At the Movies

      In the age of roku I haven't watched as many movies in the theater than I used to. Recently I got moviepass which is a movie a day for $9.99 a month, but I actually got the black Friday special so I paid even less. I'm not trying to brag, just make a point . Now I have actually been at the movie theater to see any and every movie I have wanted to see. Its been about a month. Its really mind blowing. Its awesome to see a movie the way it was intended to be viewed-  on a big screen and without interruptions. Its awesome.
       There are people at the movie theater but much fewer. I have been able to see movies the day or week they come out and get a seat. Maybe not the best seat, but a seat. This would never have happened ten years ago. Its surreal. Its not just older people at the movies. There are some young people. I am sure they are more selective about what they go to see. Or maybe they too have moveipass.
        I am certain that the movie business is not happy to be moviepassed but at 15 to 17 dollars for a movie I have become a believer in moviepass . If I see one movie a month its worth it.  I don't know if this deal will last , but for now I am enjoying it . I am feeling very retro going to the movies. Of course now I'm going to the movies more than I ever have.
      Its only been a month and  I know that there really aren't enough movies out to actually see a movie a day for a year, but its fun to know that I could if I wan to....

Two Sides of the Same Coin

     I admit it. I like romantic comedies that are the epitome of chic flicks. A lot of my male friends really like action movies with little plot.  Though many including myself will argue that romantic comedies always have the same plot and the same ending, I will argue that action flicks always leave out the plot and always have the same ending. Women like romantic comedies because they always have the same plot and ending. Men enjoy mindless action flicks because they are plot free. Really romantic comedies and action flicks are two sides of the same coin. Both are genres that are dependable. You watch each  genre and you get the same expected feelings afterward. There is something comforting about that.

Liberal Arts

     I just saw the movie Liberal Arts  on netflix. It was an amazing movie. Its the ultimate chick flick . Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother  fame plays a 35 year old man who meets a 19 year old college sophomore and.. well that is not the whole movie. If that was the whole movie I would have hated it. Its more of a movie about May- December and how you can never go back. You can't be 19 again when you are 35 even if you are dating someone 19, though I know plenty of men will not agree with me. I NEVER  see this being contemplated by a male protagonist in a movie. This may be the only time  it will happen  which is why I am alerting all of my readers of this movie. Liberal Arts is a winner movie. See it now.

Fill The Void

      I recently saw the movie  Israeli movie Fill The Void . Fill The Void is an Israeli movie about a chassidic family in Israel. The oldest daughter dies in childbirth and a shidduch between the the younger sister and her sister's widowed (not sure this is the right term) husband. The actual plot is not the point. The point of the movie is that it shows this family as real people and the thought processes they go through to make their decisions. It is also a film directed by an orthodox Jewish woman. I think that this movie shows religious Jews in a very positive light. Definitely five stars. 

celeste and jesse forever

    I saw the movie Celeste and Jesse Forever today.  CJF  is about a married couple that was going through a divorce yet they could not cut the cord because they were each others best friend. This movie gave deeper meaning to the saying "can't live with you , can't live without you". Without giving away the entire plot I will say that I think that this thought is so profound on so many levels. In some cases some people who are married don't really know how great they have it, but divorce because they think that they could find something out there that is even better than what they have now. I of course am speaking of someone who is in a pretty good situation and most likely did not date too many people before they married. Couples really need to try and work things out if things are mostly good. Once a couple breaks up there is no turning back so if you think things have a shot in h$@l of possibly working out it behooves you to try and fix things. Then again sometimes its time to move on and no matter how much you want something to work out it just isn't going to .
     I realize that writing about marriage issues is outside my expertise as I have never been married, but I really was moved by this movie. It had a lot of good think questions  that can be applied to those who are in relationships even if they are not married. Often things are shades of gray  and not just black and white.

baby mama

i recently saw the comedy baby mama on netflix. baby mama is about a 37 year old single woman who employs a surrogate mother to carry her unborn baby. its a cute movie but unfortunately i'm in the wrong demographic to think of this movie as a mindless comedy. life stinks...

