RUTHFULLY YOURS

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If you like your biopics of legendary celebrities reducing them to formulaic caricatures, here’s one not to miss. Think of Alec Baldwin’s skillful skewer of our president which gets a laugh in a five minute skit on SNL and then imagine it stretched out to a feature length film with familiar side characters who are mostly evil in ways that are now shopworn tropes. Louis B Mayer, head of MGM, here a huge man towering over a petite Judy Garland, lives up to his reputation as a tyrant who forces the teen-aged girl to diet and keep working till all hours of the night His assistant, a nameless version of Annie’s Miss Hannigan, is brutal in snatching away hamburgers from our hungry heroine and adding to the cruel atmosphere of “the studio.” If reality were added to the film, we would meet Judy’s most formidable enemy – her mother – who began feeding her pills at the age of 10 and who saw all three of her daughters as viable meal tickets for her own unsuccessful marriage and life. Louis B offered the multi-talented young Frances Gumm a new name and an opportunity to find a big life her own – something that Shirley Temple most famously achieved despite a childhood spent in similar circumstances.

Renee Zellweger, an actress who displayed great subtlety in her performance in Jerry Maguire, here chooses to go for pursing her lips and concentrating on the exterior resemblances to the famous singer, including successfully mimicking her singing voice. But the poses take over and leave us with very little compassion for the interior life of a woman addicted to alcohol. drugs and men in ways that guarantee disaster. The theme of Judy’s role as mother, frustrated by financial problems and custody battles with the children’s father, can’t preserve our sympathy as we watch her continuing her spiral of self-destructive behavior despite its overwhelming consequences. What we’re left with is a superficial look at a very talented woman who unfortunately didn’t get sufficient help with serious psychological problems, trading that for the love and devotion of audiences throughout the world.

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One of the more interesting aspects of the long-running television series was how skillfully Julian Fellowes managed the transition from 19th century British mores to the 20th. From the introduction of the automobile to the radical concept of a chauffeur marrying into an aristocratic family, almost every episode had some element of gradual change in the lives of upper class gentry and glimpses of how the downstairs servants could begin to see their aspirations materialize, frequently with the support of their benevolent upper class employers. While all this was happening, we had the best-written character of Lady Grantham, played to perfection by Dame Maggie Smith to represent the other side of these “advances” with her clever and witty pronouncements of the old-fashioned way of thinking and doing.

So it was particularly disappointing to see Fellowes’ graceful touch become heavy-handed in the movie version. The film begins with the announcement of an imminent visit from the King and Queen who will stay at Downton overnight. Without giving away the specific twists in the plot, there are hurt feelings among the staff at the planned usurpation of their usual jobs for this occasion and an overly absurd plan is hatched to level the playing field. Devoid of subtlety, it also defies credibility, particularly in several of the staff whom we have come to know so well over a long period of time. Concomitant with this is the introduction of homosexual freedom surfacing in a private club attended by a member of the staff, something that might be believable if it were not taking place during the hoopla of the royal visit. Other sub-plots involve theft, jealousy, adultery, illegitimacy and paternity rights and wrongs. It made me feel as if Fellowes was consulting his checklist of issues and inserting them without regard to logic or the long friendship and understanding most viewers would have with his characters who were very real to us.

To its credit, Downton Abbey is lush, scenic, photogenic and helped by a magnificent score. Fans of the series are legion and will see the movie regardless of its defects but I wish Fellowes had not sullied his almost perfect track record for having written every episode with this clunky finale. Too bad Lady Grantham wasn’t his editor for the screenplay.

DPS Request:
This is special – very special. You can see from the short report below what the story is, but you cannot begin to appreciate how it was told unless you were at this Algemeiner Dinner (I was) or, barring that, watching the video which accompanies the story. There are 3 parts. All are marvelous and need to be watched in order to fully grasp the importance of what was being said. The 10 minutes that Sir Ben Kingsley spoke left me profoundly moved but also awestruck as I watched a truly great actor deliver a finely crafted, important and moving speech in a way which only those who are gifted with the ability to transmit thoughts and feelings through physical presence and spoken words can do. No notes. No pauses. No hesitations. Perfectly crafted. Every gesture and movement clearly designed to enhance his words. The words were the substance, of course, but their delivery was the work of a master craftsman.

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https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/09/27/real-life-schindlers-list-holocaust-survivor-introduces-algemeiner-honoree-sir-ben-kingsley-at-j100-gala/
Real-Life ‘Schindler’s List’ Holocaust Survivor Introduces Algemeiner Honoree Sir Ben Kingsley at ‘J100’ Gala
By Algemeiner Staff – 9/27/19

