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

CELEBRITY NEWS
ARTS&LIFE

TECH CRUNCH

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

STEPHANIE MORENO

NASCAR9919

Claire Weinstein
Rashida Jones