the great dictator

i love old movies , so i recently viewed charlie chaplin's classic the great dictator . my friends, this is the most amazing movie. it was released in 1940 which was during world war 2. it is about 2 men who look identical. one man is adenoid hynkel (a.k.a. adolph hitler) and the other is a jewish barber. chaplin skewers the nazi regime. first off he calls germany  'tomania' and his henchman are named garbage and herring. one of the countries he fights is called 'bacteria'. the jewish barber is often mistaken for hynkel. chaplin is the first in hollywood to actaully feature the ghetto in an american world war 2 film. he is also the first to actually mention that the nazis were trying to murder the jewish people. he is ingenius.this is the first movie that chaplin's voice is heard. chaplin felt that the gravity of the subject manner required his voice.
coincidentally in real life chaplin and hitler were born the same week in april of 1889. they were both born into poverty. they both were interested in the arts including film. as soon as chaplin saw hitler's war films he was fascinated by his acting, as well as disturbed by his politics. chaplin was well loved world over for his films . hitler hated this. he hated the fact that chaplin was so well recieved by the german people. chaplin had a history  of making films with a political message. as soon as hitler was ascending to power chaplin knew he needed to make an impact, thus he created the film the great dictator. many hollywood jews were justifiiably afraid to make a movie so bold. chaplin was not. he knew that hitler liked american movies and that he would see it.  sources believe that hitler did see the movie but do not know what hitler's reaction to it was, beside banning it from germany.  an anti - nazi german who wanted to challenge hitler in a quiet way found a copy of the great dictator and managed to have a viewing for some nazi soldiers. at first they didn't realize the irony , but when they did, one of them started shooting the screen and that was that.
chaplin was so despised by hitler that there even is an anti semitic book called the eternal jew that skewers chaplin for being a jew. chaplin never confirmed or denied being jewish.
it is so striking how two men who had so many similarities , even looked similar, led such different lives. chaplin lived a life fighting for truth , peace and freedom  while hitler , yemach shemo, was pure evil.

greenberg

greenberg the movie . what can i say? ben stiller should win an oscar for this movie. will he? probably not. but he should.

greenberg is about a 40 year old pseudo-jewish man who is let out of a mental hospital after recovering from a nervous breakdown and stays at his married with children brother's house while his brother is on vacation. he is extremely neurotic and narcissistic. his conversations are more like soliloquies and when he does actually listen to what the other person has to say he tries to psychoanalyse them . whenever i hear someone getting psychoanalytical on me i always suspect that they themselves are seeing a shrink(unless of course they themselves are a shrink!). as with roger greenberg many self appointed shrinks are trying to analyse others with the insight their shrinks have given them. this would be ok if everyone shared the same psychosis. most of us dont. in roger greenberg's case not too many people share his psychosis except for the fact that i kept thinking he seemed vaguely familiar. like someone some stupid shadchan has tried to pass off on me.

the other reason greenberg seems oddly familiar is how he is forty but is still stuck in the past. he loves the music of the seventies and eighties because this is the music he grew up with. this would be ok if he was able to appreciate the new stuff as well. i meet so many men like this and not too many women like this. its great to love the music you loved as a kid but doesn't it get boring to just listen to the oldies? i mean really , why not listen to newer music if not just for variety's sake?

greenberg is more of a character driven movie than a plot driven one. it is a movie that has a message . roger greenberg is stuck in the past. he could have been a rock star at twenty-five. now he is a carpenter. he is comfortable doing nothing. he doesn't understand why his forty year old friends have created families , relationships and meaningful careers. he is too warped to ever grow up. what seems cool at twenty wont always be cool. if you don't bother growing up the joke's on you. unfortunately its those around you who will suffer. if one is deluded enough one wont recognise one's own stagnation.

killing kasztner

i saw the documentary killing kasztner last night. it was a bit slow moving for the first half hour or so , but was an interesting subject no less. im not sure that i can recommend the movie after viewing it because it was a bit dry , but the subject itself is riveting.

rudolph kasztner saved nearly 17 thousand hungarian jews including the satmar rebbe during the holocaust. he did it by making deals with nazis . eventually after the shoah he ended up in israel . a reporter named malchiel gruenwald accused him of collaborating with the nazis and berated him for not having saved more jews. eventually kasztner was assassinated. not only were kasztner and his family harassed over this, but the survivors who kasztner saved were harassed as well. since he saved nearly 17 thousand jews why couldn't he have saved more?

it took sixty years for kasztner to be honored by yad vashem for having saved so many jews. though he wasnt able to witness this many of those he had saved were able to see this. they finally felt vindicated.

i dont claim to know all of the facts about this case , even after seeing this film . i will say that its a crime that kasztner was assasinated. the fact that he had saved SO MANY jewish souls should have been heralded. he many not have saved more than 17 thousand, but this number is incredible. i am also quite certain that others who saved jews made deals with nazis in order to save jews and were honored for having saved jews as well they should be. kasztner should be honored as well . those who he had saved had enough survivor's guilt. they shouldnt have been made to feel bad because of the circumstance they were allowed to to continue living.

