Arts & Entertainment Films In Review The movies put a Jewish face on 2009. Michael Fox Special to the Jewish News Lower-profile American independent films shifted the momentum, led by James Gray's moody and haunting Two Lovers he face of Jewish movies in 2009 (starring Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth was a matronly Bronx housewife Paltrow). Max Mayer's Adam and Ang Lee's dispensing wisdom in 1950s black- Taking Woodstock also constructed their and-white, and a flummoxed Midwest narratives around Jewish protagonists, while physics professor seeking late-'60s guidance an episode in the omnibus film New York, I from one rabbi after another. Love You showcased Natalie Portman as an For far more moviegoers, however, a band unorthodox Orthodox bride. of Nazi-slaughtering GIs and a gorgeous As always, vaguely Jewish echoes could be theater owner in Occupied Paris epitomized discerned in myriad Hollywood films, from Jewish identity (while stretching credibility Sandra Bullock's half-Jewish heroine in All past the breaking point). And in a Woody About Steve to the grumbling neurotic beasts Allen film that also seemed to emanate from in Where the Wild Things Are. In case it had a prior era, an irritable New York pseudo- somehow escaped your attention, the movie intellectual shacked up with an unsophisti- business is very well represented with Jewish cated and much younger "shiksa." writers and directors from assimilated sub- There were plenty of pic- urban backgrounds. tures that invoked the con- Looking abroad, Jewish temporary Jewish experi- themes were at the heart of ence, notably Judd Apatow's several terrific foreign dramas Funny People, the Adam that deserve to be discovered Sandler-Seth Rogen comedy on DVD after hit-and-run the- about a seriously ill movie atrical releases. Two outstand- star and his nudnik under- ing French films that view ling. But none earned the the Holocaust — and French affection or the wrath of the complicity — through a con- hit historical documentary temporary lens, Un Secret and Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg and One Day You'll Understand, the period pieces A Serious were especially noteworthy. Man, Inglourious Basterds The British attitude toward and Whatever Works. A hit historical its Jews isn't exactly a source The year got off to a solid documentary from Detroit of pride, either. At least that's start with the high-profile native Aviva Kempner one way to interpret the off- release of Defiance, easily hand Jewish identification of overshadowing the appropriation of the Peter Sarsgaard's seductive outsider in An dybbuk legend for a widely panned horror Education. flick, The Unborn. But a few weeks later, Israeli cinema didn't match its interna- Milk lost the Best Picture Oscar (to Slumdog tional successes of the banner year of 2008, Millionaire) while the stunning Israeli ani- although the acclaimed Waltz With Bashir mated film Waltz With Bashir was snubbed found plenty of American admirers during in the Foreign Language category. its winter run. Eran Riklis' excellent Lemon T ews Nate Bloom 41111 I Special to the Jewish News Imo I- 111:1 11 Updates Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino's historical fantasy MUM film about Jewish commandos wreak- ing revenge on the Nazis, is now out Eric Roth on DVD. Horror film director Eli Roth, 37, who played one of the commandos, recently appeared on a special Chanukah episode of TMZ.com with TMZ host Harvey Levin, 58. 32 December 31 • 2009 Levin invited Roth to play a guessing game about which celebrities are Jewish and which are not. Neither were great players – but Roth dropped one Harvey Levin interesting detail about Austrian actor Christoph Walz, who played the evil Nazi SS officer in Basterds. I previously reported that Tarantino said in an interview that Waltz's son was a "rabbi in Israel." I said I didn't think that Waltz was Jewish. Roth confirmed this – he said that Waltz "almost con- Tree, a contemporary feminist parable of Israeli-Palestinian relations, eluded most moviegoers and is well worth checking out. Shiva (Seven Days), The Beetle and The Debt (Miramax's remake with Helen Mirren arrives in 2010) made numerous stops on the Jewish film-festival circuit. A scene from the Academy Award- On the horizon, a trio of