Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, released last year and now available on Amazon Prime, is ostensibly about the American ping pong star Marty Reisman. It pays far more attention to his inclinations as a hustler rather than to his talent as an athlete. This will come as no surprise to those who are familiar with his […]
Nazi villains were a staple of early 1940s Hollywood movies, especially after the United States’ entry into World War II following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Above Suspicion, a 122-minute film released by MGM in 1943 and broadcast on the Turner Classic Movie channel recently, was model of this fairly short-lived phenomenon, which included movies […]
Sharon Angelhart’s Hebrew-language movie, Cuz You’re Ugly, is a closely-observed character study of an obese and unattractive young woman who craves intimacy and recognition. It will be screened at the forthcoming Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which started on June 4 and runs until June 14. In the opening moments of this Israeli feature film, Avigail […]
Oliver Kolker’s Spanish-language movie, I Had The Heart, engages all the senses. A drama from Argentina with pronounced musical elements, it takes place in Buenos Aires as a handicapped mechanic rises to stardom as a tango singer. It will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which gets underway on June 4 and runs […]
Grossinger’s, the renowned Borscht Belt resort, is lovingly profiled in a nostalgic documentary by Paula Eiselt. We Met At Grossinger’s will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs from June 4-14. A year-round destination whose clientele was comprised almost entirely of Jews, Grossinger’s was located in the majestic Catskill Mountains, a Jewish […]
One of the most unusual episodes in the annals of the Arab-Israeli conflict took place in the early 1980s when the former queen of Jordan was directly drawn into the mechanics of a prisoner exchange between Israel and the Palestinians. Duki Dor’s intriguing documentary, Royal Swap, lays it out in voluminous detail. It will be […]
Neta Shoshani’s substantive documentary, 1948 — Remember, Remember Not, delves into the tumultuous events that led to the first Arab-Israeli war nearly 80 years ago. Based on personal letters, diaries and file footage, and supplemented by on-camera interviews, it will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs from June 4-14. It is […]
Hans Rosenthal was a beloved superstar on West German television from 1971 to 1986. His popular and lucrative quiz show, Dalli, Dalli, was watched by millions. In 1978, he faced an agonizing dilemma. His boss wanted him to host Dalli, Dalli on November 9. This was no innocuous date. It coincided with the show’s seventh anniversary […]
Mothers pamper their children, but the single mom in Netalie Brown’s Israeli feature film wins first prize in this category. Anat (Dana Ivgy) is so protective of her son, Ido (Ben Sultan), that she threatens to emasculate him. Her obsessive actions unfold in Oxygen, a competently-crafted movie due to be screened at the Toronto Jewish […]
Israel’s occupation of the West Bank often interferes with the mobility of its Palestinian inhabitants, especially when they need to travel to Israel. This restriction is one of the sore points of the nearly three million Palestinians in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War. Shai Carmelli […]