Currently Browsing: October 2011

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

Picture young Woody Allen at his peak in the Oscar-winning Annie Hall.  He’s a manic motor-mouth with mannerisms so Jewish that he’s almost a walking stereotype.  Now meet Gainsbourg, Allen’s French counterpart. In Joann Sfar’s fascinating new BioPic Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, nerdy young “Lucien Ginsberg” (Kacey Mottet-Klein) recreates himself as suave “Serge Gainsbourg” (Eric Elmosnino), […]

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Guide to 47th Annual CIFF

Cinema/Chicago’s 47th annual Chicago International Film Festival opens today (Thurs Oct 6), but alas, it’s not a good year for the Jews. In prior years, Cinema/Chicago has brought us award-winning films from Israel (including Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort, which went on to become one of the year’s five contenders for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, […]

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Man Without a Cell Phone

47th Annual Chicago International Film Festival: In the new Palestinian dramedy Man Without a Cell Phone, individual characters may lack depth, but when director Sameh Zoabi puts them all together, he creates an interesting panorama of Palestinian life. The plot revolves around a man named “Saleh” who worries that a new cell phone tower on the […]

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My Best Enemy

47th Annual Chicago International Film Festival: For Diaspora films with Jewish content, my favorite this year is the German-language “Holocaust comedy” My Best Enemy. Moritz Bleibtreu (so chilling as infamous terrorist “Andreas Baader” in The Baader Meinhoff Complex back in 2008) stars here as “Victor Kaufmann,” the pampered son of a prestigious art dealer. Victor’s […]

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Rabies

47th Annual Chicago International Film Festival: Rabies  is described in the CIFF catalogue as Israel’s “first foray into the slasher genre,” so it’s playing in the CIFF’s late night “After Dark” series. When I asked for the screener, I did so with some reluctance since I’m not typically a fan of this genre, but the […]

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The Slut

47th annual Chicago International Film Festival: The CIFF catalogue describes lead character “Tamar” (played by the film’s writer/director Hagar Ben-Asher) as a woman with “a seemingly insatiable sexual appetite,” but there’s nothing remotely erotic about commercial transactions in which Tamar trades her physical favors for bicycle repairs and other practical conveniences. When a man finally […]

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Hanna Bloch Kohner TIYL

From Tzivi’s Cinema Spotlight: May 27, 1953. Jews all around the world have just celebrated the fifth birthday of the State of Israel on April 20. People everywhere are vigorously debating the imminent execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg set for June 19. And according to the Gallup Polls, American support for Senator Joseph McCarthy […]

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