Second City Tzivi

NOTE: This review was originally published by WomenArts on 6/27/08: “Brick Lane is a beautiful film that could have been even better. Based on a well-regarded novel of the same name by Monica Ali, Sarah Gavron’s film is about a young Bangladeshi woman named ‘Nazneen,’ who’s sent to London as a teenager to marry a […]

NOTE: This reivew was originally published in the World Jewish Digest on 10/01/04: “Is there a more important question facing the worldwide Jewish community right now that the future of the settlements? As Leon Wieseltier, the Literary Editor of THE NEW REPUBLIC said in his recent editorial ‘Extirpation,’ ‘the settlements are not the sole obstacle […]

NOTE: This review was originally posted on Films for Two in 10/06: “The big surprise [of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival]was DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT by newcomer Julia Loktev, which received the FIPRESCI Prize in the ‘New Directors’ competition. This intensely-compelling film follows a suicide bomber for 48 hours as she prepares to detonate […]

NOTE: This review was originally published in The JUF News on 10/07: “My favorite feature film this year [at the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema] is Dear Mr. Waldman, written and directed by Hanan Peled. (This is Peled’s directorial debut; he already is well known in Israel as a screenwriter.) He’s clearly telling a semi-autobiographical story […]

NOTE: This review was originally published by WomenArts on 8/21/08: ” Something wonderful has happened to Philip Roth’s career in the past decade, and I don’t just mean the fact that he’s continuing to publish novels that are both critically acclaimed and financially successful well into his senior years. As a film critic (a film critic […]

NOTE: This review was originally posted on Films for Two on 10/20/06 as my Top Pick of the 2006 Chicago International Film Festival: “Ariel Perelman (Daniel Hander) refers to his father Bernardo (Arturo Goetz) as a ‘Zelig.’ A master-schmoozer, Bernardo has befriended every client, clerk, & legal secretary in Buenos Aires. They tell him their secrets […]

NOTE: This review was originally published by the JUF News on 8/1/06: “Where were we exactly one year ago? Glued to our television screens watching the Gaza disengagement. Filmmaker Yoav Shamir captures the pain and the passion, the complexity and the conviction of that event in his masterful new documentary FIVE DAYS. A self-described ‘peacenik’ with […]

NOTE: This reivew was originally published in JUF News on 07/15: Here’s a dilemma: seeing as many Holocaust films as I’ve seen in my role as a Jewish film critic, I’ve become pretty jaded. I worry when Holocaust stories are used to generate cheap sentiment, and whenever that happens, I’m infuriated. So I’m probably harder […]

NOTE: This review was originally published in The World Jewish Digest on 8/04: “Zach Braff is the star of GARDEN STATE, a wonderful new film opening wide on August 6th. Zach Braff? The guy from the sitcom SCRUBS? That’s him all right. It turns out the goofy actor is a hugely talented filmmaker who also […]

Note: this review was originally published in the The World Jewish Digest on 6/1/04: “On June 19, 1953, a 36 year old Jewish woman with two small children was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Fifty-one years later, her granddaughter’s new documentary film HEIR TO AN EXECUTION is about to broadcast nationwide […]