48 | MARCH 9 • 2023 

ARTS&LIFE
FILM

continued from page 47

Some good sources say 
Curtis has a good shot at 
winning. Others say the 
opposite. She now has some 
momentum, having just 
won the SAG award for 
supporting actress. 
Jamie is the secular 
daughter of the late actors 
Tony Curtis and Janet 
Leigh. Tony was an absent 
father and a hard guy to be 
around, period. But Jamie 
managed to maintain ties 
to him. Together, they 
helped restore synagogues 
in Hungary, where Tony’s 
parents came from. Recently, 
she condemned Kanye West’s 
comments. Her husband 
of 39 years is actor/writer 
Christopher Guest, 74. His 
parents, he says, were “Jewish 
atheists.” 
Judd Hirsch, 87, is frankly, 
a “miracle.” He has the look 
and energy of a man 20 years 
younger. In a recent CBS 
Sunday Morning segment (on 
YouTube), Hirsch detailed 
his early life, which included 
the expectation that he 
would settle for a “safe” job. 
Instead, he ditched a college 
engineering degree program 
with one semester to go and 
plunged into acting. He was 
43 when he got his first hit 
TV role (Taxi, of course) 
and since then he has never 

stopped giving great TV and 
film performances (often 
playing Jews). 
In 1980, he showed he had 
“big screen chops” with his 
performance as a psychiatrist 
in Ordinary People, and he 
snared a best supporting 
Oscar nomination. He now 
holds the record for the 
biggest gap between Oscar 
nominations. (A few sources 
make Hirsch an “Oscar 
favorite,” but most don’t.)
In The Fablemans, Hirsch 
brought a wacko, poignant, 
unexpected energy to the 
film as he played (for 10 
minutes) the family’s only 
adult in showbiz. Hirsch 
and a few scenes of teenage 
Sammy Fabelman making 
mini-movies were high-
energy highlights. The rest of 
The Fabelmans was, frankly, 
kind of a “downer,” and that 
helped make it a box-office 
flop. 
Hirsch has three children 
with his (Jewish) ex-wife. 

DIRECTING, 
SCREENPLAYS AND 
MUSIC
Steven Spielberg is the 
only Jewish nominee in 
the director category (The 
Fabelmans), and Spielberg 
and Tony Kushner, 66, 
(Fabelmans) are the only Jews 

nominated for the original 
screenplay Oscar. 
Eric Warren Singer, 54, 
shares the nomination for 
adapted screenplay with four 
other Top Gun: Maverick 
writers. He was previously 
nominated (2013) for his 
original script for American 
Hustle (with director David 
O. Russell). While running 
down whether he’s Jewish, 
I discovered that Singer’s 
father was born in and 
mostly raised in Detroit. 
Diane Warren, as noted 
above, is up for a best song 
Oscar, and Justin Hurwitz, 
38 (Babylon), is an original 
score nominee. He previously 
won this Oscar for La La 
Land. 

DOCUMENTARIES: 
FEATURE AND SHORT 
(LENGTH)
All that Breathes is about two 
Indian Muslim brothers who 
feed and nurse sick kites (a 
bird of prey). The kites, in 
big numbers, are dying. The 
cause is New Delhi’s terrible 
air pollution. 
Shaunak Sen, the director, 
is nominated, as is producer 
Teddy Leifer, 40, an English 
Jew. Leifer is the founder 
and head of Rise, a hot indie 
film company. His brother, 
Sam, 43, is the head of the 
Rise comedy division. Sam 
was profiled in a U.K. Jewish 
newspaper in 2013. He had 
just made a short comic 
film about a newly married 
Orthodox Jewish couple. It 
was inspired by Sam’s recent 
Jewish wedding. 
All the Beauty and the 
Bloodshed chronicles the 
opioid addiction of famous 
photographer Nan Goldin, 
69, her sobriety and her 
campaign to “bring to 

justice” the Sackler family, 
the owners of Purdue 
Pharma. (Purdue flooded the 
market with an opioid pill). 
The director is Laura Poitras. 
She shares her nomination 
with the producers, which 
include Goldin. 
The Martha Mitchell 
Effect is an original Netflix 
film about how Mitchell, 
the wife of Nixon’s attorney 
general, was “gaslighted” 
about what she knew about 
the Watergate scandal. Beth 
Levison, 52, the producer, 
shares her nomination with 
the film’s director. Levison 
directed the Peabody-award 
documentary Storm Lake 
(2021). 
Stranger at the Gate is 
about a former Marine who 
planned to bomb a small 
Indiana mosque. Meeting 
actual mosque members 
changed his whole worldview. 
Josh Seftel, 54, the 
director, is nominated. He’s 
had an amazing career, with 
a “finger” in many genres 
(film, radio, TV). I can’t 
give him justice in a short 
bio. In this one case, I have 
to refer you to his extensive 
Wikipedia bio. 
How Do You Measure 
a Year? is about a father 
(nominated director Jay 
Rosenblatt, 67) who makes 

IMDB

Judd Hirsch

DICK THOMAS JOHNSON 

Jon Landau

GAGE SKIDMORE

Jamie Lee Curtis

