Currently Browsing: January 2012
From Feb ’12 Spotlight: The University of Chicago’s Smart Gallery opens a new multimedia exhibit called Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art down in Hyde Park on Wednesday, Feb. 15, and several Jewish artists will be participating, including photographer Laura Letinsky, “New Realism” founder Daniel Spoerri, and conceptual artist Michael Rakowitz. According to Chief Curator […]
From Feb ’12 Spotlight: Skokie Public Library is currently hosting a national traveling exhibit called “In a Nutshell: The Worlds of Maurice Sendak.” Born in 1928, Sendak was raised in Depression-era Brooklyn. Both of his parents were Polish immigrants and as the SPL website notes: “threads of Jewish family, geography and culture are woven through […]
From Feb ’12 Spotlight: Award-winning Israeli jazz violinist Miri Ben-Ari will headline a fundraiser at Lincoln Hall on Thurs, Feb 9 at 8 p.m. The beneficiaries are the American Friends of the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled, the American Friends of Magen David Adom, and the Anti-Defamation League. I love Miri’s CD The Temple […]
The University of Chicago’s Smart Gallery opens a new multimedia exhibit called Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Artdown in Hyde Park on Wednesday, Feb. 15, and several Jewish artists will be participating, including photographer Laura Letinsky, “New Realism” founder Daniel Spoerri, and conceptual artist Michael Rakowitz. According to Chief Curator Stephanie Smith: “Feast is emblematic […]
3/1/12 Update: I couldn’t bring myself to go… So I’ve decided to wait until the DVD is out, so I can see if the added footage in the Director’s Cut makes the whole thing more comprehensible to me. So far Amazon has not announced a DVD date, making this whole topic one of the most puzzling […]
Posted today by JUF Online: Another year, another set of Oscar nominations. First the good news: Joseph Cedar’s Footnote scored another nomination for Israel in the Best Foreign Language Film (BFLF) category, making this Israel’s fourth nomination in the last five years, and ten total since the founding of the state in 1948. Israel received […]
Missing on this year’s list of Oscar nominations: Albert Brooks! Brooks was named Best Supporting Actor by the Chicago Film Critics Association in December for playing” Bernie Rose” in Drive. Now I actually hated Drive, but Brooks was so surprising—and so good—in this role that he almost makes this otherwise excessively violent mess worth watching. […]
Missing on this year’s list of Oscar nominations: 50/50, which received two Golden Globe nominations (Best Motion Picture—Comedy/Musical and Best Performance by an Actor—Comedy/Musical) along with a huge number of nominations for Will Reiser’s screenplay from critics groups nationwide. Ironically 50/50 was released on DVD on Tuesday, but unfortunately the film won’t receive the Oscar […]
Great news from LA: Joe Cedar received his second Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film (BFLF) category yesterday for Footnote, his 2011 drama staring Lior Ashkenazi. Footnote also received the Best Screenplay award last year at Cannes. Cedar received his first BFLF nomination for Beaufort in 2008, right after it appeared in the #2 position […]
Posting news of Israel’s 10th BFLF nomination today, I realized I had never posted this piece on Israel’s 9th BFLF nomination in 2010 (originally written for JUF Online). So here goes: Astounding news from LA: On Tuesday morning, Israel received its third consecutive nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category (BFLF). This means that for […]