3D

Posted by  Joan Hyler

Pesach is ending and we are counting the Omer-seven weeks of Jewish 3D culminating in Shavous.  In Hollywood the box office is strong thanks to the magic of 3D but Hollywood has nothing on our story-the biggest spectacle of all led by Moses and the Women and Men of the Exodus It is not surprising that large sea and air creatures perform their feats to amaze modern audiences worldwide as we, the Jewish people, perform our own feats led by none other than Hashem, who created it all first. Bravery, challenge and divine leadership-it’s all there!

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March 12, 2010 | 12:41 pm

Spring Cleaning

Posted by  Joan Hyler

Pesach is near.  Spring cleaning is at hand, physically and spiritually.  In Hollywood, the Award season is over and Spring movies abound (the spectacular “Alice in Wonderland”) and pilots are now being shot for the Fall TV season and Fall movie releases prepared (including my client Diane Lane’s Disney feature “Secretariat” about a woman who trains herself to learn how to train the Triple Crown winner of the 70’s, an unlikely horse with an oversize heart, Secretariat).

May we all train our hearts and purify ourselves this season so in October for the next New Year we will be ready for our own Triple Crown:  Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Succos with our own oversized hearts.

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March 5, 2010 | 12:38 pm

MAZELTOV to Oscar Nominees and the Chai Center

Posted by  Joan Hyler

Oscar weekend - parties swirling and my own client BRUCE VILANCH writing the Oscar telecast.  A good year for Hollywood women - especially over 40 women:  Mirren, Streep, Bigelow, Bullock.  My friends at the Chai Center are celebrating Sunday as well - with Media star, Michael Medved doing the keynote.  Go to the Chai Center event at the Olympic Collection before you go to the Vanity Fair after party.

And if you run into Lisa Kudrow at either place, give her a thank you as well and support her courage for her march back to Poland, on full view at NBC, to talk about her family’s history and the Holocaust.

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February 24, 2010 | 7:09 pm

The Oscars: Harvey Weinstein and the Holocaust

Posted by  Joan Hyler

For a second straight year the Oscars will have a Jewish themed/WWII movie indirectly dealing with the Holocaust produced, this year as last, by Harvey and Bob Weinstein who sold their high end movie company, Miramax, to Disney a few years ago.  Miramax (named famously for the Weinstein parents, Miriam and Max) was just sold by Disney, and Bob and Harvey’s Oscar nominated movie, this year is under the label The Weinstein Company, called “The Inglorious Bastards” stars Brad Pitt and is written and directed by “Pulp Fiction” and Miramax protégé Quentin Tarantino.  It’s a vivid and fantastic look at the Holocaust -more pulp pop fiction than last years’ Weinstein Company entry into the Oscars - the sober and somber quasi love story, “The Reader” set after the Holocaust which earned the director Stephen Daldry a best director nomination and star Kate Winslet the Oscar itself as leading actress.

I have known the Weinsteins since I lived in New York and they were starting out as rock and roll promoters from Buffalo, New York.  In the 90’s I produced a documentary for them “Get Bruce” about funnyman writer and Oscar contributor (he has written 21 Oscarcasts) Bruce Vilanch and in l998 my client Diane Lane played a Jewish woman married to Liev Schreiber in the Miramax movie “A Walk On the Moon” set in the 60’s in the Catskills about the love affair between a Jewish housewife and a travelling blouse man.

While the Weinstein frères do not tackle religious themes, they are unafraid of their Jewish roots and produce interesting star driven movies that highlight Jewish characters and are even unafraid of tackling aspects of Nazi Germany

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February 19, 2010 | 12:49 pm

Building the Mishkan and Hollywood

Posted by  Joan Hyler

How appropriate that today we are reminded in the Torah to make a sanctuary that is portable and where we speak to Hashem and get responses from the sacred space between the two Gold Cherubim.  It is almost Purim, almost the Oscars (which my longtime friend and client Bruce Vilanch writes) and on Oscar night the Chai Center is having their annual fundraiser at the Olympic Collection in West LA.

The Mishkan was built by the newly minted Israelites with materials that were brought out of Egypt as we were told to ‘despoil the Egyptians’ in the Torah.  Many equate Hollywood with Egypt - I do not.  Hollywood gold is shimmering but not real - although there are few Queen Esthers at the Oscars this year - there is some substance and a real opportunity on Oscar night to donate to the Chai Center which yearly leads us out of Egypt to help us develop ourselves and our community toward a real Jewish consciousness so maybe next year there will be more than just one Israeli film nominated for Best Foreign Film - there will be a real intersection between Jews and Hollywood - we can only help prepare this by learning more about who we are and entering the Jewish Sacred Spaces in our own lives.  Thank you Rabbi Schlomo and Mendel Schwartz and the Great Mother.

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February 3, 2010 | 9:46 pm

GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS

Posted by  Joan Hyler

“Israeli formats are the ultimate greenhouse for ideas” - so says producer and former NBC honcho Ben Silverman in this weeks Variety. Along with an announcement that CBS is adapting another format from Israel “Quinn-tuplets,” this series is being developed in part by Arik Kneller who had been a student of mine in a master class sponsored by the Jewish Federation of LA two years ago.

Also chronicled by Variety is more disturbing news, the success of an iPhone application of Italian fascist Mussolini’s speeches that has Jews outraged internationally and is an unfortunate success in Italy.

Oy! Good news and horrible news.

