The Top 10 Jewish Movie Characters from Esther Kustanowitz

Posted on January 11, 2009 at 8:00 am

Esther Kustanowitz posted her list of the top 10 Jewish movie characters on Idol Chatter. Some are a bit of a stretch — Obi-Wan Kenobi? Melanie Griffith in “A Stranger Among Us?” Aside from the fact that she is only pretending to be a Jew in that film, some people consider that and her performance as a Jew the same year in “Shining Through” to be, well, a shonda (embarrassment to the community).

I would add to this list: Judd Hirsch as the sympathetic psychiatrist in Ordinary People, Meryl Streep as a sympathetic psychiatrist in Prime and as a Holocaust survivor in Sophie’s Choice and as a high-strung food writer in Heartburn, Barbra Streisand as a sympathetic psychiatrist (is there a pattern here?) in The Prince of Tides and as musical comedy star Fanny Brice in Funny Girl (plus Omar Sharif as Nicky Arnstein), Carol Kane as a turn of the century immigrant in Hester Street, Brendan Fraser as the only Jew in the fancy prep school in School Ties, Robin Williams as a club owner named Goldman — or is it Coleman? — in The Birdcage, George Segal as a Jewish cop (and Eileen Heckert as his mother) in No Way to Treat a Lady, Ben Kingsley as a Holocaust survivor in Schindler’s List, Ben Cross as an Olympic athlete in Chariots of Fire, Jessica Tandy as a Southern aristocrat in Driving Miss Daisy, Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein in All the President’s Men, Jennifer Gray as Baby who will NOT be put in a corner in Dirty Dancing, and Woody Allen in just about anything.

My List of Comfort Movies

Posted on January 10, 2009 at 8:00 am

My gallery about the best movies to watch when you’re in bed with the sniffles or flu has been posted.
The right movies can help you pass the time until you feel better. They can even help you recover faster, too. Author and editor Norman Cousins pioneered “humor therapy” after he found that watching silly movies and television shows did more to ease his pain and cure his ailment than conventional medicine. Laughter can decrease blood pressure and boost your immune system. So a good comfort movie can not only help you get better faster; it is good preventative medicine as well. It is also a nice way to spend a cold and snowy weekend, even if you are perfectly healthy because it will help keep you that way. After all, Proverbs 17:22 tells us that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” And, almost as important, Dr. Netflix does make house calls.

Special Effects: Best and Worst

Posted on January 7, 2009 at 11:12 pm

Den of Geek has made a list of the best movie special effects shots of all time — and the worst.
Special effects go back to the very beginning of film. The first great genius of special effects was George Melies, a stage magician. He was the one who figured out that he could make people appear and disappear by stopping the camera. His film “A Trip to the Moon” is still filled with charm. The rocket ship smashes into the face of the man in the moon. His moon creatures are delightfully acrobatic. The explorers come back to earth by just jumping off!
I visited the German museum of film in Frankfurt and learned that the German word for special effects is “filmtricks.” It has little to do with resources or technology — the special effects in the original 1933 “King Kong” hold up well more than 80 years later, and I think the best special effects of 2008 were in “Iron Man,” where they were almost entirely mechanical and not computer-generated. Just like everything else about the movies, it is the humans who make the difference, not the machines or the money.
Thanks to iorek for the excellent link!

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Top Ten Lists for 2008

Posted on December 23, 2008 at 8:00 am

Top Ten 2008
1. Frost/Nixon
2. Rachel Getting Married
3. Milk
4. Wall?E
5. I’ve Loved You So Long
6. The Visitor
7. Be Kind Rewind
8. Doubt
9. Iron Man
10. Son of Rambow
Slumdog Millionaire, Shine a Light, Man on Wire, IOUSA, The Wrestler, The Fall
Top Ten for Families
1. Wall?E
2. Kung Fu Panda
3. Horton Hears a Who
4. Bolt
5. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
6. Nim’s Island
7. High School Musical 3
8. City of Ember
9. Son of Rambow
10. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

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The Best “Christmas Carols” — from “Bah humbug” to “God bless us everyone!”

Posted on December 21, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is my favorite Christmas story and I love it in just about any of its movie incarnations. “Bah, humbugs” have been muttered by Scrooges played by top-notch dramatic actors like George C. Scott and Albert Finney, former Miss America Vanessa Williams, former Fonzie Henry Winkler, and former Saturday Night Live star Bill Murray. I love them all. But here are my very favorites, the ones I try to watch every year.
5. Mickey’s Christmas Carol Who better to play Scrooge than his namesake Scrooge McDuck? And who better for the part of the unquenchable Bob Cratchit than Mickey Mouse? This compilation DVD includes other Christmas goodies “The Small One” and “Pluto’s Christmas Tree.”
4. The Muppet Christmas Carol has the distinguished actor Michael Caine as Scrooge and the equally distinguished Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit. Special mention of A Sesame Street Christmas Carol as well.
3. Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. The voice talent is outstanding, with Broadway star Jack Cassidy (father of teen idols David and Shaun) as Bob Cratchit and of course Jim Backus as Mr. Magoo, in this version an actor playing the part of Scrooge. The tuneful songs were written by Bob Merrill and Jule Styne, who later went on to write “Funny Girl.” (The legend is that their song “People” was originally written for this movie.)
2. A Christmas Carol This MGM classic features the top stars of the 1930’s. Watch for future “Lassie” star June Lockhart as one of the Cratchit children — her real-life father Gene Lockhart played Bob. (He also appears in another Christmas classic, as the judge in Miracle on 34th Street.)
1. A Christmas Carol This is the all-time best, with the inimitable Alistair Sim as Scrooge. There has never been a more embittered miser or a more jubilent Christmas morning rebirth. When he orders that turkey for the Cratchits and walks into his nephew’s celebration at the end, everything Dickens hoped for from his story is brought to life.