February 9, 2012 | 10:21 am

Hollywood and Israel: A love story

Posted by Danielle Berrin

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The two most important Jewish creations of the 20th century were Hollywood and Israel. They are both the products of a primal Jewish impulse: the need to escape. To paraphrase my editor Rob Eshman, Jews created Israel to escape the world, they created Hollywood so the world could escape reality. Historically, the relationship between them has been fraught. After all, the Jews who created Hollywood aimed to escape their Jewish identities, and Hollywood, through its cultural shaping of American ideals, became a mechanism to do so. But the Jewish reality today, more than a century after the creation of Hollywood, is much changed; traumas have receded to memory, Jews possess power and influence. By most accounts, this is the most propitious moment in Jewish history to be a Jew, rivaled only, some say, by the era in which the temple was extant. The relative prosperity of modern Jewish existence has no doubt made it easier for Jews to shed past shame. The Jews of Hollywood are no exception, and though it isn’t a steadfast relationship, it is an evolving one.

Welcome to the age of the Hollywood-Israel love affair:

The image of Hollywood as home to so-called self-hating Jews who have perennially distanced themselves from the Jewish state, whether out of apathy, ambivalence, fear, alternate priorities, shame, political disillusionment or, perhaps, just plain career absorption, has given way to the reality of an industry drawing closer to Israel than ever before.

All this is the result of a few strategic initiatives over the past five or six years that have been aimed at getting prominent entertainment leaders to connect with Israel’s burgeoning industry. Among them is an annual Master Class program organized by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which each year brings Hollywood “masters” like Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment, to Israel to teach aspiring young film and television artists.

Just as pivotal has a been a series of trips by a select group of A-list Hollywood tastemakers that William Morris agent-turned-independent-manager David Lonner has been sponsoring since 2006 — largely on his own dime. Lonner’s guest list has included filmmakers Alexander Payne (“The Descendants”), Davis Guggenheim (“Waiting for Superman”) and Turteltaub (“National Treasure”), as well as producer Darren Star (“Sex and the City,” “Beverly Hills, 90210”) and Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chair Amy Pascal, whom Forbes magazine once called “arguably the most high-powered woman in Hollywood.” 

The timing for all these trips has been both intentional and providential, because they came just as Israel’s creative industry was undergoing an explosion in productivity and quality that many are comparing to the trajectory of Israel’s high-tech industry. Hollywood was able to get in on the ground floor. The start-up nation, as it turns out, is not only adept at technological and medical innovation, as well as energy efficiency, it is also darn good at making movies and television. Since 1964, Israel has garnered 10 Oscar nominations for best foreign language films — four of them in just the past five years.

Even bigger right now is the Israeli television industry, which, since 2007, has seen at least 10 Israeli television “formats” (industry slang for media concepts that can be translated or adapted into different markets internationally) sold into the Hollywood marketplace. Israeli-inspired “The Ex-List” (CBS) and “Traffic Light” (Fox) were short-lived, but many more, including CBS’ “Life Isn’t Everything,” HBO’s “The Naked Truth,” NBC’s “Midnight Sun” and the CW’s “Danny Hollywood” all are in various stages of development. The exchange between the two countries is now so substantial that people often speak of a “pipeline” going back and forth. And the mainstream media, including the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and Nikki Finke’s Deadline.com all have taken note.

“Not since Golda Meir wanted everyone to make and write ‘Exodus’ has there been so much activity,” Ben Silverman, founder and CEO of Electus and the former co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, said in a recent interview.

“I do think there’s a renaissance happening,” said Sherry Lansing, the former studio chief of Paramount Pictures.

Read the rest of the story here.

Read Part 2: Doing (show)business with Israel here.

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February 5, 2012 | 11:10 am

‘The Artist’s’ Jewish connection runs deep

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Don’t be fooled by the ardent Americana on display in the Oscar-nominated homage to silent film, because the only thing not utterly Jewish about “The Artist” is its abstention from dialogue.

The film is in fact the product of a Jewish troika that includes director Michel Hazanavicius, producer Thomas Langmann and movie kingpin Harvey Weinstein.

When I met Hazanavicius for a short interview the other day (he was between lunch and a spot on Piers Morgan), I was surprised to learn that he is the child of both parents and grandparents who survived the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. He seemed at ease discussing it, though his answers were sometimes cursory. 