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January 22, 2010 | 3:40 pm

Israeli Response To Haiti

Posted by  Joan Hyler

As we all are preparing ourselves for Hollywood’s response to the Haitian crisis (thank you George Clooney) it is worth remarking on the swift, efficient and highly effective Israeli response.  They were on the ground in an impressive few days and saved lives, gave hope and reminded us once again why we should be proud of the Israeli army and how the world should take a lesson from this.  It is good and proper that Hollywood stars and performers of mythic proportions (Clooney! Madonna! Bono!) should use their power and money in this way, but nothing trumps the Jewish state’s response - if only Orly Adelson (head of Dick Clark Productions would make a movie about this) - as a former Israeli soldier, she is uniquely situated to do so, as well as produce the Golden Globes - which she did so effectively, last weekend.

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January 13, 2010 | 10:48 pm

Movie Queens and Biblical Queens

Posted by  Joan Hyler

To paraphrase the Mel Brooks line “It’s good to be King,” well this year “It’s good to be Queen” or an over 40 actress or director just like Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock or director Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), Nancy Meyers (“It’s Complicated”) or that perennial over 40 Jewish-girl director Nora Ephron (“Julie & Julia”) and Morning Star’s own Lynn Roth of “The Little Traitor” starring a superb Alfred Molina.

As we begin to celebrate the women of the Exodus (Miriam, Shifrah, Puah) and of course Purim’s Esther, let’s discuss and celebrate movie queens as they get awards and save lives; spiritual and otherwise.

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December 16, 2009 | 3:23 pm

Chanukah Gift: Miracle of Sara Berlin

Posted by  Joan Hyler

It is odd for the house phone to be ringing at 1:10AM, especially in August. The house phone rarely rings. Mom is sleeping in my room because Dad is sick. I had just crawled into bed. The phone rings again. Groggily, Mom picks up the phone. The caller is a stranger from California - something is wrong with Aunt Joan.

Aunt Joan (AJ) is Mom’s only sister, living three thousand miles away, but still playing a prominent role in my childhood. She has no children of her own; we are her only family.

AJ is glamorous. She had been the first female Vice President of the William Morris talent agency in Los Angeles. Attending awards shows on the arm of one or another of her famous clients, she epitomized the success that everyone seeks in Hollywood, but few rarely achieve. Everyone sought her legendary advice, including me. I remember the advice she gave me on the first day of high school; I was very nervous because I was coming from a middle school that had eighteen students per grade to a high school with over 3000 students.

“Sara, I’m going to tell you what I tell the stars. You are fabulous! You have your own strength and power. Take a deep breath and walk in as if you owned the place. Get involved and make a difference. But most importantly , hold your head up high and take a deep breath. It’s all you, baby.”

Now it was two years later, I had taken her advice, and I was a success. I was in student government, involved in my community, and playing sports. I was looking forward to the start of my junior year, and an upcoming visit from AJ.

But that early morning phone call made it clear that AJ’s only travel plans were a helicopter flight to the hospital; she had been struck by a car while crossing Pacific Coast Highway, tossed 25 feet in the air, landing violently on the pavement, and doubling her injuries. My parents flew out immediately; I started my junior year.

Six weeks later, I was allowed to join them. When I finally saw AJ in the ICU, she was wrapped in a full body cast, with tubes and wires
sticking out everywhere. She had just awoken from a coma that she had been in since the accident, but she was barely awake.  It was painful to watch vibrant Aunt Joan lying still, struggling for every breath of air.

I spent my visit in the hospital, sitting next to her bed. I would talk to her even though she wouldn’t respond; her eyes would just stare blankly at mine. AJ had multiple broken bones, spinal injuries, nerve damage, a collapsed lung, and possible severe brain injury - the doctors were not hopeful that she would live, much less recover. Throughout my visit, doctors and nurses continued work on different parts of her body. On my last day in LA, the speech therapist came in for one last visit. She placed an amplification device on AJ’s trachea in an attempt to get her to speak. AJ was awake, and following the therapist’s movement with her eyes. I asked the therapist if I could
try and get her to speak.

“Hello. Do you know who I am?” I asked with teats rolling down my face. Barely audible, AJ spoke her first words since the accident: “Yes, you’re Sara.”

Stunned by her responsiveness, the therapist tried to ask her some questions, but AJ fell silent again. She just kept looking at me, as I
continued to look at her. Our eyes locked together.

“I’m leaving, but please tell me my name again before I go.”

In a voice that didn’t sound at all like the energetic, outspoken, vivacious AJ that I knew, she weakly said: “Sara, I love you.”

On the six-hour flight home, AJ’s words resonated in my mind. It took so much effort for her just to speak; each word was so difficult. Over those few days that I had sat by her bedside, I had watched her struggle with every task - holding her head up, or moving a finger. The smallest movement became the ultimate goal. I realized that even from an ICU room, barely able to talk or move, Aunt Joan was still my role model. She was going to live. Thirty thousand feet above the ground, I suddenly had a new insight into the meaning of success: It is not measured by fame or fortune, but by the obstacles we overcome, and breaths we learn to take.

My junior year was spent going back and forth to Los Angeles, while striving to meet the pressures of a chaotic year, a rigorous academic schedule, and extra curricular activities. I was a long way from being the nervous freshman entering an overwhelming school; I was a seventeen year old who understood that it is possible to meet challenges by following AJ’s wordless example: strive to overcome obstacles, believe in yourself, hold your head up high, make each breath count, and never forget to say “I love you” to those who matter most.

P.S. As I write this essay one year later, AJ has moved out of the hospital, back to her house. Using a walker instead of a limo, she is resuming the life that everyone (but us) thought was over.

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