gritty, power- nominated Waltz with Bashir ful Israeli dramas opens in the next few months. But don't expect the award-win- who died at 95, made his Broadway debut ning Lebanon, Ajami and Zion and His in The Diary of Anne Frank and reprised the Brother to be cuddly crowd-pleasers. role of Van Daan a few years later in the film Typically, the most visible — and colorful version. Late in his career, Jacobi memorably —Jewish characters on American screens, played one of Armin Mueller-Stahl's broth- big and small, are to be found in documenta- ers in Barry Levinson's Avalon. ries. Aviva Kempner's Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg Howard Zieff, a successful director of led the field with outstanding ticket sales humorous commercials who went on to for a historical doc targeted to a niche audi- forge a middling career in Hollywood helm- ence. Anvil! The Story of Anvil won fervent ing comedies such as Private Benjamin and fans with its heart-on-the-sleeve portrait of Hearts of the West, was 81. two middle-aged Canadian rockers, while The French filmmaker Claude Berri (born William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe Claude Berel Langmann) was best known introduced the late, uncompromising in this country for directing Jean de Florette defense lawyer to a new generation. and Manon of the Spring. His touching The impressive list of worthwhile docu- 1967 debut, The Two of Us, was based on mentaries with a Jewish angle also included his childhood experience of living with an Blessed Is the Match: Hannah Senesh, At elderly anti-Semite in the countryside dur- Home In Utopia, Schmatta, Herb & Dorothy, ing the Occupation. Defamation and Four Seasons Lodge, plus the It's a bit early to predict the key Jewish PBS docudrama The People v. Leo Frank figures in film in 2010, but keep an eye out 2009 was a year of loss, with the pass- for the "star" of The Most Dangerous Man In ing of several talented and important film America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon artists. Budd Schulberg, the revered screen- Papers, a documentary that could well be writer (Nuremberg On the Waterfront) and in the running for an Academy Award as it author ( What Makes Sammy Run?), died rolls into theaters in February. at 95. Another great writer, Larry Gelbart Another candidate is the late poet Allen (Tootsie, the TV series M*A*S*H), was 81. Ginsberg, whose censorship battle in the '50s Ron Silver won a Tony in David Mamet's propels the fact-based drama, Howl. Rob Speed-the-Plow on Broadway in 1988 and Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's independent gave a marvelously sensitive performance the film premieres next month at the Sundance next year in Paul Mazursky's first-rate Isaac Film Festival, alongside documentaries Bashevis Singer adaptation Enemies, A Love about Jack Abramoff and Joan Rivers. Story. The splendid actor's numerous Jewish If Jack and Joan turn out to be the defin- roles included Professor Alan Dershowitz in ing faces of Jewish film in 2010, we may Reversal of Fortune and Henry Kissinger in well find ourselves waxing nostalgic for the the TV movie Kissinger and Nixon. bloodthirsty Jewish soldiers of Inglourious The beloved character actor Lou Jacobi, Basterds. 1 verted" when he was married to an game. I've long had a American Jewish woman. He added feeling that Mayer was that Waltz knew an incredible amount at least "part Jewish"; about Judaism and that his son is he confirmed my feel- studying, now, to be a rabbi in Israel. ing in a recent Twitter Levin, by the way, inaccurately post that can be found described Kate Hudson as a convert on his official Web site. to Judaism while playing this game. In his "tweet," Mayer Hudson's mother, Goldie Hawn, is the John Mayer describes himself as daughter of a Jewish mother and a "half Jewish," but adds non-Jewish father. Therefore, Hudson, no more relevant details. However, now who refers to herself as Jewish, is a that the Jewish cat is out of the bag, halachic Jew, even though only one of reporters may ask Mayer follow-up her grandparents was Jewish. questions in the near future. I suspect that by this time next year, You can find the TMZ.com Chanukah Levin will be including famous musi- special at this Web address: cian John Mayer, 32, in his Celeb Jews http://tinyurl.com/ya9uf4d.