Joseph Mitchell spent the greater part of his career at the intersection between journalism and creative writing. A reporter on the staff of The New Yorker for 58 years, he brought to his craft a boundless melange of curiosity, energy, observational powers and an understated, elegant prose style. Born and bred in North Carolina, the […]
The current map of the Middle East is an artificial construct, having been conceived and drawn up by European colonial powers during a period of tumult, dissolution and intrigue. As a result of the upheavals unleashed by the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman Empire lost its territorial foothold in the Arab world. This […]
What a waste of talent. This epitaph immediately comes to mind when Amy Winehouse’s name is mentioned. One of the greatest jazz vocalists of our times, she was probably as gifted as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. But being self-destructive, she was bound to fall, as Asif Kapadia’s biopic, Amy, strongly suggests. Dead at 27, […]
She was the original red hot mama. Bold, bawdy and brassy, and invariably attired in feathers, sequins and jewels, Sophie Tucker was a huge star in her day, enjoying a 60-year career in vaudeville, Broadway, radio, film and television. William Gazecki’s documentary, The Outrageous Sophie Tucker, distributed by Menemsha Films, draws a rounded portrait of […]
In Arranged, a feel-good feature film now available on the Netflix streaming service, the barriers that normally prevent social interactions between Jews and Muslims crumble. It would be nice if this amity and fellowship could be conveniently transferred to the Middle East. But since this scenario is unlikely to transpire any time soon, you can […]
Kutsher’s Country Club was the last of the Jewish-style resorts in New York’s Catskills Mountains. With its closing and demolition, an era in American Jewish history ended on a sad and inglorious note. Welcome to Kutsher’s, an informative documentary directed by Caroline Laskow and Ian Rosenberg that has made the rounds of Jewish film festivals, […]
Susan Butler’s wide-ranging, comprehensive account of a pivotal wartime alliance, Roosevelt And Stalin: Portrait of a Partnership (Alfred A. Knopf), bores into U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s political relationship with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. They were certainly an odd couple, hailing from radically different backgrounds and torn by profound ideological differences, but they respected each […]
Maya Forbes’ comedic drama, Infinitely Polar Bear, is biographical. Cameron Stewart (Mark Ruffalo), the main character, is modelled after her father. Compassionate and funny, he’s a manic depressive with a bipolar edge. His African American wife, Maggie (Zoe Saldana), appreciates his finer qualities, but can no longer cope with his debilitating disorder. His two adolescent […]
Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) was a remarkable photographer, often mentioned in the same breadth as the illustrious Henri Cartier Bresson. A lithographer and engraver by trade, he slipped into photojournalism gradually. By the 1950s, he was well established, known in particular for his photographs of Paris. Jean Claude Gautrand’s lavishly-illustrated coffee-table book, Robert Doisneau, published by Taschen […]
Are you in the mood for some eclectic reading material? Sit back in your chair and enjoy the company of these books, published recently. The major league baseball season is in full swing throughout Canada and the United States. As you may know, American Jewish athletes, from Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax to Al Rosen […]