RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.thefp.com/p/house-of-david-christians-jews

House of David is a biblical drama from brothers Andy and Jon Erwin, a duo of Christian filmmakers from Alabama. It tells the biblical story of King David, author of the book of Psalms, who was a shepherd, musician, and poet before he came to the throne. And it’s freaking phenomenal.

There’s much for Jewish audiences to love. Set in Israel in 1000 BC, the series brings the biblical story to life with compelling characters of the sort the Bible excels at; the show is respectful of the source material while also taking some subtle liberties (Agag, king of the Amalekites—the prototype in Jewish tradition for hatred of the Jewish people—is portrayed as a cannibal, for example). It has a healthy number of Israeli actors thrown into the mix, and the on-screen text identifying settings in the show appears first in Hebrew before in English. And when David sings, he sings in Hebrew, in verses culled from Song of Songs or the Psalms.

For those of us steeped in biblical texts, it’s a joy to see our scriptural world brought to life so artfully.

But the show’s most important contribution is in exposing liberal American Jews to the way so many of our Christian neighbors see us—not as an oppressed victim caste who killed Christ and should be loathed for it, but rather as an ancient, noble tribe of warrior poets and kings favored by the blessing of the God they serve.

American Jews often accept a widespread misconception that the attachment so many evangelical Christians have to Israel, and to their American Jewish neighbors, is the result of a longing for the Second Coming. In this reading, the Jews are mere instruments whose return to the land of Israel will result in their mass conversion (or mass expiration), and bring about the messianic redemption of the world. Many Jews feel offended by this apocalyptic narrative, but it’s far removed from how Jews are understood by American Christians, one of the first populations in history to organize their religion around the protection of Jews, rather than around our persecution. Though the Ku Klux Klan demonized both Catholics and Jews, there have been times in American history when it was harder to be a Catholic, a Mormon, or a Quaker than it was to be a Jew.

https://www.thewrap.com/what-the-red-hand-pin-means-for-jews/

At last year’s Oscars ceremony, a number of celebrities, including Billie Eilish, Ramy Youssef and Mark Ruffalo, wore the red-hand pin provided by an organization called Artists4Ceasefire. 

Artists4Ceasefire is again calling upon Hollywood luminaries to wear their pin at this Sunday’s Oscars.

Artists4Ceasefire describes itself as calling for “an immediate and permanent ceasefire, full hostage release, and delivery of lifesaving aid in Gaza” and claims that their pin, which depicts a red hand with a black heart in its center, “symbolizes support for universal human rights and lasting peace.”

Let’s ignore the fact that there currently is a ceasefire, that hostages are being released, and that aid is being delivered in Gaza (as it has been throughout the war). What could possibly be problematic in a call for “human rights and lasting peace?”

The problem is in the symbolism of the red hand itself. For many Jews, this symbol is an explicit reference to a 2000 incident in which a group of Palestinians in Ramallah brutally murdered two captured Israeli military reservists. The murderers then held up their bloody, red hands to the delight of a cheering crowd.

Thus, for many Jews, the red hand pin is a symbol of the murder of Jews, and those wearing it are, whether they know it or not, calling for and supporting such murder.

So what do Artists4Ceasefire and those who will wear the pins on Sunday think that the pins mean?

Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s performance is too reel and too real.

Maybe it’s because this is Black History Month that the complete Oscar lock-out of Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths seems so wrong. (It almost hurts more than the dismissal of Better Man.) Hard Truths was also overlooked for the Image Awards given by the NAACP, which is equally troubling. Both omissions reveal the worst about contemporary film culture. This isn’t simply a matter of actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s being ignored (despite already winning most of the season’s critics’ prizes). Fact is: Mainstream opinion has degraded.

It would be an exaggeration to frame the Oscar and NAACP inadequacies as injustice; no contemporary movie has more significance than Hard Truths, for the way it deals with the spiritual trauma of the Covid lockdowns. In addressing this subject, Mike Leigh returns to modern relevance after his two previous films, the period pictures Peterloo, about the 1819 massacre in Manchester, England, and Mr. Turner, a biopic of the painter J. M. W. Turner. In Hard Truths, Leigh comes back to the modern world with tough, piercing frankness.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/presence-2024/

“For English, press one.”“Please listen carefully. Our menu options have changed.” “Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order it was received.” “All our representatives are helping others. We will return your call at a time convenient to us, after you have fallen to the floor and are sobbing uncontrollably.”

Some of us have lost some genetic lottery. Cancer haunts our families. We hear these phrases when, struggling to sound calm, we inquire about our loved ones, when we schedule ourselves, and when we request our prognosis.

