Combining archival footage with animated sequences, the film uses a groundbreaking technique to tell the story of Jan Karski, a hero of the Polish Underground State
Although few explicitly Jewish-oriented films will be opening during this holiday season, there are several movies worthy of attention. Many of these focus on various forms of female empowerment or movement toward independent action by women.\n
The early arrival of Chanukah coincides with Jewish Book Month, which suggests a convenient shopping list for gift-giving. Here are eight books I am planning to give this year to the book lovers among my family, friends and colleagues. Some of these books already have been reviewed at greater length in these pages over the past year.
In the postwar 1940s, organized crime was rampant in Los Angeles, and the men behind the mob were Jewish, guys like Ben “Bugsy” Siegel and Meyer “Mickey” Cohen, who rubbed elbows with movie stars and reveled in their notoriety. These rather glamorous gangsters are the focus of TNT’s new noir drama, “Mob City,” with the first of six episodes premiering on Dec. 4.
Scattered amid this year’s more traditional holiday fare are some ambitious, profound and illuminating films that should intrigue the discriminating audience.
If you like to laugh and hear happy Chanukah songs, then this is the show for you. It will be a special night of funny people, including Stephanie Blum, Jimmy Brogan and Mark Schiff. Hosted by Kenny Ellis, who has long made it a mission to marry the cantor and the comic within, there will be nods to his top-rated CD, “Hanukkah Swings!” Make the sixth night of Chanukah the best night.
Seven years ago, Benjamin Weissman and Yutaka Sone met on a mountaintop. Rumor had it they shared a taste in skis. “There’s only one person more obsessed with snow than you,” a friend had told Weissman, “and it’s Yutaka.”
Yael Davids was frustrated. After more than a week of trying to set up a time to talk from her home base in Amsterdam, she was finally on Skype, but there was a problem. “I want to see you!” she said, somewhat defeated, as she realized that her video connection just wasn’t going to cooperate, so she’d have to use just words to tell her story.
Almost two years ago, while watching a YouTube video of Mohammed Fairouz’s “Tahrir for Clarinet and Orchestra,” Neal Brostoff, a visiting lecturer in Jewish music history at UCLA, had an idea. The concerto sounded “surprisingly Jewish,” he thought, and not just because the soloist was the eminent klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer.
Oscar Ballot 2013
