More in ‘movies’

In the matter of the preponderance of existential angst among inanimate objects, few can match Woody, Buzz, and the other characters in the popular Toy Story franchise. Unlike most of cinema’s summer stock—a sticky syrup of expletives and explosions—the series, now in its third installment, revolves around playthings pondering their agency, mortality, and raison d’être. ...

The Oscars air Sunday evening on ABC, hosted by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. Below: the five most Jewish movies in contention (in increasing order of Jewy-ness!), and which categories they’re nominated in. Because how else are you going to know when to cheer, and when to Tweet your grievances?
UPDATE: This list should have included ...

Ajami is one of nine 2009 movies to make the long-list for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Should it be one of the five formally nominated on February 2nd, this will be the ninth year an Israeli film was up for the award, and the third consecutive year (none have won). But Ajami is ...

Opening night for Avatar was also the last night of Hanukkah, but when I was offered a free ticket to the blockbuster action flick, I put on my 3-D glasses and didn’t give the Festival of Lights a second thought. Then, while the big blue subalterns scampered across the screen, the damnedest thing happened: I ...

The news, if you like, technically means that her daughter was Jewish as well. Just as importantly, though, Brittany Murphy was very close to her mother, Sharon, living with her into adulthood. Murphy’s husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack, was a self-identified Jew; the two married in a Jewish ceremony in 2007.
Murphy’s most famous role was ...

While ambling in downtown Manhattan a few months ago, I noticed a commotion a block or two away. Through the gaps between the large white trucks that blocked the street I could see people rushing in and out of a caravan of white trailers, some carrying bulky equipment and others barking into two-way radios. It ...

“I’m not a self-hating Jew,” the radical lawyer William Kunstler says in William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, a documentary opening today. “Anyone who knows me knows I love myself.” Kunstler became famous—or infamous, depending on your point of view—for defending the Chicago Seven, the Catonsville 9 (who burned draft files to protest Vietnam), Meir Kahane’s ...

Hoping to ignite a new wave of immigration, Israel changed its tax laws nearly a year ago, offering potential new arrivals, as well as those who’d left the country but are considering a return, a big break. According to the new rules, newcomers would pay no taxes on any foreign income for 10 years following ...

Some Lebanese critics are dismissing the Israeli film Lebanon, which won the award for best picture at the Venice Film Festival last week (and just got picked up by Sony), says Agence France-Presse. The film, based on director Samuel Maoz’s experience during Israel’s 1982 war with Lebanon, is shot from the perspective of four Israeli ...

A handful of influential Canadian filmmakers are threatening to pull their works from the upcoming Toronto Film Festival if the prestigious festival carries out its plans for a cinematic salute to Tel Aviv. This year’s festival, to open on September 10, is set to include a retrospective of Israeli films about the city, which is ...