52 | NOVEMBER 25 • 2021 

A TOUR OF L.A. IN 1973, 
LARSON’S KOSHER-
STYLE BIO, MORE
Licorice Pizza (opens Nov. 
26) is a coming-of-age film 
directed and written by 
the “quirky” Paul Thomas 
Anderson. Anderson is 
a big fan of the popular 
band “Haim” (three real-life 
Jewish sisters) and he cast 
Alana Haim, 29, in her 
first acting role. The movie 
takes place in the early 
1970s and touches on a 
lot of iconic ’70s moments, 
especially those that took 
place in Los Angeles. 
(Advance reviews are 
good). 
Alana plays Alana Kane, 
a Jewish woman about 
20 who works as a pho-
tographer’s assistant. 
During a photo shoot at 
a high school, she meets 
Gary Valentine, a 16-year-
old (non-Jewish) student. 
Gary is played by Cooper 
Hoffman, who is also mak-
ing his film debut. He is 
the son of the late actor 
Phillip Seymour Hoffman. 
Kane and Valentine 
become very good friends, 
but never quite have a 
physical relationship. Alana 
is well-aware of their age 
difference and Gary’s 
social awkwardness — but 
trumping all that is the sim-
ple fact that he is a good 
guy. 
Alana and Gary have lots 
of ‘adventures’ that involve 
name-actors that Anderson 
got to appear (briefly) in 
his film. Here are a few 
adventures: They meet 
a famous actor, modeled 
on William Holden, who 
is played by Sean Penn, 

61; they start a waterbed 
company, and a custom-
er is Jon Peters, a (real) 
film producer who lived 
with Barbra Streisand in 
the early ’70s (Bradley 
Cooper plays Peters); they 
get involved in the real 
(1973) mayoralty candidacy 
of Joel Wachs, now 87. 
Wachs is played by Benny 
Safdie, 37.
The large support-
ing cast includes Maya 
Rudolph, 49, Skyler 
Gisondo, 25, Destry Allyn 
Spielberg, 24, and Sasha 
Spielberg, 31 (Steven’s 
daughters). Alana’s real-life 
sisters and parents appear 
briefly as, respectively, 
Alana Kane’s sisters and 
parents. 

LARSON’S BIOPIC
The musical film Tick, Tick 
… Boom! had a very limited 
theater opening on Nov. 
12 and began streaming 
on Netflix Nov. 19. I was 
going to wait until I saw it 
on the 19th before writing 
about it. Why? Because 
there is a long-standing 
real problem that’s getting 
worse in recent years. The 
problem is the erasure 
of the Jewish identity of 
biographical figures or 
the erasure of the Jewish 
background of a fictional 
print character when that 
character becomes a TV or 
movie character. I wanted 
to see if Tick Tick … Boom! 
was part of this trend. 
A friend of mine was 
kind enough to tell me on 
Nov. 13 that he was reliably 
informed that Tick, Tick … 
Boom! is another “erasure” 
case. 

 Tick Tick … Boom! is a 
biographical film directed 
by Lin Manuel-Miranda. 
It’s about Jewish com-
poser Jonathan Larson, 
who died suddenly of a 
misdiagnosed heart con-
dition in 1996, age 35. He 
died just before his most 
famous work, the musical 
Rent, was about to open. 
In 1991, he wrote Tick Tick 
… Boom! an autobiograph-
ical “one-man” show. It 
has posthumously been 
re-worked/rewritten a 
number of times in stage 
productions with a much 
larger cast.
A writer for the Jewish 
website Alma differs with 
my friend. In a Nov. 15 arti-
cle, he praised the film for 
having a heavily Jewish 
cast. He also was very 
happy that Larson (as the 
Tick character) makes two 
small Jewish references. 
Frankly, I think that most 
non-Jews wouldn’t even 
notice or “get” these ref-
erences (using the word 
kaddish and correcting, 
under his breath, the way 
that some non-Jews pro-
nounced challah). 
This all said, reviews for 
the film are mostly good. 
Singled out for praise is 
Andrew Garfield, 38, who 
plays the Larson charac-
ter. This is Garfield’s first 
musical and he really can 
sing. The Jewish mem-
bers of the large cast 
include Joel Grey, 89 (as 
Jonathan’s father); Judith 
Light, 72, Noah Robbins, 
31, and Ben Levi Ross, 23. 
Also, composer Stephen 
Sondheim, now 91, a men-
tor of Larson, is a major 

character. 
Larson grew-up in a pret-
ty secular Jewish house-
hold. His paternal grand-
father changed the family 
name from Lazarson to 
Larson. Right after Larson’s 
death, his father, Allan, 
told the NY Times that his 
son lived in a Lower East 
Side tenement as he strug-
gled to write a hit show. 
Allan said, “It was the 
kind of place my father, a 
Russian Jewish immigrant, 
probably lived in when 
he came here in 1900.” 
Allan didn’t use cutesy 
Jewish clues like “challah” 
and “kaddish.” He said 
“Jewish.” Why bio-film writ-
ers don’t use that word is a 
discussion for another day. 
Hawkeye, a Disney+ 
series, began streaming 
Nov. 24. It’s another entry 
in the “Marvel Universe” 
with a complex backstory. 
Suffice it to say, the heroes 
are Clint Barton/AKA 
Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), 
a master archer, and his 
protégé, Kate Bishop, 
(also) AKA Hawkeye. 
Hailee Steinfeld, 24, plays 
Bishop. 

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Alana 
Haim