after viewing this film i want to read more about this topic. though i cant recommend this film with a full heart because it was slow moving, i am glad that i saw it . it opened up a door of knowledge. now all i need to do is find a copy of perfidy by ben hecht and the kasztner train by anna porter and im good to go.

a serious man?

the only thing serious about this movie is its title. it is a coen brothers film about a jewish physics professor named larry gopnick who is black mailed , has marital strife and and various eccentric family members. the jewish week likens larry gopnick to a modern day job. i say they are giving this film too much credit. this is a film that is one note more serious than an adam sandler movie.
the film begins with larry's 12 yr old son in hebrew school. he is close to bar mitzvah. the funniest scenes are those with the hebrew school teachers and children.
the film seems to be depicting reform jews in 1967 who seem to know a heck of alot more about judaism than most reform jews know. granted this is 1967, not 2007, but the characters are constantly referring to g-d as hashem, and ive never met a reform jew who would ever do this let alone actually know that hashem meant g-d. several of the rabbis in the film do not wear kippot in the tradition of reform jews of that era. the rabbis were portrayed in seinfeldian tradition. because they were sooo cartoonish you couldnt be too insulted by how absurd they behaved. i wish i knew more about reform judaism because i think i was missing out on some of the jokes.
as usual when i watch a movie with more authentic jewish references i find myself the only person in the audience laughing. often the hebrew/yiddish terms were not translated. the barmitzvah boy had a friend named he kept calling faigel. turns out the kids last name really was faigel. it took me awhile to figure this out . i kept thinking he was making fun of his friend. this of course was an inside joke for those in the know because it was never explained. i of course was the only one laughing about this one. there were other instances too, but i dont want to give them away if you decide to see the movie.
there is strife between larry and his wife who is carrying on with a homely widower 20 years her senior. one would be offended by the wife's overdone stereotypical jewish wife behavior, but she was so over the top one could not help but just laugh.
this is one of those few movies where actual jewish actors were used to portray jews.
after all of the comical strife that befalls larry gopnick the film has the most perfect ending. i will not tell you what it is, but i loved it.
this movie is most definitely not the the story of a modern day job. its much too over the top .
entertainment weekly said and and i concur that the idea of this movie is to show how jews of the 1960's thought they were so assimilated, but really they weren't. the way they showed this was by the inappropriately frum jargon the characters used by reform jewish characters. i find this especially interesting because more yiddish would have been used if this film were more authentic to the time period. more hebrew was used due to the lack of fluency in yiddish of the current young movie going audience.
a serious man was not the dark film i thought i was going to be. i didnt want to actually like it, it just worked out that way.

more tisha b'av thoughts

some appropriate tisha b'av movies:

1. au revoir les enfants
2. the eichman trial
3. the children of chabon
4. shanghai ghetto

all of these are excellent. if you have any to add to the list, let me know.

the goldbergs

in the early 1950's there was a television show called the goldbergs that was about a jewish family that lived in the bronx. the funny thing is id never heard of it until i happened to be at the jewish museum in manhattan with my sister and an episode was playing in the media room. this was before they created the fancy media room that they have there now. they used to have a bunch of televisions playing different videos and you could just come by and watch. it was great because you were introduced to shows you would have never been exposed to otherwise. when i watched the goldbergs episode that happened to be playing i had no idea what i was watching. once i found out i went back to the jewish museum to watch more. i also watched several episodes at the museum of television and radio.
the episodes that i viewed also included molly goldberg (gertrude berg) hawking sanka coffe which i found hysterically funny.
who knew this gem even existed? after i found it at the jewish museum i asked my parents if they had heard of the goldbergs. well of course they had. the show was a part of jewish american folklore. they had watched the show as children.
there is a documentary about gertrude berg that has recently been released called yoohoo mrs. goldberg. i cant wait to see it. me and the senior citizens. im not sure when i will see it especially since it is the three weeks, but its still good to know about. often jewish documentaries are re-released so if you miss them the first time around you can see them elsewhere . the jcc in manhattan often shows jewish films that have been previously released. i often go there to catch films id really wanted to see but unfortunately had missed. sometimes they can even pop up again at the quad or lincoln plaza .

