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AND
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FILMS COMING SOON
For showtimes and to purchase tickets, please visit therivieracinema.com
(SBOE3JWFS"WFOVF 'BSNJOHUPO)JMMT
(off of 9 mile, just West of Middlebelt)
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32
February 2 • 2017
jn
arts&life
celebrity jews
NATE BLOOM
COLUMNIST
AT THE MOVIES
Opens Friday, Feb. 3: During his long
career, Robert DeNiro, 73, has credibly
played two Jewish gangsters, a Jewish
film mogul and a Jewish boxing man-
ager. He proved he could do standup
comedy in the acclaimed film King of
Comedy (1982), so I was hoping that
his new film, The Comedian, would
be a little gem. But advance reviews
aren’t good and so I’d relegate this one
to the rental/stream category — do
see it eventually for the mucho Jewish
content.
DeNiro plays Jackie Berkowitz, a
Jewish comic who is trying to get
standup and YouTube audiences to like
him for his new routines, and not just
remember him for an iconic TV charac-
ter he once played. He loses his temper
during a performance and accosts an
audience member and is sentenced
to community service. There he meets
Harmony Schlitz (played by Leslie
Mann, 44, the wife of Judd Apatow
and an Apatow film regular). Harmony
is a free spirit who just assaulted her
ex-husband. Harvey Keitel, 77, who
made his first film with DeNiro in 1973,
plays Harmony’s father, a Jewish real-
estate mogul who bonds with Jackie.
All this sounds good, but reviews say
that the comedy, standup or otherwise,
falls flat or worse, and the relationship
between Harmony and Jackie veers
from a healthy father-daughter type
thing into creepy romantic tension.
(Look for Charles Grodin, 81, and
Gilbert Gottfried, 61, in large sup-
porting roles and for Billy Crystal, 68,
who appears in a cameo as himself.)
NEW ON TV
CBS will have a special premiere of
its new sitcom Superior Donuts on
Thursday, Feb. 2, at 8:30 p.m. (right
after Big Bang Theory) before it moves
to its regular time: Mondays at 9 p.m.
Based on the Tracy Letts’ play of the
same name, it stars Judd Hirsch, 81,
as Arthur, a former ’60s radical who
owns a donut shop in a gentrifying
area of Chicago. Most of the series
is about how Arthur interacts with a
young African American man he hires
as his assistant. There’s also a lot of
comedic and dramatic schtick with the
shop’s varied patrons. Katey Sagal,
63, is a series regular, playing a local
police officer. As an aside, Hirsch must
love to work and be in good health —
he also has recurring roles on Big Bang
and The Goldbergs. I’ve wondered if
Keitel
Hirsch
Kirk
he’s working to build a big nest egg for
his two relatively young children. His
son, London, and daughter, Montana,
are both in their early 20s. He shares
them with his ex-wife, designer Bonni
Sue Chalkin, 59.
Over on Fox, there’s the drama
A.P.B., which premieres on Monday,
Feb. 6, at 9 p.m. The basic plot: Gordon
Reeves (Justin Kirk, 47) is a high-
tech billionaire who witnesses his best
friend’s murder in Chicago. He convinc-
es the mayor and city council to allow
him to take over the police force in a
troubled district where the murder took
place and reboot it as a private police
force. Kirk, whose mother is Jewish,
is probably best known for playing
the Jewish character Andy Botwin on
Weed s, the long-running Showtime
series. •