Bar Mitzvah Musical Movie Coming to Netflix August 12

In 2008, a musical show titled 13 made its appearance on Broadway and lasted for 105 performances. It was about a 12 year old boy who grapples with his parents' divorce, moves to a small town in Indiana, prepares for his impending Bar Mitzvah, and navigates the complicated social circles of a new school. 13 is the only Broadway musical ever with a cast and band entirely made of teenagers.

Now it's a movie coming to Netflix on August 12. As Lior Zaltzman wrote on Kveller:

The movie musical stars actor Eli Golden as Evan Goldman, a 12-year-old teen preparing for his bar mitzvah in New York City. “A bar mitzvah is the event that defines you, the Jewish Superbowl,” Goldman says in the trailer. Unfortunately, his plans for the epic bar mitzvah are foiled by the dissolution of his parents’ marriage.

Instead of spending his days planning a tony Manhattan coming-of-age party, Evan has to move with his mom, played by IRL Jewish mom Debra Messing, to the small town of Walkerton, Indiana — a place that inspires the song “The Lamest Place on Earth.”

Evan and his mom shack up with his Jewish grandma Ruth, played by the wonderful Rhea Pearlman. “If it took a divorce to get you to come back, maybe it’s a good thing,” Ruth tells her daughter, in true Jewish mom fashion. “I look at the bright side,” she professes.

The very easy-on-the-eyes Peter Hermann of “Younger” plays Evan’s dad, Joel, who stays behind in New York City with Evan’s very congenial rabbi, Rabbi Shapiro, played by Jewish comedian and dad Josh Peck. Peck makes for the perfect movie rabbi, and he is full of Jewish jokes and zingers for his young student. In the trailer, after Evan attempts to chant his Hebrew Torah portion, Rabbi Shapiro answers a pretend call and tells the teen: “It’s God, he wants his language back.”

Here's the trailer for the movie. Enjoy! 

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Throwback Thursday Stage Clip: Ron Moody as Fagin in "Oliver!"

Oliver!, the musical play and film created by Lionel Bart (born Lionel Begleiter) and based on Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist has always been one of our favorites. We have a personal connection with the production because our grandson Gil played the title role in the Encore Theatre production in Jerusalem in May 2014.

The role of Fagin was played by Ron Moody in the original London production and the movie. In the preface to the novel, Fagin is described as a "receiver of stolen goods". He is the leader of a group of children who he teaches to make their living by pickpocketing and other criminal activities, in exchange for shelter.

Moody, who was born Ronald Moodnick, was a second-generation native Briton whose father came over from Russia and whose mother was proud of her Vilna roots. A very Jewish bachelor, he shared his house with his mother and other family members in the Jewish North London suburb of Southgate.

Moody's portrayal of Fagin just oozes with Jewishness, but not in the anti-semitic way that Dickens portrayed him. On the contrary, he is humanized as a lovable crook who shows real affection for his pickpocketing children.

He reprised his role as Fagin at the 1985 Royal Variety Performance in Theatre Royal, Drury Lane before Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.

Here is a clip from this performance in which Moody sings Reviewing the Situation, where he considers his past life and wonders about his future.

Enjoy!

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#Throwback Thursday    #TBT

Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas: A Film About the Jewish Composers of Christmas Songs

As we are surrounded today by Christmas songs playing on the radio and TV, and with the music finding its way into elevators, supermarkets, and shopping malls, it's interesting to note that most of the popular songs were written by Jewish songwriters.

Approximately half of the 30 best-selling Christmas songs by ASCAP members in 2015 were written by Jewish composers. Johnny Marks has three top Christmas songs, the most for any writer—"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", and "A Holly Jolly Christmas". By far the most recorded Christmas song is "White Christmas" by Irving Berlin (born Israel Isidore Beilin in Russia)—who also wrote "Happy Holiday"—with well over 500 versions in dozens of languages.
Others include:

• "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" by Sammy Cahn (born Cohen) and Jule Styne (who also wrote "The Christmas Waltz" together)
• "Winter Wonderland" (composer Felix Bernard was born Felix William Bernhardt)
• "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" by Robert Wells (born Levinson) and Mel Tormé
• "Sleigh Ride" (lyricist Mitchell Parish was born Michael Hyman Pashelinsky in Lithuania)
• "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (composer George Wyle was born Bernard Weissman)
• "Silver Bells" by Jay Livingston (born Jacob Levinson) and Ray Evans
• "(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays" by Bob Allen (born Robert Allen Deitcher) and Al Stillman (born Albert Silverman)
• "I'll Be Home for Christmas" by Walter Kent (born Walter Kauffman) and Buck Ram (born Samuel).
• "Santa Baby" by Joan Ellen Javits (Zeeman), niece of Senator Jacob Javits, and Philip Springer.
• "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Frank Loesser

An offbeat, irreverent documentary called Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to the world's most musical holiday. It's an amazing look at the 20th century North American immigrant experience and the extraordinary outburst of musical energy from the children of those immigrants. 

This new generation rejected their parents' European past and instead embraced Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and, finally, Hollywood. The outsiders began writing the soundtrack to the insiders' American dreams and in doing so, wrote themselves into history. 

Telling this story through words and song, Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas features rarely-seen archival footage, musical performances and interviews with contemporary writers and performers, as well as connoisseurs of North American popular music.

The 52 minute documentary is available on iTunes for $2.95. You can see it free of charge if you are a member of a public library that offers free streaming of Kanopy films. 

Enjoy!

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New Comedy Series Depicts Orthodox Singles Life in New York City

Srugim is a popular award-winning TV series produced in Israel about the lives of a group of Orthodox Jewish singles living in the Katamon section of Jerusalem. It ran for 45 episodes in three seasons between 2008 and 2012.

But there are also Orthodox Jewish singles in the USA, and many of them live and date on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Modern Orthodox filmmaker Leah Gottfried took the concept and created a new series in English called Soon By You about these singles and their dating adventures. The first episode, The Setup, was released this week.

As Sarah Trappler Spielman wrote in Tablet this week,

The Setup, a short film about Jewish dating by 25-year-old Modern Orthodox filmmaker Leah Gottfried, was described by its producers as “Friends but with Jews” and “Srugim but in New York.” The film, which won an audience award for Best Short at the Washington Jewish Film Festival, also serves as the pilot episode for Soon By You, a new web series that depicts the lives of six Modern Orthodox twentysomethings dating in present-day New York City.

We watched the first 16-minute long episode and we think it has potential as a long-running series that gives insight into the unique challenges that young single Orthodox Jewish professionals face in a largely secular multicultural environment such as New York City.

Enjoy!

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Kutsher's Film Goes From Limited Showings to National Release -- on DVD and VOD

Last February we wrote about the South Florida debut of the film Welcome to Kutsher's -- the award-winning film documenting the Borscht Belt experience at the last surviving Catskills hotel. We were in and around Delray Beach, the town where the film played for a week before it moved to California for another week of showings. 

We saw the film and got a lot of nachas from reliving our days of vacationing in the Catskills. But unless you happened to be in the few cities where it was shown, you missed out on the fun and the nostalgia.

The film was released last week on DVD and it's available to purchase as a DVD or rent as Video On Demand, thanks to film makers Caroline Laskow and Ian Rosenberg, and the 154 Kickstarter backers who pledged $12,105 to help bring the project to life.

During its debut week at Movies of Delray, Rosenberg and Larry Strickler, Kutsher's social director for 26 years, reminisced about life in the Catskills while they were interviewed by Peter Wein.

Enjoy!

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