Between the Temples

Posted on August 22, 2024 at 6:31 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated Rated R for language and some sexual references
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drunkenness, reference to alcoholism
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 23, 2024

We like to pretend otherwise, but humans are very messy. Indeed, that is the reason we love stories; they give us reassurance that in the midst of all the uncertainty, all the mistakes, all the fear, there is some kind of pattern and some kind of meaning. I often quote writer/director Joseph Mankiewicz (“All About Ever”), who famously said that the difference between movies and life is that movies have to make sense. Well, most of the time. Some movies, instead of creating the illusion that life is less messy, reflect and even relish the mess.

“Between the Temples,” directed and co-written (with C. Mason Wells) by Nathan Silver, is not going to pretend that life or its characters know what they’re doing and we are not going to get the satisfying resolution you might expect. Instead you will see an excellent cast play characters who try to find their way.

Jason Schwartzman plays Ben Gottlieb, a cantor at what appears to be a Conservative synagogue in upstate New York called Temple Sinai. A cantor is the member of the clergy who sings or chants liturgical music, leads the congregation in prayer, and, usually, teaches classes in Jewish practice and theology, often including coaching middle schoolers preparing for bar and bat mitzvahs. He prepares them for the ceremony at age 13, when they are called to read from the Torah for the first time and accept their identity and obligations as Jews.

Singing is central to the job of a cantor, and most of them are thoroughly trained in music. But Ben has been unable to sing since a terrible tragedy over a year before this movie begins. His wife died, and he is now living with his moms, Meira (Caroline Aaron of “Mrs. Maizel”) and Judith (Dolly De Leon of “Triangle of Sadness”). As the film begins, Sinai’s genial rabbi, who likes be called, familiarly, “Rabbi Pete,” (“SNL’s” Robert Smigel) is warmly encouraging, welcoming Ben back to the pulpit. But only a few strangled sounds come out of his mouth and he races out of the sanctuary consumed with shame and fear.

After a brief failed suicide attempt (the truck driver he wanted to run him over ends up giving him a ride), Ben goes to a bar, where he has no idea what to order. The sympathetic bartender offers him a chocolate-y drink called a mudslide. And it is there Ben is befriended by a widowed music teacher named Carla O’Connor (Carol Kane, utterly wonderful).

At first they are too tipsy to realize they know each other, or did know each other. She was Ben’s elementary school music teacher. Her support for his love of singing played a part in his choice of career. When she shows up at Sinai, asking to take bat mitzvah lessons, he is at first reluctant, but her warmth and sincerity lead him to agree and they begin a friendship.

The cinematography has a retro feel, with some oddly chosen and edited near-grotesque close-ups. This adds to a chilliness at the center of the movie that keeps us from engaging fully with the characters, in part because for people who say they take religion seriously, including two members of the clergy, a convert, and a woman who wants to make the commitment to learning to read the Torah for a bat mitzvah, no one seems to pay much attention to the teachings of Judaism. Rabbi Bruce is kind and supportive of Ben but completely swayed by the size of monetary contributions to the temple. We never get a sense that Ben cares about what he is teaching his students or that his commitment to keeping kosher is anything but habit. Most perplexingly, while he makes clear to Carol that a heartfelt speech showing what she has learned is as much a part of a bat mitzvah as reading from the Torah, somehow that completely disappears along with some of the other details of the ceremony and celebration. As far as we can see, Carol only learns the phonetics and melody of the Hebrew and does not even know what she is saying.

In most movies, each detail and character propel the story forward and reinforce the point. But movies like this one amble along in a shaggy fashion, each detail and each excellent performance give us hints of the lives that happen outside the borders of the screen. Some may find that disconcerting but others will appreciate it as a glimpse into relatably zig-zagy lives.

Parents should know that this film has a brief attempted suicide, drinking, drunkenness, and references to alcoholism and a sad offscreen death, and very strong language.

Family discussion: Why couldn’t Ben sing? What do you hope happens to him next?

If you like this, try: “I Heart Huckabee’s,” “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” and “Hey Hey, It’s Esther Blueberger”

Parents Should Not Worry About the Gay Character in “Beauty and the Beast”

Posted on March 13, 2017 at 3:08 pm

This week’s live action remake of “Beauty and the Beast” features a character who is gay, leading to some complaints, some controversy, and one theater refusing to show the film. I applaud Disney for the way they have created the character and think the film is entirely suitable for family viewing.

In what way is the character gay? The character is LeFou, played by Josh Gad (Olaf from “Frozen”). He is a sort of sidekick/henchman to the film’s villain Gaston. Making him gay just means he has something of a gently suggested crush on Gaston, which makes his character more sympathetic and his loyalty more understandable.

At the end of the film, we see him dancing with a female character and then briefly with another male character. That male character seems happy when magically put in a dress — for just a second or two.

That’s it. There is nothing explicit or sexual about the portrayal.

Why is it important to have gay characters in movies for families? Families should see characters who reflect the diversity of the world around us. Children need to see the people they know portrayed in the media. Most kids will not even notice whether LeFou is gay or not, but kids who have gay friends or family members or whose classmates may have gay parents or siblings or who may think they may be gay themselves may find it reassuring to see a gay character appreciated and happy.

What should I say if my child asks about the character or the controversy? “Some boys like girls and some boys like boys.” “Some people are uncomfortable about others being gay because they don’t understand it, but fortunately, stories like this help us see how gay people are cherished members of our community in movies like they are in the world.” “There are other gay characters in stories, too, like Dumbledore.” And “I’m always happy to hear your thoughts and try to answer your questions.”