“In France, it’s really different the way you live. It’s a non-religious country,” he explained. “So the public space is not religious; religion is a private thing.”

Not in Hollywood, I told him.

“Here I know that there’s no problem. I mean, I’m not ashamed of being Jewish, but I am also not proud.”

Before you get excited, dear Jewish readers, consider the context. Because language barrier aside, I understood what he meant. He wasn’t being judgmental about his Judaism—in fact, he emailed afterward, “I’m very proud of being Jewish but I’m very private about it, and I respect all religions”—but he simply wasn’t raised with a substantive Judaism. His inheritance was a Judaism of trauma; his parents spent the formative years of their childhood hiding from the Nazis. The war changed everything. The Holocaust left scars… and silence.

“My grandparents didn’t talk,” Hazanavicius said. “There’s a lot of things that you can’t say. You know some of [my relatives] came back from the concentration camps and they tried to say…”

But something is lost in translation.

Hazanavicius goes on to tell me that his parents and grandparents avoided the camps because they were politically connected. When whispered conversations became ominous, they immediately made plans to flee Paris.  In the countryside, his grandparents had no recourse but to protect their children by disavowing their Judaism. Hazanavicius recalled that one grandfather, a French resistance fighter, “told all his [Jewish] friends: ‘Don’t go register yourself as Jewish people. Don’t do it, just don’t do it. Don’t wear the yellow star.’”

And this is a Jewish story. It is one in a long, unending thread in a tradition of storytelling that had to endure a moment of silence but is again finding its voice. Funny how a silent movie, in the words of the poet Walt Whitman, can “contain multitudes.”

On Friday, Langmann, the film’s producer and the son of French director Claude Berri whom French President Nicolas Sarkozy called, “the most legendary figure of French cinema” told the New York Post’s Page Six that he and Hazanavicius shared an “emotional connection” beyond the film. Berri, who was the son of a Polish Jewish father and Romanian Jewish mother made his first film, “The Two of Us,” a story about a French-Jewish boy sent to the country to hide from the Nazis.

“The Artist” itself, I pointed out to Hazanavicius, is a story about transformation – a central message of the Jewish tradition. I’m only a little embarrassed to add that I actually sat in that wine bar weaving metaphors about “The Artist” and the Exodus story. From slavery to freedom, from degradation to dignity…!

He probably thought I was crazy.

And yet, he told Charlie Rose almost the same thing: “To me the story is more about how a man, a human being, has to adapt himself in a transition period. And, how when your world is changing, you have to face that period.” 

No red carpets in the desert (though Oscar would be thrilled to know there were indeed golden statues).

“I think all the history of the Jewish people is about adaptation,” Hazanavicius told me. “Because for so many so many years, like 2000 years, they were a people that didn’t have any country, so they had to adapt themselves to protect themselves. How do you continue to be what you are but also live with other cultures? That’s the bipolar issue of being Jewish.”

Simon Wiesenthal Center founder Rabbi Marvin Hier told the New York Times’ Michael Cieply he saw in the film a moral tale about human evolution:

In “The Artist” Rabbi Hier detects the story of a man, Jean Dujardin’s George Valentin, who wrestles with a universal question: What do you do when the lights go out?

“You can either cry about it and make demands,” he said. Or, like Valentin, you can retool yourself. “In the end he finds love, he learns to become a dancer,” said the rabbi, who recalled a passage in Psalms about stretching one’s allotted years to 80, 90 or more by showing inner strength.

Transformation. Adaptation. Retooling. Through silence, “The Artist” teaches the power of communicating without words, the power that lies in a look, a gesture, a dance. But it is also a story about change, the need to adjust when the things we most rely on disappear. And the answer it offers is in reinvention and return, to words, to stories, to the universal language of love.

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January 25, 2012 | 7:38 pm

Hollywood allegiance clear in the Berman/Sherman race

Posted by Danielle Berrin

My colleague Jonah Lowenfeld was quick to the draw that is the heated congressional race between Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman, both veteran Jewish Democrats that are staunchly pro-Israel, but because of California redistricting, are now competing for the same seat in the House of Representatives.

In a nutshell, Sherman is the people’s congressman, a town hall meeting confidante who listens well to the needs of his constituents. Berman is the Hollywood darling, a power player in Washington who is well-liked and well-connected. As the influential political blog calbuzz.com put it, though none too kindly, “This is not a clash of two titans,” an anonymous source described as “Hollywood Democrat” is quoted as saying. “It’s a superstar congressman versus a schlemiel.”