Which is worse, a cancer diagnosis or navigating the health care steeple chase? A twenty-something girl treats you like a slab of meat while shoving you into a big machine. God didn’t gift cancer cells with awareness. When those cells attack your body it doesn’t say anything about human nature. When a fellow human is mean to you for no good reason as you shiver from cold, fear, and shame in your hospital gown, it gets to you.

In November, 2024, I coped with my latest perch on the limin between life and death as I usually do. I wasn’t taking drugs. I was cleaning, writing, hiking, bopping to great music, soaking in hot baths, shopping for groceries, and going to the movies. These activities are my therapy, my miracle drugs, and my best friends.

Friends? “Cancer ghosting” is a thing. The people around you recoil from you. At first, I felt marooned. But then I realized that their ghosting me was just nature taking its course. I was updating my will, giving away belongings, and wondering whether I’d soon be reunited with departed loved ones. The folks who retreated from me were, simply, living in, and involved with, a different dispensation. They were moving through the colorful, physical, concrete world of life, with all its promises of tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. My friends were doing that necessary work that we all do – investing in life while alive, and avoiding death. Cancer ghosting can leave you feeling very alone, but as Nietzsche said, when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. At least the abyss was willing to hang out with me.

In January, 2025, I was going for a walk and listening to NPR over my headphones. When I tune in I usually hear a story about how blacks are suffering in white supremacist America, or how gays are suffering in homophobic America. I wait out the propaganda and listen for the quality programming that sneaks in.

A man was speaking. He was a white guy, older, even-tempered, quietly and intelligently witty, at home in the world and with himself.  Ghost stories, the man was saying, are “essentially hopeful … the very premise means that there’s an afterlife. Something comes beyond” death, he said. I am intimidated by scary movies but this guy was giving me a new way to look at them.

The man continued in a voice, that, unlike so much I hear on NPR, was not shrill, or griping, or demanding, or haranguing. In this same tone of voice, this man might be ordering a car part or telling a child a bedtime story. This mature man knew that sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, and he recognized that it all comes out in the wash.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/02/a-complete-unknown-is-more-than-a-bob-dylan-biopic/

The new Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, is a film distinguished by extraordinary performances. Edward Norton shines as folk-singer Pete Seeger. Elle Fanning enlivens the role of Sylvie Russo, a character based on Dylan’s actual partner at the time, Suze Rotolo. And then there’s Timothée Chalamet whose depiction of the young Dylan at times borders on the miraculous.

Directed by James Mangold, A Complete Unknown is based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book, Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties. It focusses on Dylan’s early career in the 1960s, from the moment he arrives in New York City as a 19-year-old to his eventual rise to folk stardom and beyond.

The film’s narrative is divided into two parts. In the first we follow Dylan from his arrival in Greenwich Village in 1961 as he tries to work his way into the New York folk scene. This period culminates in the release of his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in 1963 and, with it, stardom.

The second chapter follows Dylan’s departure from the folk scene – its music, ideology and entourage – and the recording of his sixth album, Highway 61 Revisited, in 1965. Parallel to his prodigious songwriting, this self-styled inscrutable vagabond weaves a love triangle with Russo and Joan Baez, played by Monica Barbaro.

Chalamet’s portrayal of Dylan moves effortlessly from the naïve newcomer to the older, conflicted artist and sorrowful lover. Much of the film is shot in close-up, and the most compelling scenes involve Chalamet listening rather than speaking. Norton’s Seegar is the personification of the social-justice arm of the folk scene. What Dylan has in charisma, Seegar has in piety. It’s Seeger’s folk-musical sanctimony that Dylan kicks back at. And when Dylan turns electric in defiance of Seeger, the folksy audience turns into a mob.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/the-brutalist-a-must-see-masterpiece/

I have never witnessed the avalanche of acclaim for a new release such as I’ve seen for the 2024 film The Brutalist. The Brutalist is the biopic of a fictional character. Adrien Brody plays Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who is commissioned to build a Doylestown, Pennsylvania community center in the Brutalist architectural style. A man of intense artistic dedication and integrity, he overcomes roadblocks, and realizes his dream.

Why is a movie about a Hungarian immigrant in Doylestown, PA advancing like a tornado through a wheat field, toppling critics into adoring prostration? Filmmaker Brady Corbet doesn’t understand. “If something is really radical, people initially don’t like it … people are connecting with The Brutalist … I’m completely confused.”

Below, a review of reaction to the film, a summary of the film, and then my own take on The Brutalist.

The Brutalist is a three-hour-thirty-five-minute long period drama. It was directed by former child actor Brady Corbet and co-written by Corbet and his life partner, Norwegian actress Mona Fastvold. It stars Adrien Brody, who won an Academy Award for his depiction of real-life Holocaust survivor Wladyslaw Szpilman in the 2002 Roman Polanski masterpiece, The Pianist. The Brutalist has been nominated for dozens of awards. It racked up five wins at the Venice International Film Festival, and Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Drama; Best Actor for Adrien Brody; and Best Director for Brady Corbet.

