Woody Allen’s 47th film, Cafe Society, which opens in Canada on July 29, is a valentine to the bittersweet nature of love and romance and a barb about Hollywood glamour. A workmanlike movie narrated by Allen and infused with the velvety sounds of pre-war jazz, it’s set in the late 1930s as a nice Jewish […]
Hirokazu Koreeda’s serene and affecting Japanese film, Our Little Sister, which opens in Canada on July 22, focuses on three sisters who yearn for a sense of family and find it, remarkably enough, after meeting their younger step-sister. The Koda sisters, all in their 20s and single, live in their late grandmother’s rustic cottage in a […]
Its awkward title notwithstanding, NSU German History X, a new Netflix original drama, is addictively compelling. Unfolding in German, with English sub-titles, this three-part series deconstructs the rise and fall of the National Socialist Underground, a neo-Nazi terrorist organization in Germany which murdered eight Turkish German citizens and one Greek immigrant between 2000 and 2006. […]
Early on in her revelatory book, Canadian scholar Sarah Phillips Casteel makes an observation about “the strikingly persistent presence of Jewishness in Caribbean writing” and goes on to say that the phenomenon “merits attention.” In Calypso Jews: Jewishness in the Caribbean Literary Imagination (Columbia University Press), Casteel, an associate professor of English at Carleton University, explores this […]
Claiming that Jews shun military service, antisemitic propagandists have associated Jewish men with physical weakness, cowardice and an unwillingness to lay down their lives for their countries. Nothing could be farther from the truth, writes Derek Penslar in the new paperback edition of Jews and the Military: A History (Princeton University Press). It’s true, as […]
The sad saga of Anthony Weiner is broadly rehashed in Weiner, a fly-on-the-wall documentary by Josh Kreigman and Elyse Steinberg scheduled to open in Toronto on July 8. Scrappy, combative and brash, Weiner — a member of the House of Representatives — was a rising star in the Democratic Party until a sex scandal, in […]
Lone wolves, defined as self-radicalized Islamic radicals who have no formal connections to extremist Muslim organizations but who subscribe to radical Islam and lash out violently on behalf of groups like Islamic State, have become the face of jihad in the United States, writes Peter Bergen in his newest book, United States of Jihad (Crown […]
Written and directed by Simon Stone, The Daughter is inspired by The Wild Ducks, a 19th century play written by Henrik Ibsen. In keeping with its mood, this Australian film is almost uniformly dark and grim. Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and scheduled to open in Canadian theaters on July 1, it unfolds in […]
It’s hard to be indifferent to the films of Brian De Palma. De Palma’s movies, from Scarface and The Untouchables to Carrie and The Black Dahlia, are stylish, fast-moving and hard-hitting. Once he has you in his grip, you cannot let go. The Toronto International Film Festival is presenting 25 of his films at a retrospective scheduled […]
Nimisha Mukerji’s intriguing documentary, Tempest Storm, is a profile of a temptress from a bygone era. The voluptuous lady who fits this description is Annie Banks, a “hurricane of seduction” who goes by the name of Tempest Storm. A sultry stripper who’s been dubbed the Queen of Exotic Dancing, she performs at burlesque festivals and […]