Point taken, though Jews know better than anybody not to underestimate a schlemiel—they end up the heroes in plenty of Jewish folktales.

But a voice and a vote in the halls of power is something Hollywood cares about, thus, Hollywood cares about this race. And, as Phil Trounstine notes in his article, the industry’s big fish are making a big play for Berman: Back in November 2011, the three musketeers—Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen—hosted a Berman fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton that added $1.6 million to Berman’s previously $2.3 million campaign. Sherman had been the leading fundraising at the time, with $3.7 million already in the bank. But a dinner with Universal’s Ron Meyer, Paramount’s Brad Grey and Disney’s Bob Iger (whom Deadline.com recently reported collected $31.4 million in compensation last year) can change things.

Trounstine excerpts this pitch from SKG asking their industry brethren to support Berman:

Howard has been a champion of the entertainment industry since he was first elected to Congress in 1983. As a lead member of the Judiciary Committee, he plays a key role in shaping the copyright, trademark and patent laws that are so vital to our industry. And as the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, he has fought to strengthen aid to Israel, continue U.S. foreign assistance on global HIV/AIDS programs, and improve America’s diplomatic standing in the world.

Check out the full calbuzz story (in which Jewish Journal reporters, including yours truly, got a little soapbox) and follow the Berman/Sherman race play-by-plays at Lowenfeld’s Berman/Sherman blog:

It’s tough to improve on the capsule summary of the race between Howard Berman and Brad Sherman in California’s 30th Congressional District offered up by our friend Gene Maddaus at the LA Weekly: A battle “to determine which bald, Jewish Democrat who voted for the Iraq War will continue to represent the San Fernando Valley.”

Which helps explain why the Jewish Journal, the largest landsman weekly in the U.S. outside of New York, has labeled Jonah Lowenfeld’s smart blog on the race “Berman v. Sherman: Two Jews, One District.”

As Danielle Berrin, who writes JJ’s “Hollywood Jew” blog, put it: “It’s a lose-lose for Jews. We have two and now we’re going to have one.”

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January 24, 2012 | 10:08 am

2012 Academy Awards: The Jewish nominees, angles and upsets

Posted by Danielle Berrin

The 84th Annual Academy Award Nominations were announced this morning at 5:30am PST (and that’s just ungodly) so here’s a recap of the noms that matter to Hollywood Jew:

THE NOMINEES:

-Woody Allen leads the pack with three major nominations – Best Director, Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay—for “Midnight in Paris” his delightful homage to the Paris of evolving eras, about a bored Hollywood screenwriter who longs to live in 1920s Paris among its famed literati and artist set. I loved this movie, light, lovely and romantic and my movie companion that day made it even better. Is it “Annie Hall”? No. Nothing will ever be “Annie Hall.” But it’s Paris—and Hemingway!—so what’s not to love?

-Israel gets its 10th Best Foreign Language Film nomination for Joseph Cedar’s “Footnote” about competitive father/son Talmudic scholars in modern Israel. Cedar was last nominated, his first, for “Beaufort” in 2007, setting off a string of three consecutive Oscar nominations for Israel through 2009. When I saw the film at a screening last month, there was a representative from the Israeli Consulate there and her reaction at the end of the film had nothing to do with the film itself, but how it makes Israel look: “It’s the real Israel! There was nothing about the conflict—except for the military checkpoint in one scene.” And except for the fact that a story about Torah scholars doesn’t typically spend a lot of time on the battlefield, so if it’s the real Israel, it was also, it must be said, a limited vantage point. Let’s call it everyday Israel for Israelis. “Footnote” has some stiff competition, however, with Agnieszka Holland’s “In Darkness,” about the rescue of Jewish refugees in Nazi-occupied Poland and Iran’s much talked about “A Separation,” (included, because, when does Iran not have a Jewish angle?) about a married couple who grapple with a seemingly impossible decision about their family’s future also earning nominations in the category.

-Jonah Hill is nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for playing Peter Brandt, the brains behind Billy Beane’s radical rethinking of baseball strategy in “Moneyball.” Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin also receive nominations for Adapted Screenplay. This was one of the first movies I saw this season and I found it surprising. There have been countless baseball movies in Hollywood history, they’re practically a genre, but this was so fresh, inventive and clever I found it riveting. And Pitt and Hill were so magical together I found myself hoping that they’d make another movie together. And lastly, Aaron Sorkin is so friggin brilliant, I have added spending a day inside his brain to my bucket list.

