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