her sister's keeper

i saw the movie her sister's keeper this afternoon. i was totally expecting a run of the mill disease of the week movie but was pleasantly surprised.
this movie is about a family whose two year old daughter is diagnosed with leukemia so the family has another child who would be a genetic match to their sick daughter in order to be able to save her. when the younger daughter (abigail breslin) is 11 years old she sues her parents to be medically emanicipated . she does not want to have to donate a kidney to her dying sister.
cameron diaz plays the mother. cameron diaz is a such a lightweight actress that she makes the role of the crusading mother of a sick child appear unsympathetic. perhaps this was intended. ill have to read the book by jodi picoult to find out.
jason patric plays the father. he is amazing . i havent seen him in anything in awhile. aside from being smoldering and sexy, he is a great actor.
joan cusack plays the judge . she is playing a career changing part if you ask me. usually joan cusack plays an oddball character. this time she plays as serious as you can get. i almost didnt recognize her.
watching this movie one asks oneself the unaskable. if one chas v'shalom has a sick child and one knows by having another child there might be a genetic match to ones sick child would one have another child? of course this second child will have to undergo many medical tests to help save the first child. many painful procedures. would one still try to have that second child? did one want another child ? or did one just have another to save the first? is this fair to the second child? i dont think there are any clear answers, just alot of think questions.

i love you man

i saw the funniest movie i love you man featuring two of my favorite actors - paul rudd and jason segal.

the premise of the movie is that men tend not to have alot of male friends, especially if they are in relationships with women. paul rudd's character is engaged and is trying to make some same gendered friends. this movie is silly, but it is also REALLY funny.
rashida jones who is the daughter of jewish peggy lipton and black quincey jones plays paul rudd's wife. she is a brunette version of christine taylor of marcia brady fame. its nice to see another movie where the shiksa goddess doesnt get to play the wife of a cute jewish actor.
anyway, paul rudd's character meets many guys before he finds jason segal . their rapport is great as well as completely hetero.
i do admit that alot of why i enjoyed this movie was because i relish gazing into paul rudd's blue eyes , but seriously, if you need a mindless pick-me -up , this is the movie to see.

he's just not that into you

i read the book by greg behrendt when it came out a few years ago, so when i heard there was going to be a movie based on the book i just had to see it. he's just not that into you wont be winning big at the oscars this year , but it was a cute plate of fluff.

the premise of the movie and book is that women try to analyse why guys arent calling them after a date, when really its quite simple . if a guy wants to see you he will find a way to get in touch with you . he will do it as soon as possible and if not - he's just not that into you.

ginnifer goodwin plays that girl. that girl who gives the aloof guys all of the excuses and then is disappointed when he doesnt call her . sometimes its hard to watch how desperate she acts.

jennifer anniston is the girl who lives with a guy for seven years that wont marry her. he doesnt believe in marriage. ben affleck plays this boyfriend. he's superb. he's not the greatest actor, but he was good in this role. this little sub-story could have been a whole movie unto itself.

another plot was with scarlet johannson and a married man. she plays the forever stupid woman who thinks a married man will leave his wife for the other woman.
justin long is stand out as ginnifer goodwin's confidante. he tells her how it is with guys. no holds barred. with all the big names he's a real scene stealer.
ever since i heard the line "he's just not that into you" uttered by post it guy on sex and the city , it has backed up every argument ive had about the people who like to over analyse and say maybe this and maybe that about why a guy hasnt called or hasnt been consistent in a relationship. yes, there can be exceptions, but they are exceptions, not the rule. if a guy wants to get in touch with me he will , if he takes forever it just means he's just not that into me . end of story.

more ny jewish film festival

i havent attended as many films during this years new york jewish film festival as i usually do. not as many films grabbed my attention as in previous years.
today i saw the film in search of the bene israel which is a documentary about the jews in india. although i am quite certain that this years film choices were chosen way before the terror attacks in mumbai, i found this film to be an ode to the jewish community of india.
the premise of the story is that the documentarian's grandmother wants her to visit jewish india and see where her grandmother came from. what makes this film even more interesting is that this jewish grandmother ended up marrying a muslim , left her faith , and after about 60 years she decided to come back to judaism and try to get her granddaughter interested in it as well.
sadia shepard, the filmmaker was not exactly raised jewish . her mother and mothers mother were jewish, but she also has a father and grandfathers who are not jewish- namely muslim and pakistani. it seems she identifies with all her religions. she admitted to attending bene israel high holiday services at a synogogue in the village (nyc, not a village in mumbai).
sadia shepard went to india to teach at ort and subsequently met members of the jewish community in india. in the film she recounted the story of the shipwrecked boats and the seven women and seven men on them and how from these people are the bene israel .
at the beginning of the film a shul in india is shown where they are singing a most beautiful version of adon olam.
many of the bene israel have now moved to israel . i know of many in the united states. there is still a semblence of a community in india, though it is quite small.
sadia shepard did not meet rivka or gavriel holtzberg when she was in india. they immigrated to india after she had left india.
though she is still exploring her jewishness, she brought her mother with her to this new york screening in true jewish fashion.
sadia shepard also wrote a book about the bene israel and of her familal origins called the girl from foreign. i actually have the book , but i have not read it yet.
i think that it is so incredible that jewish people have lived all around the world, and have maintained their identities as jews.
i would definitely recommend this film.

