JULY 4 • 2024 | 43
J
N
40 YEARS OF BEVERLY
HILLS COP; RASHIDA
JONES & HER ROBOT PAL;
THE OTHER PALTROW'S
MOVIE; WEINSTEIN,
OLYMPICS BOUND!
On July 3, Netflix began
streaming Beverly Hills Cop:
Axel F. It is the fourth film in
the Beverly Hills Cop (BHC)
feature film series.
Here’s the premise: Axel
Foley (Eddie Murphy), a
Detroit police officer, returns
to Beverly Hills after his
daughter Jane's life is threat-
ened. She and Axel team
up with her ex-boyfriend,
BH Police Detective Bobby
Abbott (Joseph Gordon-
Levitt, 43). Helping them
are Axel’s old pals, John
Taggart, now the Beverly
Hills Police chief, and Billy
Rosewood, a police lieu-
tenant.
Taggart (John Ashton)
was a police sergeant, and
Rosewood (Judge Reinhold)
was a police detective in the
original BHC film (1984).
I was surprised to learn
that BHC I is among the
highest grossing film since
1977. Adjusted for inflation,
it made over $700 million
— and, incidentally, a lot of
Jews have benefited from
the series popularity.
The first BHC film
was directed by Martin
Brest, now 72, and the
third BHC film (1987) was
directed by John Landis,
now 73.
The first BHC flick
had three Jewish
co-stars: Stephen
Elliott (1918-2005) as the
chief of the Beverly Hills
P.D.; British Jew Steven
Berkoff, now 86, played
top evil guy Victor Maitland,
and Paul Reiser, now
68. He played Detective
Jeffrey Friedman. (Reiser,
as Friedman, was also
in BHC II, and he is in Axel
F. )
Sunny is a dark com-
edy TV series that pre-
mieres July 10 on Apple
TV+. Rashida Jones, 48,
stars as Suzie Sakamoto,
an American married to a
Japanese scientist who cre-
ates sophisticated robots.
Suzie’s husband and her
son mysteriously vanish in a
plane crash. After the crash,
her husband’s company
gives Suzie one of their
best, new robots (named
“Sunny”). The robot is a sort
of “consolation prize.” Sunny
and Suzie set out to uncover
the truth behind the crash
and disappearances.
Jones is the daughter
of the late actress Peggy
Lipton and African American
music producer Quincy
Jones. She identifies strong-
ly as Jewish. Her partner,
since 2015, is Ezra Koenig,
40. He’s the lead vocal-
ist, guitarist and primary
songwriter of the popular
indie rock band Vampire
Weekend. He’s won two
Grammys. The couple has
one child.
Sometimes it takes years
before a feature film gets
a nationwide release.
Sometimes it never gets a
national release, and you
can only find it in a “corner”
of a streaming service.
June Zero was first
screened for some critics
in 2022, and it was then
reviewed by Variety (a so/so
review) and Deadline (very
good review). It got good
reviews in film festival show-
ings, and a major releasing
company picked up the film
and decided to give it a
national release (July 12). It
opened in Israel in May.
You can easily find
the Deadline and Variety
reviews online, and I sug-
gest you read them because
they lay out, in detail, the
film’s complex plot. Here’s
the short version: Juno
Zero was filmed in Israel
and it is mostly in Hebrew
(with English subtitles). It’s
set around the trial, verdict
and 1962 execution of Adolf
Eichmann, a principal archi-
tect of the Holocaust.
Based on true
accounts, June Zero is
told from the unique per-
spectives of three distinct
figures: Eichmann’s Jewish
Moroccan prison guard; an
Israeli police investigator
who also happens to be
a Holocaust survivor; and
a precocious 13-year-old
Libyan immigrant.
The film was co-writ-
ten and directed by Jake
Paltrow. Paltrow, 48, is the
brother of actress Gwyneth
Paltrow, 51. His late father,
producer/director Bruce
Paltrow, was Jewish and
his mother, actress Blythe
Danner, 81, isn’t. Jake was
raised Jewish, and he had a
bar mitzvah.
I am 99% certain that
Jake’s wife, Taryn Simon,
49, is Jewish. She’s an
acclaimed (Guggenheim
Fellow) artist who combines
photography, text, sculpture
and sometimes performance
to produce thematic works
that have appeared in major
magazines or in galleries or
museums. The couple has
two children.
Unlike his sister, Jake
Paltrow has few credits. He
has written and directed two
other feature films: Good
Night (2007) and Young
Ones (2014). Sadly, both got
so/so reviews at best and
didn’t find an audience.
In my June 20 column,
I said that swimmer Claire
Weinstein, 17, had a good
shot at making the U.S.
Olympic team. I said that
she had already qualified
to swim in seven trial races.
The bad news is that she
didn’t swim as well as she
hoped in some of these
races. But she finished in the
top three in two races (the
200M individual race and
the 800M relay) and she’s
going to the Olympics!
NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST
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Claire Weinstein
Rashida Jones