From Nov ’05 Spotlight: King of the Corner, directed by and starring Peter Riegert, will be available on DVD in late October. This beautiful film, based on a collection of short stories by Gerald Shapiro, played for several weeks last summer at the Landmark’s Renaissance Place Cinema in Highland Park but never made it into the city. Riegert plays Leo Spivak, a middle-aged businessman facing a full set of issues, at home and at work, all of which are ordinary enough, but new and worrisome to him. When his father Sol dies, a visiting Rabbi is brought in to lead the service. But Rabbi Fink’s incredibly ineptness forces Leo to his feet, to speak from the heart about his father. What makes a “good Jew” and what makes a “bad Jew”? It’s suddenly up to Leo to give meaning to Sol’s life, as well as his own.