-Harvey Weinstein is having a very good year. Two years ago, everyone was writing him off, saying he was finished and now he’s back on top, referred to by Meryl Street at the Golden Globes as “God.” Now, if that’s true, it’s scary but at least there will be nice movie theatres in heaven. This year Weinstein championed “The Artist” a black and white silent film that was initially an unlikely contender, but which received ten nominations, in almost every major category including: Directing, Michel Hazanavicius; Actor, Jean Dujardin, Supporting Actress, Bérénice Bejo, Original Screenplay and Best Picture. Weinstein can also celebrate two other major nominations, with two of his leading ladies going head to head in the lead actress category: Michelle Williams earned a nod for her uncanny portrayal of Marilyn Monroe, her wiggles and woe in “My Week with Marilyn”  as did Meryl Streep for playing Great Britain’s first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady.”

-“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” produced by Scott Rudin (which I have not yet seen) and based on the bestselling novel by Jonathan Safran Foer (which I read) earned Max von Sydow a supporting actor nomination, as well as a nod for Best Picture. The previews hint at a film full of treacly pandering so I’m guessing this will be last resort must-see-before-the-Oscars film, even though the book was good enough for me.

-Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse,” the most painful movie experience of my year, is nominated for best picture, an honor he shares with longtime producing partner Kathleen Kennedy, who saw the Broadway play less than two years ago and set the movie version into motion. But despite technical perfection and Disney touchy-feelyness it was so insanely boring I left before the end. And thus beings our segue to…

THE UPSETS:

Starting with Spielberg, Steve Pond writes on TheWrap.com: “They shunned Steven Spielberg (no nomination for his animated film ‘The Adventures of Tintin,’ which won the Producers Guild Award three days ago), they loved Steven Spielberg (six nominations for ‘War Horse,’ tied for third among all films), and they shunned Steven Spielberg again (no director nomination).”

Albert Brooks, who was sensationally sadistic in “Drive” and recognized by the Golden Globes and the Independent Spirit Awards, wasted no time taking to Twitter to tweet his snub: “I got ROBBED. I don’t mean the Oscars, I mean literally. My pants and shoes have been stolen.” Then, he added: “And to the Academy: ‘You don’t like me. You really don’t like me.’”

Also absent from recognition was the movie “Shame,” one of the most interesting and discomfiting movies I’ve seen. Steve McQueen’s directing was stylistic and stellar and Michael Fassbender won me over in the opening scene. And not because of his acting.

THE FULL LIST:

Performance by an actor in a leading role

  * Demián Bichir in “A Better Life” (Summit Entertainment)
  * George Clooney in “The Descendants” (Fox Searchlight)
  * Jean Dujardin in “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company)
  * Gary Oldman in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (Focus Features)
  * Brad Pitt in “Moneyball” (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

  * Kenneth Branagh in “My Week with Marilyn” (The Weinstein Company)
  * Jonah Hill in “Moneyball” (Sony Pictures Releasing)
  * Nick Nolte in “Warrior” (Lionsgate)
  * Christopher Plummer in “Beginners” (Focus Features)
  * Max von Sydow in “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

  * Glenn Close in “Albert Nobbs” (Roadside Attractions)
  * Viola Davis in “The Help” (Touchstone)
  * Rooney Mara in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (Sony Pictures Releasing)
  * Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady” (The Weinstein Company)
  * Michelle Williams in “My Week with Marilyn” (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

  * Bérénice Bejo in “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company)
  * Jessica Chastain in “The Help” (Touchstone)
  * Melissa McCarthy in “Bridesmaids” (Universal)
  * Janet McTeer in “Albert Nobbs” (Roadside Attractions)
  * Octavia Spencer in “The Help” (Touchstone)

Best animated feature film of the year

  * “A Cat in Paris” (GKIDS) Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
  * “Chico & Rita” (GKIDS) Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
  * “Kung Fu Panda 2” (DreamWorks Animation, Distributed by Paramount) Jennifer Yuh Nelson
  * “Puss in Boots” (DreamWorks Animation, Distributed by Paramount) Chris Miller
  * “Rango” (Paramount) Gore Verbinski