When We Rise: Coming to ABC February 27, 2017

Posted on February 25, 2017 at 3:55 pm

“When We Rise” was written and created by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black. This mini-series event chronicles the real-life personal and political struggles, setbacks and triumphs of a diverse family of LGBT men and women who helped pioneer one of the last legs of the U.S. Civil Rights movement, from its turbulent infancy in the 20th century to the once unfathomable successes of today. Starring in the mini-series are Guy Pearce (“Memento,” “L.A. Confidential”) as LGBT activist Cleve Jones, Mary-Louise Parker (“Weeds,” “Angels in America”) as women’s rights leader Roma Guy, Rachel Griffiths (“Brothers and Sisters,” “Six Feet Under”) as her wife, social justice activist Diane, Michael K. Williams (“Boardwalk Empire,””The Wire”) as African-American community organizer Ken Jones and Ivory Aquino as transgender-activist Cecilia Chung.

Moonlight

Posted on October 27, 2016 at 5:33 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	NR (some sexuality, drug use, brief violence, and language throughout)
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drugs and drug dealing, alcohol, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Bullies, beating, disturbing images, sad offscreen death
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie, homophobia
Date Released to Theaters:	October 28, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	February 27, 2017
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01LTHZVM4

In the 2017 Oscar winner for Best Picture, a man tells a young boy a story, and, as with many stories adults tell children, especially in movies, it is a story with a purpose. Juan (Mahershala Ali) tells the boy derisively known as “Little” (Alex Hibbert) that when he was young, a woman saw him at night and told him that the silvery moonlight made his dark skin looked blue. She said he should be called Blue from then on. But, he tells Little, he wasn’t. “At some point you gotta decide for yourself who you gonna be. Can’t let nobody make that decision for you.”

In “Moonlight,” a film of a delicate, shimmering beauty that measures up to the title, the boy will struggle to make that decision for himself. Three chapters, as a child, a teenager and a young man, played by three different actors, are labeled with three different names that he is called: the taunting nickname Little, his birth certificate name Chiron (played by Ashton Sanders), and the nickname given to him by someone who had a profound impact on him, Black (played by Trevante Rhodes). Who will he decide to be?

The story begins in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami. Little runs from bullies and hides out in a crack house, where he is discovered by Juan, a kind-hearted drug dealer. Little won’t talk, so Juan takes him home, where his warmhearted significant other, Teresa (singer Janelle Monae) gives little some food and lets him stay the night. The next day, Juan brings Little back to his mother, Paula (Naomie Harris), a nurse who loves Little but leaves him alone much of the time. “He can take care of hisself. He good like that.”

In the second section, he is a skinny teenager all but abandoned by his mother, who has become addicted to drugs, and bullied at school. He still does not talk much, but he has one friend, Kevin (Jharrel Jerome), who calls him Black. Chiron cannot even acknowledge to himself that he wants more from Kevin, but one night on the beach, they share a piercingly sweet moment of tenderness that will indirectly lead to an act of violence.

When we see him again, he is a man, with an armor of muscle and gold teeth grillz, still almost silent, still almost isolated. But a call from Kevin inspires a journey.

The film is based on a play called “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue” by McArthur awardee Tarell Alvin McCraney, who worked with director Barry Jenkins (the lovely romance “Medicine for Melancholy”) on adapting it for the screen. Both McCraney and Jenkins, like Little, had mothers who struggled with addiction, and Jenkins grew up on the Liberty City setting of the film.

The small miracle of the movie is the way it subverts the expectations the audience has based on news reports and many, many other movies. Every character is authentically complex. The graceful, poetic score by composer Nicholas Britell gives the story epic scope and heartbreaking intimacy.

We see Juan’s kindness and wisdom as he holds Little gently in the ocean, teaching him to swim and, more important, giving him an idea of what a man can be. We hear his thoughtful answer when Little asks him what “faggot” means. And yet, when Paula wants drugs, Juan supplies them, even knowing what it will do to Little. The confident, capable Kevin casually mentions time in prison as though it was an inevitable rite of passage. Little/Chiron/Black is physically transformed from chapter to chapter. We are continually challenged and confounded, yet held close to the heart of the story by its romantic lyricism and, most of all, the spacious humanity of its love for its characters.

Parents should know that this film includes very mature material: bullying, brutality, drug dealing and drug abuse, very strong language including homophobic slurs, sexual references and explicit sexual situations.

Family discussion: Why does the main character have a different name in each chapter? What do you think happened to Juan?

If you like this, try: “Medicine for Melancholy”

Coming Out on The Simpsons — Inspired by the Writer’s Son

Posted on April 3, 2016 at 3:58 pm

Tonight’s episode of “The Simpsons” was inspired by writer Rob LaZebnik’s son, who is gay. There have been indications over the years that Waylon Smithers, the loyal assistant to Homer’s boss Mr. Burns, is gay. The New York Post reports that the episode is inspired by the son of the man who wrote it.

Smithers is coming out tonight but fans of the series will not be surprised.

When Waylon Smithers Jr. finally comes out Sunday night after 27 years in the closet on “The Simpsons,” he won’t be the only one celebrating.

Longtime show writer Rob LaZebnik tells The Post he penned the episode in support of his own 21-year-old son, Johnny, who is gay.

“I am a Midwestern guy, so I don’t tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve, but I thought, ‘What better way to tell my son I love him than to write a cartoon about it?’ ” says Rob.