the new york jewish film festival

today was the first day of the 18th annual jewish film festival. i saw the movie emotional arithmetic, starring susan sarandon, gabriel byrne and max von sydow . this movie is about 3 holocaust survivors who spent time in the same transit camp in france who meet years later. its not so much about their time spent at drancey , but about how they move on with their lives. how they deal with the trauma of what they went through when others in their life have no idea what they had experienced.

emotional arithmetic would make a good tv movie. though powerful, it wasnt flashy enough for the big screen. on the small screen this would not be an issue.

the best part of seeing this movie today was susan sarandon's appearance for the q&a after the movie. she looks incredible for her age. it was nice to hear about how the movie was filmed in a month, how the director was a french jew and how the wife of matt cohen, the author of the book the movie is based on , was so pleased the book was turned in to a movie.

emotional arithmetic is available on dvd, but im not sure of how its obtained. apparently susan sarandon's sister who lives in chappaqua , new york bought the dvd and this is how susan sarandon knows its available on dvd.

slumdog millionaire

i recently saw the movie slumdog millionaire. it was amazing. the movie is about a guy who hails from the lowest of the lower class in indian society who is a contestant on india's version of who wants to be a millionaire , and manages to earn the title. this of course induces suspicion among the police as to whether or not said contestant was cheating. or not. the movie delves into jamal's life and illustrates how he knew the answers despite his destitute upbringing.
the child actors in this movie are so authentic its scary.
this movie made me truly appreciate the good fortune of being born in the united states .
slumdog millionaire is one of the few two hour plus movies that was worthy of its length. so many long movies could have been told in less time and would have been more interesting. every minute of slumdog millionaire is important to its story.
im going to stop here before i give away the whole movie...

the reader

tonight i saw the movie the reader , based on the novel by bernard schlink. i had attempted to read the book years ago, but it was rather slow moving. i couldnt get through it. the movie is quite riveting.

i saw the movie today upon the strong recommendation of a co-worker . fortunately i only vaguely knew the storyline before seeing the movie. i knew that it was the story of a much older woman having an affair with a much younger man (or shall i say boy, he was only 15 ) in postwar berlin. kate winslet is the older woman. david kross is the younger man. i got so caught up in their love affair, that the progression of the movie caught me by surprise. which im sure was the point.

i dont want to give anything away, but the movie deals with right and wrong and various levels of right and wrong.

ralph fiennes and lena olin shine as the supporting cast. kate winslet is chilling as a woman with a past. david kross' blue eyes alone speak words.

the movie is excellent.it is also quite disturbing. see it anyway. i dont want to give anything away,because i want you to be as swept away by the story as i was.

beyond kosher....

often those who used to be frum ridicule the mitzvot because they feel they are so confining and archaic only to replace them with equally obscure rituals to replace them with. a campy old movie that demonstrates this issue is the imported bridegroom. the imported bridegroom is a movie about an american jewish family at the turn of the twentieth century. the father wants his daughter to marry a torah scholar who he imports from the old country. of course the daughter has no interest . she would prefer a doctor or a lawyer. eventually this bridegroom metamorphoses and pseudo- Americanizes. instead of remaining a talmudic scholar, he becomes a philosophy scholar.
some trade kashrut for veganism. they feel kashrut is archaic, so they trade it for the more limiting veganism. while vegetarians dont eat meat , and are often in to animal rights, a vegan takes it the extra mile and doesnt eat any animal or being by product. no eggs, dairy or honey (a bee-ing product). i lack the convictions of a vegatarian, but i can understand why they might not want to eat an animal. i dont understand the need to limit animal by products or the concept of insect abuse. vegans dont eat honey because they feel it harms bees??? this is beyond kashrut, and possibly an advertisement for kashrut. kashrut isnt as limiting.
of course , go tell a newly converted vegan this!! perhaps its the thrill of individualism that sparks these food fetishes more than idealism. after all , a major reason for kashrut is to keep us jews separate so our goiyeshe neighbors wont come for dinner that might lead them to marry our jewish daughters.