Achievement in art direction

  * “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company) Production Design: Laurence Bennett, Set Decoration: Robert Gould
  * “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” (Warner Bros.) Production Design: Stuart Craig, Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Production Design: Dante Ferretti, Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
  * “Midnight in Paris” (Sony Pictures Classics) Production Design: Anne Seibel, Set Decoration: Hélène Dubreuil
  * “War Horse” (Touchstone) Production Design: Rick Carter, Set Decoration: Lee Sandales

Achievement in cinematography

  * “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company) Guillaume Schiffman
  * “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Jeff Cronenweth
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Robert Richardson
  * “The Tree of Life” (Fox Searchlight) Emmanuel Lubezki
  * “War Horse” (Touchstone) Janusz Kaminski

Achievement in costume design

  * “Anonymous” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Lisy Christl
  * “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company) Mark Bridges
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Sandy Powell
  * “Jane Eyre” (Focus Features) Michael O’Connor
  * “W.E.” (The Weinstein Company) Arianne Phillips

Achievement in directing

  * “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company) Michel Hazanavicius
  * “The Descendants” (Fox Searchlight) Alexander Payne
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Martin Scorsese
  * “Midnight in Paris” (Sony Pictures Classics) Woody Allen
  * “The Tree of Life” (Fox Searchlight) Terrence Malick

Best documentary feature

  * “Hell and Back Again” (Docurama Films) A Roast Beef Limited Production, Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
  * “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front” (Oscilloscope Laboratories) A Marshall Curry Production, Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
  * “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” An @radical.media Production, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky
  * “Pina” (Sundance Selects) A Neue Road Movies Production, Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel
  * “Undefeated” (The Weinstein Company) A Spitfire Pictures Production, TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas

Best documentary short subject

  * “The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement” A Purposeful Production, Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin
  * “God Is the Bigger Elvis” A Documentress Films Production, Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson
  * “Incident in New Baghdad” A Morninglight Films Production, James Spione
  * “Saving Face” A Milkhaus/Jungefilm Production, Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
  * “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom” A Supply & Demand Integrated Production, Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen

Achievement in film editing

  * “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company) Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius
  * “The Descendants” (Fox Searchlight) Kevin Tent
  * “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Thelma Schoonmaker
  * “Moneyball” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Christopher Tellefsen

Best foreign language film of the year

  * “Bullhead” A Savage Film Production, Belgium
  * “Footnote” (Sony Pictures Classics) A Footnote Limited Partnership Production, Israel
  * “In Darkness” (Sony Pictures Classics) A Studio Filmowe Zebra Production, Poland
  * “Monsieur Lazhar” (Music Box Films) A micro_scope Production, Canada
  * “A Separation” (Sony Pictures Classics) A Dreamlab Films Production, Iran

Achievement in makeup

  * “Albert Nobbs” (Roadside Attractions) Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston and Matthew W. Mungle
  * “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” (Warner Bros.) Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight and Lisa Tomblin
  * “The Iron Lady” (The Weinstein Company) Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

  * “The Adventures of Tintin” (Paramount) John Williams
  * “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company) Ludovic Bource
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Howard Shore
  * “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (Focus Features) Alberto Iglesias
  * “War Horse” (Touchstone) John Williams

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

  * “Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets” (Walt Disney) Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie
  * “Real in Rio” from “Rio” (20th Century Fox) Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown, Lyric by Siedah Garrett

Best motion picture of the year

  * “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company) A La Petite Reine/Studio 37/La Classe Américaine/JD Prod/France3 Cinéma/Jouror Productions/uFilm Production, Thomas Langmann, Producer
  * “The Descendants” (Fox Searchlight) An Ad Hominem Enterprises Production, Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
  * “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” (Warner Bros.) A Warner Bros. Pictures Production, Scott Rudin, Producer
  * “The Help” (Touchstone) A DreamWorks Pictures Production, Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and   Michael Barnathan, Producers
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) A Paramount Pictures and GK Films Production, Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
  * “Midnight in Paris” (Sony Pictures Classics) A Pontchartrain Production, Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
  * “Moneyball” (Sony Pictures Releasing) A Columbia Pictures Production, Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
  * “The Tree of Life” (Fox Searchlight) A River Road Entertainment Production, Nominees to be determined
  * “War Horse” (Touchstone) A DreamWorks Pictures Production, Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

