The American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch seeks his material in the obscure, unheralded corners of America, focusing his gaze on the ordinary and the off-beat. Paterson, his latest movie, emerges from that quirky mould. Due to open in Canadian theaters on February 10, this is a quiet and appealing film which takes pleasure in elevating the […]
Robert De Niro is in great form in The Comedian, a black comedy due to open in Canada on February 3. Here he plays Jackie Burke, an aging, foul-mouthed Jewish shock comedian whose best days are far behind him. Burke, whose real name is Jacob (Yaacov) Berkowitz, was once the beloved star of a popular […]
About a month before World War II broke out, the eminent scientist Albert Einstein sent U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt a letter imploring him to develop an atomic weapon before Nazi Germany did. Roosevelt formed a committee to study Einstein’s proposal, and within a few years, the Manhattan Project was established and the United States […]
Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, in his magisterial work, Selling Hitler (Oxford University Press), asks an oft-posed question: “How was it possible for a nation as sophisticated as Germany to regress in the way that it did, for Hitler and the Nazis to enlist an entire people, willingly or otherwise, into a crusade of extermination that would kill […]
The sights, sounds and aromas of Israel’s largest outdoor market, Mahane Yehuda, are there to be savored. One of western Jerusalem’s top tourist attractions, it’s a jumble of shops and stalls, a place of sensory delights for gourmets and gourmands alike. Crowded with shoppers, especially as the Sabbath approaches, it resounds to the shouts of […]
Nearly 12 years ago, in Berlin, I covered the official opening of one of the most important and poignant monuments in Germany, the Holocaust Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Composed of 2,711 rectangular concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field in the center of Germany’s cosmopolitan capital, it pays […]
Expect the unexpected in Maren Ade’s wild comedy, Toni Erdmann, which opens in Canadian theaters on January 27. Unfolding in German, English and Romanian, it’s a somber and uproarious film. Winfried (Peter Simonischek), a semi-retired piano teacher in Germany, sets off a chain of zany events after he visits his daughter, Ines (Sandra Hüller), a […]
The distinguished Canadian painter Lawren Harris (1885-1970) was of the view that the purpose of art is to bring people to a state of ecstasy. I doubt whether he accomplished this lofty objective, but I’m certain his paintings, particularly his stark landscapes, concentrated minds and elicited admiration. This occurred to me as I watched Where […]
A regional court in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has upheld the bizarre and troubling verdict of a lower court. Last week, the regional court ruled that the firebombing of a synagogue in the town of Wuppertal, in the summer of 2014, was an act of criminal arson rather than antisemitic animus. The synagogue, […]
Benjamin Netanyahu could hardly contain himself after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in last November’s U.S. presidential election. In a video congratulating him on his victory, the Israeli prime minister, a catch in his voice, exuded glee, calling Trump “a true friend” of Israel and expressing confidence that he and president-elect would “strengthen the special alliance […]