The Brutalist enjoys a 93% positive rating at RottenTomatoes. Fico Cangiano’s review is representational. “Stunning … sweeping … epic. An ambitious exploration of the immigrant experience, the pursuit of the American dream and human behavior. The best film of 2024.” The Atlantic says “An expansive but stark look at the successes and challenges involved in making personal art in a capitalist system.” The Washington Post says, “An irresistible object — Laszlo — meets the immovable forces of American caste, capitalism, aesthetics and exclusion … [these] slowly tighten” their “stranglehold on Laszlo’s dreams.” The San Francisco Chronicle reports, “Adrien Brody is a walking open wound.” American capitalists “attempt to distort his vision for budgetary or bonehead creative reasons. Yes, The Brutalist is a metaphor for ambitious personal filmmaking.” The Standard decrees that there is only one way to react to The Brutalist. “It is impossible not to recognize The Brutalist as anything other than a filmmaking triumph … a brutal parable for all immigrants and artists who struggle to sublimate themselves in the meatgrinder of America.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/golden-globes-reportedly-banned-israeli-actress-gal-gadot-from-wearing-hostage-pin/

Israeli actress Gal Gadot has been vocal in her support of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. Her activism stands out among the sea of her progressive peers in Hollywood, who, for the most part, are either anti-Israel, apathetic to the war, or quiet supporters of Israel. But Gadot, along with a small group of Hollywood stars, has not wavered in her defense of Israel despite political, social, and professional pressure.

Gadot was allegedly banned from wearing a yellow pin honoring the hostages at the Golden Globes, the Jerusalem Post reported:

Ynet and N12 reported that Gadot was forbidden to wear the pin, which is considered a political statement by the awards organizers, even though it does not express support for any political party or for the war itself but is only a reminder that approximately 100 hostages are still held . . .

Ynet quoted a source close to Gadot as saying, “As a presenter, she was bound by specific rules and could not wear the pin. Gal struggled with this decision, which is why she posted her call to free the hostages before the event. Working with her team, she found a creative solution by wearing a yellow ring to symbolize the cause. It was important to her to honor the guidelines while still drawing attention to the hostages.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/a-real-pain/

A Real Pain is a comedy-drama Holocaust-themed film. A Real Pain was written, directed, and co-produced by Jesse Eisenberg. The film depicts the journey of two cousins, David and Benji Kaplan, who travel with a tour group to Poland. The cousins’ late grandmother, Dory, was a survivor. The cousins’ journey is an effort to honor her and better understand their heritage.

Eisenberg, 41, plays David; Kieran Culkin, 42, plays Benji. A Real Pain also features Will Sharpe as James, the tour guide, and other tour members Jennifer Grey as Marcia; Kurt Egyiawan as Eloge; and Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes as Diane and Mark.

David is a happily married husband and father. He lives in an attractive brownstone and makes a good living selling ads. He suffers from anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, as does Eisenberg himself. David takes prescription medication to suppress his symptoms.

Benji is a “real pain” – as in, “a pain in the ass.” He is disruptive and socially inappropriate. Benji lives in his mother’s house and smokes a lot of marijuana. He has no committed relationships or steady work. He uses the F-word in every sentence.

David’s pain and Benji’s pain are set against the overwhelming pain of the Holocaust. The tour group members are flummoxed in their attempts to assimilate historical reality. They juxtapose their comfortable American lives with what Holocaust victims endured. They cannot craft a coherent narrative about the world or their own lives that encompasses that dichotomy.

RottenTomatoes awards A Real Pain a hefty 96% positive score. Prognosticators predict Academy Award nominations for Eisenberg, Culkin, and the film itself. Moira MacDonald, writing in the Seattle Times, speaks for many. The film “examines Jewish identity, generational trauma, sibling-like rivalry and the strangeness of being in a country you don’t recognize, but that’s nonetheless partly your own.” Other critics use superlatives like “perfect,” “radiant.” “vivid,” “moving,” “funny,” “devastating,” “masterful,” “superb,” “rueful,” “heart-swelling,” and “poignant.” Peter Travers of ABC news promises, “You’ll laugh till it hurts.”

David Fear in Rolling Stone writes, “Culkin” produces “the single greatest, funniest, most cringe-comic and heartbreaking performance.” Richard Roper, in the Chicago Sun Times, says that Culkin takes “a character who could have been a one-dimensional, shtick-reliant jerk and infuses him with vulnerability and empathy.”