IT’S SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL!

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arts & life

—NY1

Celebrity Jews

Fisher Theatre r Dec. 13–Jan. 8

ticketmaster.com, 800-982-2787 & box office. Info: BroadwayInDetroit.com,
313-872-1000. Groups (20+): Groups@BroadwayInDetroit.com or 313-871-1132.
6:30PM 12/18.

Photo: Joan Marcus

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

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50 November 17 • 2016

AT THE MOVIES
A full kosher deli of Jewish-connected
films open on Nov. 18. The first is Bleed
for This, a bio-pic about real-life middle-
weight boxer Vinny Pazienza (played
by Miles Teller). In 1991, shortly after
winning a title fight, Pazienza was in
a serious car accident. He defied doc-
tors’ predictions and orders by not only
walking again, but getting in the ring
to fight again. Katey Sagal, 62, and Ted
Levine, 59, co-star as Vinny’s mother
and trainer, respectively. The movie is
directed by Ben Younger, 44, who grew-
up Orthodox and made a splash with
his first movie, Boiler Room (2000). His
best-known follow-up film, Prime (2005),
starred Meryl Streep as a Jewish psychia-
trist flustered by her young adult son’s
(Bryan Greenberg, 38) romance with
one of her patients.
Hailee Steinfeld, 19, stars as Nadine
in Edge of Seventeen, a coming-of-age
story that is a drama, with some comedy.
Nadine feels confused and alone when
her best friend starts dating her brother,
but the friendship of a thoughtful boy
helps ease her funk. Kyra Sedgwick, 51,
co-stars as Naomi’s well-meaning but
ineffective mother.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
is based on a J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter)
novel of the same name. It centers on the
magical creatures mentioned in the Potter
series. The plot is pretty complicated and
there are quite a few characters. The story
begins in 1926; Newt Scamander (Eddie
Redmayne), an introverted wizard, has
just completed a global trip finding and
documenting magical creatures. During
a stopover in New York, things go very
wrong and some creatures escape. A
major figure in the mishaps is Jacob, a
non-wizard (Dan Fogler, 40). Other Jews
with big parts include Ezra Miller, 24 (as
Credence Barebone) and Ron Perlman,
66 (as Gnarlack). By the way, two major
film characters, the sisters Tina and
Queenie Goldstein, are hinted at being
Jewish in the novel. Rowling has revealed
they are distantly related to Anthony
Goldstein, a 1990s Harry Potter character
who is the only explicitly Jewish wizard in
the Potter series.
Loving is a dramatization of the story
of Richard and Mildred Loving, a Virginia
couple who married (out of state) in
1958 and then were prosecuted in
Virginia, a few months later, for the crime
of interracial marriage. They were ordi-
nary working-class rural people who just
wanted to be left alone. Their case was
taken up by the ACLU, and the Lovings
were represented by two young Jewish

Younger

Steinfeld

Kroll

lawyers, Bernie Cohen, now 81 (played
by Nick Kroll, 38) and Phil Hirschkop,
now 79. Eventually, the Supreme Court
took the case and their ruling in Loving v.
Virginia (1967) struck down all state laws
barring interracial marriage. Heads-up:
Do watch the great 2012 HBO documen-
tary The Loving Story. Director Nancy
Buirski, 71, deftly utilized a lot of news
film footage shot in the mid-’60s for a
“real-time” look at the couple and their
truly great lawyers. There are archived
and contemporary interviews with the
lawyers. HBO has moved it “first spot” on
its documentary list because of the new
dramatic film.

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