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3 days ago | 
forward.com | PJ Grisar
Larry David never met an arbitrary rule he didn't like - except for those of his own making. This heatwave Election Day, New Yorkers may have him to thank for helping them stay cool.
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4 days ago | 
forward.com | PJ Grisar
A twisted piece of iron tells the story of a man who was once among the most popular Jews in Europe. Zishe Breitbart, born in Łódź to a family of blacksmiths, joined a travelling circus and developed a strongman act. He bent iron with his bare hands, lay on beds of nails, broke chains with his teeth and, years before Charles Atlas, published his personal fitness regimen.
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1 week ago | 
forward.com | PJ Grisar
A forgotten folk ritual, widespread in Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, saw residents assemble on the Shabbat before Passover outside the doors of men afflicted with fungal infections of the scalp. Once there, those in the crowd might hand the men a mock one-way ticket to Egypt, which read, "the journey is free.
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2 weeks ago | 
forward.com | PJ Grisar
In what's being sold as a fully transparent cash grab, Mel Brooks announced today the coming of Spaceballs II, a sequel to his 1987 Star Wars spoof that he only made because his kid liked George Lucas' space operas.
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2 weeks ago | 
forward.com | PJ Grisar
A judo fighter is on the tatami mat representing her country. She's moving up the tournament ranks, bout after bout. Victory is in sight when her coach gets a call. It's the fighter, or judoka's, government on the other line. If she keeps advancing, she risks engaging with a country that her own refuses to recognize. This is the story of Tatami, co-directed by Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv and Iranian-born actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who plays the Iranian coach Maryam.
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2 weeks ago | 
stljewishlight.org | PJ Grisar
In a sense, the laudatory, exculpatory and often adversarial two-part documentary tribute to the late actor Paul Reubens, is a final insult. Not because of its content, but its title. The name Pee-wee as Himself highlights a crucial insecurity and paradox of the performer: That Reubens, for all his Garbo-esque desire for privacy, was jealous of the creation that allowed for his anonymity.
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2 weeks ago | 
forward.com | PJ Grisar
Sometimes a film states its thesis in songAftersun used "Under Pressure" in an ecstatic, cathartic burst to tell us we were witnessing "the last dance" of a father and his daughter. In A Serious Man, the trite Jefferson Airplane hit "Somebody to Love." warned about hope dying and truth coming to lies, underscoring the indignities of Larry Gopnik, whose humdrum Midwestern life unravels in Jobsian fashion.
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2 weeks ago | 
forward.com | PJ Grisar
During the first table read for Taxi, Kaufman sat by himself with a tape recorder. DeVito approached after 10 or 15 minutes, tapped him on the shoulder, shook his hand and introduced himself. "To break the ice I say, 'Hey, Andy, what kind of music are you listening to?'" Kaufman gave him the headset. What he heard was the nonsense language familiar to fans of Latka Gravas.
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3 weeks ago | 
forward.com | PJ Grisar
One of the earliest expressions of totalitarianism in German-Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann's novel The Director unfolds in a classroom. In 1930, Jakob, the son of the Expressionist auteur G.W. Pabst, is acclimating to his new school in Austria, after years of being educated in America. His teachers wear the Nazi party uniform. If a pupil speaks out in class, they're made to copy the school rules, in four longhand pages, writing against a wall in the hallway.
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3 weeks ago | 
flipboard.com | PJ Grisar
1 hour agoWith summer on the wing, one yearns for outdoor dining and perhaps a bit more adventurous spirit when it comes to drinking wines. Here are several Italian wines I like very much and give good bang for the buck. KALTERN KALTERERSEE CLASSICO SUPERIORE 2024 ($14). True, it doesn’t sound very Italian …
