Currently Browsing: Jan Lisa Huttner
After considerable effort director Yariv Mozer and editor Yael Perlov have located both the images and the audio that David Perlov (Yael Perlov’s father) captured when he interviewed David Ben-Gurion — Israel’s Founding Father — at his Negev home in 1968. Yasher Ko’ach! (JLH: 5/5) Review by FF2 Editor-in-Chief Jan Lisa Huttner Born in Brazil in […]
Although I respect and admire filmmaker Shimon Dotan’s scrupulously even-handed documentary on the rise of Israel’s Settlement Movement, I must honestly say that no film in recent memory has been more painful to actually watch. I wavered on a rating because what I crave is some way forward… But I realize that it is not Dotan’s job […]
Tzivi reviews Morgenthau and Fire Birds By Jan Lisa Huttner Hello, Readers. Did you miss me? My first post for Tzivi’s Cinema Spotlight was way back in August 2011, and in all the intervening years, month after month, I have always found something worth recommending. But in December 2016, I had nothing. And I had […]
Black Comedy from Israel about a man determined to crash “the world’s most exclusive club” of wealthy Tel Aviv widows who also happen to be Holocaust survivors. Trust me, this is a “laughing thru tears” experience worthy of Sholem Aleichem with finely-drawn characters and an infectious “tickle the ribs” plot. (JLH: 4/5) Review by FF2 […]
In 1866, German-Jewish businessman Lazarus Morgenthau arrived in the USA, in tow. Alas, Lazarus never found fabled streets paved with gold in New York, but his son Henry (ten years old when he arrived), became extremely wealthy and then used that wealth for great humanitarian purposes. Through the generations, his son Henry Morgenthau Junior and his […]
Triggered by the death of his grandmother, Andre Malaev Babel follows the trail left behind in the unfinished writings and diary notes of his late grandfather, the acclaimed Soviet writer, Isaac Babel, who was executed by the government for supposedly criticizing the Communist movement. (EML: 3.5/5) Review by FF2 Associate Eliana M. Levenson Liev Schreiber’s […]
Ewan McGregor’s new adaptation of Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel American Pastoral is a noble failure. The screenplay has a complicated structure which keeps Nathan Zuckerman (Roth’s alter ego) two steps removed from his subject Seymour Levov (aka “Swede”). Thus reduced in the screenplay to a framing device, the Nathan Zuckerman character is unable to provide adequate context for a […]
My favorite Yiddish Expression is “Man Plans; God Laughs.” In this instance, the amazing life of Deborah Esther Lipstadt reached its ironic culmination the week of the first nationally televised debate between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump. The debate was held on the evening of Monday September 26, so when Denial–the film about […]
Basically true story of a German Jew who played a major role in the capture of Adolf Eichmann & the subsequent Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials. A prior German film which also circled around these same topics was, indeed, a “labyrinth of lies.” (JLH: 4.5/5) Review by FF2 Editor-in-Chief Jan Lisa Huttner What does a superhero look like? The main character in […]