Best animated short film

  * “Dimanche/Sunday” (National Film Board of Canada) A National Film Board of Canada Production, Patrick Doyon
  * “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” A Moonbot Studios LA Production, William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
  * “La Luna” (Walt Disney) A Pixar Animation Studios Production, Enrico Casarosa
  * “A Morning Stroll” (Studio AKA) A Studio AKA Production, Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe
  * “Wild Life” (National Film Board of Canada) A National Film Board of Canada Production, Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

Best live action short film

  * “Pentecost” (Network Ireland Television) An EMU Production, Peter McDonald and Eimear O’Kane
  * “Raju” A Hamburg Media School/Filmwerkstatt Production, Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren
  * “The Shore” An All Ashore Production, Terry George and Oorlagh George
  * “Time Freak” A Team Toad Production, Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey
  * “Tuba Atlantic” (Norsk Filminstitutt) A Norwegian Film School/Den Norske Filmskolen Production, Hallvar Witzø

Achievement in sound editing

  * “Drive” (FilmDistrict) Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis
  * “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Ren Klyce
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty
  * “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (Paramount) Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl
  * “War Horse” (Touchstone) Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom

Achievement in sound mixing

  * “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (Sony Pictures Releasing) David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Bo Persson
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Tom Fleischman and John Midgley
  * “Moneyball” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco and Ed Novick
  * “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (Paramount) Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Peter J. Devlin
  * “War Horse” (Touchstone) Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson and Stuart Wilson

Achievement in visual effects

  * “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” (Warner Bros.) Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning
  * “Real Steel” (Touchstone) Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Swen Gillberg
  * “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (20th Century Fox) Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett
  * “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (Paramount) Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler and John Frazier

Adapted screenplay

  * “The Descendants” (Fox Searchlight) Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
  * “Hugo” (Paramount) Screenplay by John Logan
  * “The Ides of March” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
  * “Moneyball” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin Story by Stan Chervin
  * “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (Focus Features) Screenplay by Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan

Original screenplay

  * “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company) Written by Michel Hazanavicius
  * “Bridesmaids” (Universal) Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
  * “Margin Call” (Roadside Attractions) Written by J.C. Chandor
  * “Midnight in Paris” (Sony Pictures Classics) Written by Woody Allen
  * “A Separation” (Sony Pictures Classics) Written by Asghar Farhadi

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January 20, 2012 | 11:52 am

Gloria Allred: Happy, high-powered, alone

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Gloria Allred, arguably the most high-powered, high-profile female attorney in the country, famous for representing wronged (and sometimes wrongful) women, is the subject of an L.A. Magazine profile this month.

Hers is a complex portrait. She built her legal career as an activist, railing against institutional corruption in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for example (just guess). But of late has become rather eminent for defending the honor of mistresses, maids and porn stars against the often powerful, wealthy men who misuse them. In the 80s, she pressed the L.A. District Attorney so hard he capitulated and endorsed a program that forced derelict dads to pay child support. She also won cases against Holocaust deniers, sexual molesters and defended people with AIDS who had been wrongfully terminated from their jobs. Now she is best known for getting Tiger Woods’s former mistress Rachel Uchitel a reputed $10 million settlement for her silence. And of course, most recently, she could be seen representing Sharon Bialek, the first woman to publicly accuse former Republican presidential nominee candidate Herman Cain of sexual harassment.

All of which is to say that Allred, 70, is rather fearless. Except when it comes to one thing.

According to Ed Leibowitz’s profile:

[Allred] has sacrificed almost the entirety of her private life to her clients, and, less explicitly, to the demands of her ever-expanding public self. She hasn’t taken a vacation since the early ‘80s. Twice divorced, Allred is finished with dating. “I’m not interested in older men or younger men. A relationships is going to take a certain amount of time. Like if you have a plant, you have to water it. You can’t just leave that plant alone and say, ‘I’ll see you in two weeks.’

A millionaire many times over, Allred doesn’t collect fine jewelry or art. Her Mercedes CL500 is ten years old and looks it. The one great luxury she’s allowed herself is a $5.6 million oceanfront house in Malibu. She works there Saturdays and Sundays, and during the week lives in a Pacific Palisades condo she’s had since the 1980s. Allred doesn’t exercise beyond walks on the beach and doesn’t cook. “There are four steps to a meal,” she tells me. “You have to buy it. You have to cook it, eat it, and clean it up. I like as much as possible just to eat it, and maybe buy it.”