Daniela Lavender, Sir Ben Kingsley, Halina Silber, Mushka Efune and Dovid Efune at the 6th annual Algemeiner J100 gala in New York City, Sept. 27, 2019. Photo: PMC / Sean Zanni for The Algemeiner.
Famed British actor Sir Ben Kingsley was honored with the prestigious “Warrior for Truth” award on Thursday at the 6th annual Algemeiner ‘J100’ gala in New York City.
Kingsley, whose most prominent Jewish role was as Itzhak Stern in the 1993 Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List,” was introduced by Holocaust survivor Halina Silber — who was No. 16 on the real-life list compiled by German industrialist Oskar Schindler.
In his subsequent remarks, Kingsley remembered, “When I met with the great Steven Spielberg to discuss playing Itzhak Stern, I asked him, ‘What is my narrative function in this role?’ and he said, ‘Conscience. Witness.’ As I was filming, I had in my pocket a photograph of Anne Frank and I would say to this beautiful photograph, ‘Dear girl, I’m doing this for you.’ Everyday on the set I would say that.”
“Well, dear friends, tonight I can assure you that if given another opportunity to tell your story I can say wholeheartedly, ‘I’m doing this for you,’” he added.
Watch the speeches of Silber and Kingsley here:

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/09/27/real-life-schindlers-list-holocaust-survivor-introduces-algemeiner-honoree-sir-ben-kingsley-at-j100-gala/

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/09/hating-cops-and-raping-women-venice-film-festival-daniel-greenfield/

In 1999, Nate Parker was accused of raping a woman. In 2012, his alleged victim, who testified that she had tried to kill herself twice after the assault, took her own life. In 2019, the Venice Film Festival gave a standing ovation and an award to Parker’s movie glamorizing a terrorist attack on a police station.

The Venice Film Festival has always been a sewer where Eurotrash effluent and Hollywood slime back up into Venice’s disgusting canals. Last year’s Venice Film Festival had seen a “Weinstein is Innocent” t-shirt. Polanski, a Venice Film Festival regular wasn’t there, because he feared being extradited to the United States over his alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl. And this time, Weinstein, who had spearheaded a campaign to get Polanski off the hook when he was nearly extradited from Zurich, can no longer count on the support of Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Julian Schnabel, and Darren Aronofsky.

Well, maybe Woody Allen.

There were no “Polanski is Innocent” t-shirts on display when the infamous director skyped in to avoid the long arm of the American law. But, Venice went one better by giving him the Grand Jury Prize.

Like Parker, Polanski also got a standing ovation.

“The history of art is full of artists who committed crimes but we have continued to admire their works of art and the same is true of Polanski,” Alberto Barbera, the festival’s director insisted.

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Count the derogatory characteristics stereotypically applied to Jews and confirmed by this scathing film: pushy, two-faced, greedy, power-hungry, untrustworthy, social-climbing, controlling, puppet-masters of the government – there are more but let’s start with these. Under the guise of being a soft-spoken, gentle schlemiel – the kind of man who knows how to manipulate an invite to a billionaire’s dinner party but shows up wearing a newsboy’s cap that signals why he doesn’t belong – Richard Gere plays Norman, a man who lives by connecting people to other people who can do them important favors. By tailing an Israeli minister as he meanders back to his NY hotel after an important meeting, Norman eventually introduces himself in an elegant men’s shop and promises to get the minister an invitation to the billionaire’s dinner that night. To establish his credibility, he insists on paying for the minister’s exorbitantly expensive shoes – previously tried on and rejected for their extravagance. The greedy minister accepts the offer, and if adjusted for inflation, probably sells out for less than Judas did. Jews have always loved both shekels and beautiful menswear – think of Joseph and that rainbow coat.

There’s a lot more plot concerning a potty-mouthed rabbi who needs to raise money to save his temple (Steve Buscemi); a successful lawyer/nephew who needs a rabbi who will marry him to his Korean love (Michael Sheen); an Israeli prime-minister who needs to get his son accepted to Harvard (Lior Ashkenazi) – a chad gadya of the interlocking needs and wants of Israeli and American Jewry. And there are the un-subtle references to names and types to arouse a nod and smile from viewers who pick up on them – a Korean rabbi at Central Synagogue, the names Alfred Taub and Henry Kavisch. There’s the brief scene showing Norman eating pickled herring from a jar while miles away, the prime-minister is slurping oysters and the soundtrack of glorious cantorial chanting of prayers offers the spirituality that Judaism used to represent. As a movie for home-consumption in Israel, one could make the argument that Norman is an over-extended SNL sketch that skewers its leaders, movers and shakers. As a film sent out for international distribution to an increasingly anti-semitic world, its a misguided attempt at satire that will only re-enforce and inflame existing prejudice.

https://www.aish.com/jw/me/Our-Boys-The-HBO-Series-Uses-a-Jewish-Tragedy-to-Condemn-Israeli-Society.html

It’s a despicable misrepresentation of truth.

Whoever had any part in producing the new HBO 10 part series teasingly titled “Our Boys” should be profoundly ashamed – and whoever is misled into believing that they will have an opportunity to see a fair re-creation of the events in 2014 that began with the kidnapping and murders of three Israeli teenagers leading up to the Gaza war of that horrible summer deserves a fair warning: This is perhaps one of the most outrageous and deceitful distortions of a historically significant moment in the story of Israel’s struggle with barbaric acts of terrorism.

The way the story played out in fact begins with three 16-year-old religious Israelis, Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel, (full disclosure: Naftali was my cousin) deciding to hitchhike at Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion. Picked up by Arabs, they almost immediately realized they were being kidnapped and one of them was able surreptitiously to call the police. The police heard gunshots but didn’t know anymore. The entire country joined in a paroxysm of fear, prayer and hope. The mood of Israel was perhaps the finest example of its potential for unity, total and complete caring and sharing as one national family.