In anticipation of Easter, a slightly modified version of \”The Passion of the Christ,\” the film by actor and director Mel Gibson, and screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald, has been re-released. The second coming if you will. This re-cut version is widely available in a DVD gift format.
Caroline Baron, the film\’s producer who worked with Hoffman on \”Flawless\” and has known screenwriter Dan Futterman and Miller for a number of years, said that all films present challenges, but that from the outset, she had \”100 percent confidence in Bennett as a director and Phil as an actor.\”
It\’s not surprising that my husband is the first in line at one of the earliest \”Kong\” press screenings. He\’s loved the giant simian since he first watched the 1933 classic film on TV when he was 7.
Were Spielberg another too-left Hollywood type who cavalierly flirted with the tough issues posed by \”Munich\” with no previous record of involvement or concern about Jewish matters, one might begin to fathom the nastiness of the attacks and the gratuitous personal barbs. But he comes to the movie with a distinguished, if not unparalleled, track record of achievement vis a vis the Jewish community, Israel and its image.
Martin Scorsese has famously influenced a whole generation of American filmmakers, from Abel Ferrara and Quentin Tarantino to Rob Weiss and Nick Gomez. But his influence is not limited to filmmakers in this country.
\”Match Point\” marks a notable departure for Woody Allen, and not just because its story is set and was shot in England. Reminiscent in theme of \”Crimes and Misdemeanors,\” though without the humor, there\’s a new tone to this film. Enough so that anybody entering the theater not knowing who made this picture would be hard pressed to guess it was Allen.
\”Everybody loves this guy,\” said Cantor Nathan Lam of Bel Air\’s Reform synagogue, Stephen S. Wise Temple, and dean of the Jewish academy\’s cantorial school. \”He\’s a special human being. He makes a room feel good. If you\’re sick, he\’s the guy you want to come and cheer you up.\”
While some admirers have envisioned Wiesenthal as a Jewish John Wayne or James Bond, the diminutive Kingsley, who has played numerous Jewish characters in his film career, including Meyer Lansky in \”Bugsy\” and Fagin in the current \”Oliver Twist,\” depicts him as a much more modest man, frail after the camps, dedicated to his work, not given to swagger or seduction.
Time-honored Jewish stereotypes and caricatures have fallen on hard times in recent movies.
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