Currently Browsing: Films/DVDs
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 […]
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 […]
Directors Sam Blair and Joseph Martin masterfully depict the three year journey of former far-right Hungarian extremist, Csanad Szegedi, as he attempts to reconcile his anti-Semitic past with the discovery that he is not only Jewish, but the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. (EML: 4.5/5) Review by FF2 Associate Eliana M. Levenson Keep Quiet begins […]
Artistry takes priority over substance in Maria Schrader’s biographical film, Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe, which follows the life of Austrian-Jewish author Stefan Zweig during his exile from Europe during World War II. (EML: 3/5) Review by FF2 Associate Eliana M. Levenson The film opens with a long, still shot of a floral arrangement. As the […]
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 […]
Dani Menkin’s spin on the traditional road trip movie, Is That You? delivers a poignant bittersweet quality as a man searches far and wide for his long lost sweetheart. In the vein of An Affair to Remember, Menkin’s film captures vulnerability and hope in a quiet way that makes the audience reflect on their own […]
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 […]