Allred claims only four friends - her daughter, Lisa Bloom, who is a CNN legal commentator; her law partners, Goldberg and Maroko, who were classmates of hers at Loyola Law School in the early ‘70s; and Fern Brown Caplan, whom she met on her first day of high school. She says she hasn’t had time to find new ones. “I know how to conserve my energy so I don’t waste it,” she explains. “If I’m going to get involved in personal dramas or worrying about the past, that’s not a good use of my time and energy.”

Later in the article, Leibowitz writes about her two marriages: Her first husband, “a blond, blue-eyed senior” she met as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, got her pregnant at 19, suffered from bipolar disorder and committed suicide not long after that; the second, William Allred, a self-made millionaire who sold airplane parts, encouraged her to finish law school and then once she was a prominent attorney, was indicted for selling counterfeit airplane parts to the U.S. government. Between marriages, she was raped at gunpoint while vacationing in Acapulco.

I can’t remember the last time I read a profile that so thoroughly lays bare how early traumas lead to later psychic motivations. It’s clear why Allred has a soft spot for mistreated women, and why, vacationing isn’t at the top of her bucket list. But there’s a case to made against such a carefully controlled life.

Picasso famously said, “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.” Potential needs space in which creativity can sow and every individual has to set boundaries around what makes them feel safe in the world. But too much safety can be stifling; it is often openness, risk and struggle that leads to growth. Professionally, Allred is at her peak, a Queen. It is, however, striking that someone who is so fearless in her practice and so confident in front of the cameras is terrified of getting close to others. Spiritually, she has a lot in common with those plants she talked about, stiff, solo, desperate for water.

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January 19, 2012 | 5:00 pm

Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon walk into an Israeli deli…

Posted by Danielle Berrin

The first high profile Hollywood mission to Israel took place in 1984, according to my research, and was hosted by renowned William Morris agent Stan Kamen and a young Sherry Lansing, then an up and coming executive at 20th Century Fox. The big headliners on that trip were Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, whom Lansing said were back then “the equivalent of Brad Pitt.” Well, almost anyway. As I was writing about the trip for my upcoming Israel series, I came across this transcript from CNN’s Larry King Live tribute to Jack Lemmon just after he died. Matthau’s son Charlie called in to the show to share one salient memory from his youth:

KING: Charlie Matthau in New York, thanks very much for spending some moments with us. How are we going to remember Jack Lemmon?

C. MATTHAU: Well, I think the way I’m going to remember him is in 1984, the Lemmons and the Matthaus took a trip to Israel, and my father took us out to a deli in Tel Aviv. And Jack ordered fried shrimp and a chocolate frapp. So, 12 years later, when I got to direct them in the “Grass Harp” Jack had an idea for a scene, and he whispered it to me, and I said, that is great, let’s try that.

And my dad looked at me, and he said, what are you listening to him for? He orders fried shrimp and a chocolate frapp in a Jewish deli!

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January 17, 2012 | 12:17 pm

Why Gibson’s Maccabee movie may be awesome after all: A scene from ‘Dirty Jew-Dah’

Posted by Danielle Berrin

I literally cracked up when I read the actor Josh Malina’s mock-Mel Gibson-Maccabee script for the first time (penned exclusively for The Jewish Journal). Then, I read it again and decided it’s clever enough and funny enough to be its own movie. “Scary Maccabee” or something like that. Malina’s one-page script mockumentary “Dirty Jew-Dah” is a very good reason for him to quit acting and write the entire screenplay because I’m dying to read it.

Malina writes:

Gibson, who famously quipped (during a 2006 DUI incident), “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” apparently less-famously followed that with, “and I want to make movies out of all of them.”

Imagine my shock when a friend who works at Warner Bros. secretly e-mailed me the first page of Mel’s screenplay for his film…

Read the full story here.

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January 17, 2012 | 12:09 pm

White (and Jewish) people problems [VIDEO]

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Adam Perlman, a Harvard grad-turned-Hollywood writer has co-created a pretty clever web video with Kiran Deol entitled, “White People Problems.” It’s Woody Allen meets Larry David meets the entitlement generation. Thought I’d post since blogging will be light these next few weeks as I work on my long-time-coming Hollywood/Israel series and… the Oscar issue.

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