52 | JULY 28 • 2022
ANIMAL SUPER-HEROES, A
BLACK COMEDY, MICHELE
GLEEFUL AND JAMES
CAAN
Opening in theaters on July
29 is The League of Super
Pets, an animated film. Basic
plot: the Justice League
is captured by Lex Luthor
(voiced by Marc Maron, 58).
After this happens, Krypto,
Superman’s dog, forms a
team of five shelter pets who
have been given superpow-
ers. Two members of the
team are voiced by Jewish
actors. Vanessa Bayer, 40,
voices a pig named PB,
who can grow really huge.
Natasha Lyonne, 43, voices
Merton, a turtle who can go
incredibly fast.
Vengeance opens in the-
aters on July 29. It is a black
comedy directed and written
by B.J. Novak, 42. Novak
plays the lead character, a
journalist and podcaster who
travels from New York City to
West Texas to investigate the
death of a girl he was “hook-
ing up” with.
Novak, who attended
Jewish day schools growing
up, started out as a stand-up
comedian. This led to him
writing for TV sitcoms and
acting in small sitcom roles.
In 2005, he was hired as a
writer for the hit series The
Office, which became a big
hit. Novak also had a recur-
ring role as Ryan Howard, an
Office employee.
Sadly, the usually reliable
Hollywood Reporter panned
Vengeance, following its
premiere at a film festival.
Essentially, they said the
humor was thin and the mys-
tery not that well-plotted.
The news that Lea
Michele, the former star of
Glee, is replacing Beanie
Feldstein in the current
Broadway revival of Funny
Girl has got a lot more atten-
tion than I thought it would.
One example: On July 19,
CNN posted online a 2,000-
word article titled “A Timeline
of the Funny Girl Drama —
and how Lea Michele got
there.”
CNN reports that Michele
campaigned for this role for
12 years! First (2009), she
sang a Funny Girl song on
Glee. In 2010, she sang a
Funny Girl song during a
Tonys broadcast. Then, in
the fifth season (2013) of
Glee, Michele’s character
competed for the lead in a
Funny Girl Broadway revival.
This was followed (2014) by
Michele’s announcement
that Ryan Murphy, the cre-
ator of Glee, would produce
a Broadway Funny Girl reviv-
al starring Michele. In 2015,
Murphy pulled the plug on a
revival.
Well, Michele finally got
her wish. But it came with the
media revival of charges first
made in 2020 by an African
American Glee cast member
that Michele was a bully. At
least one other cast member
joined in this criticism. If two
go on the record, there are
probably others who, for the
sake of their careers, held
their tongues.
I wasn’t shocked by this
criticism. I always thought
Michele had “character
issues.” Back in 2019, I wrote:
“Michele, whose father is
Jewish, was raised in her
mother’s Catholic faith.
“That happens, of course.
But what has always
annoyed me about Michele
is that she said she was
‘raised both’ when a writer
for Jewish papers asked
about her faith when Glee
was about to premiere in
2009. Michele obviously
was looking for and got a
feature spot in this writer’s
article. That wouldn’t have
happened if she said she
was a Catholic with a Jewish
dad. However, when Glee
became a hit, Michele was
just fine with telling the world
(2011) that she was raised a
church-going Catholic.”
As I wrote last week, fol-
lowing Barbra Streisand in
Funny Girl is almost impos-
sible. But Michele might
bring in theater crowds for a
time. She is well known, has
a better singing voice than
Feldstein and, to be brutal-
ly honest, showbiz usually
rewards the attractive — and
Michele is more attractive
than Feldstein. However, I
can’t wish her mazel. I can
easily imagine Michele being
“gleeful” when Feldstein got
tepid Funny Girl reviews.
After James Caan died on
July 6, age 82, two regrets
came to my mind. First, over
the years, many said that
he was amazingly funny in
“real life.” Caan’s Godfather
co-star Robert Duvall told
Howard Stern that Caan and
Bill Murray were the funni-
est people he ever worked
with. Caan made a couple
of humorous films, but they
weren’t very good; and I
sense we never really saw
the really funny Caan.
Caan co-starred in two
musical films that, on paper,
should have been hits. But
they were critical and box-of-
fice flops. In Funny Lady
(1975), he played opposite
Streisand as Billy Rose, a
songwriter and producer
who was Fanny Brice’s
third husband. In For the
Boys (1991), he played the
on-stage partner of a singer
(Bette Midler) during WWII.
Streisand, Midler and
Carole King are the three
most popular Jewish female
singers of the last 60 years.
Caan teamed up with the
first two and they flopped.
Not fair.
CELEBRITY NEWS
NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST
ARTS&LIFE
JAKUB MOSUR
B.J. Novak
GAGE SKIDMORE
Lea Michele
CAULFIELDH
James Caan