Ben Palmer’s British romantic comedy, Man Up, which opens in Canada on November 20, hangs on the flimsiest of thematic threads, but holds up quite nicely. The plot, though old as the hills, remains endearing. In a case of mistaken identity, two love-starved and lonely people meet in a busy railway station and sparks fly. […]
Thanks to his diaries, published in two volumes by Indiana University Press in 2007 and 2009, James Grover McDonald has received the recognition he so richly deserves. McDonald (1886-1964), an American who worked tirelessly in the 1930s and 1940s to find a safe haven for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, was the first U.S. ambassador to […]
An intriguing new documentary, The Day Hitler Died, reveals fresh details about Adolf Hitler’s final hours in his besieged Berlin bunker. It will be screened by the Smithsonian Channel on November 16 at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. and again on November 22 at 10 p.m. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 as the […]
If you liked Homeland, you’ll most likely enjoy Fauda. Homeland, now into its fifth season in the United States, was adapted from an Israeli series. Blending post-9/11 national security issues with human interest stories, it was and is immensely popular. Fauda, premiered last February on Israeli television, focuses on Israel’s deadly confrontation with Hamas, the Palestinian […]
The battle of Iwo Jima, one of the fiercest of World War II, raged from February 19 to March 26, 1945, claiming the lives of 28,000 Japanese and American soldiers and leaving a legacy of post-traumatic stress among some of the survivors. But since 1995, Iwo Jima has been the world’s only battlefield where former […]
The Holocaust has been explored and analyzed ad infinitum by historians. Is there really anything new to be learned? The short answer is yes, judging by Timothy Snyder’s masterful Black Earth: The Holocaust As History And Warning (Tim Duggan Books). Snyder, a Yale University professor whose last book was Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, identifies, […]
Giraffes, the beloved icons of the wild, have roamed the earth for about one million years, yet they’re now in danger of disappearing. This is the takeaway from Mark Johnston’s impassioned documentary, Giraffes — The Forgotten Giants, which will be broadcast on CBC TV’s splendid program, The Nature of Things, on Thursday, November 5 at […]
Richard Feynman, the brilliant American physicist, was one of the most captivating communicators in the history of science. That’s how he’s portrayed in Christopher Riley’s The Fantastic Mr, Feyman, an engaging BBC documentary now available on the Netflix streaming network. Feynman was a Nobel Prize recipient who endowed physics with a human face, says one of […]
Israel is a foreign body in the Middle East and the Jewish people have no historic connection or right to the land, Israel’s enemies claim. It’s a false and persistent allegation, used to delegitimize the Jewish state, and should be vigorously challenged. Gloria Greenfield’s one-hour documentary, Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation, […]
Leon Blum High School, named after the first Jewish prime minister of France, sits in a depressed suburb of Paris populated mainly by Muslims. The majority of the students in Anne Gueguen’s history and geography class are bored and unruly. It’s a wonder she’s able to teach them anything. This is the setting of Once […]