Category Archives: Eight Nights of Hanukkah Eight Nights of Movies

Eight Nights of Hanukkah, Eight Nights of Movies: Night #8

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Spaceballs


Unfortunately, the end of Hanukkah has arrived. But even as you prepare to put the menorah away, there is still one more night worth of a movie left. And what better way to end Hanukkah than with a movie by Mel Brooks, the master of Jewish humor, and of randomly inserting Yiddish jokes into his work.

“Spaceballs” isn’t even the funniest Mel Brooks movie; that honor goes to “Blazing Saddles.” It isn’t the even the smartest; that honor goes to “The Producers.” It doesn’t even have the best Jewish joke; that honor goes to the Jews with Space joke in “History of the World: Part 1.” However, “Spaceballs” just seems like the perfect movie to recommend, maybe because for some time, it was the funniest movie I had ever seen.

“Spaceballs” satirizes both the “Star Wars” movies, and the general way movies were made in the 1980s. Darth Helmet’s (Rick Moranis) ridiculously gigantic helmet is hilarious enough, but the self-referential nature of “Spaceballs” is what helps to make it a minor work of genius. There is one scene where the characters watch themselves watching “Spaceballs.” Most notably though is the scene where the Yoda-spinoff Yogurt (Brooks) explains the concept of merchandising. Its a hilarious and spot-on scene that should be shown in every film business or marketing class. As a kid, I would really have loved to have Spaceballs the Lunchbox, though.

“Spaceballs” remains a standout, and could teach those supposed movie satires made nowadays (I’m looking at you, Seltzer-Friedberg) a thing or two. My only problem with this movie is that if Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) is a Druish princess, who once had a huge nose pre-plastic surgery, then why do her and Lone Star (Bill Pullman) get married in a Church? I guess it’s just as Barf (John Candy) says: “funny, she doesn’t look Druish.”

Watch this clip, and learn a thing or two about merchandising: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvmZ9SPcTzU

Eight Nights of Hanukkah, Eight Nights of Movies: Night #7

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Munich

Spielberg had to appear on this list one of these nights. So why didn’t I include “Schindler’s List,” cinema’s most thoughtful portrayal of the Holocaust, or “Saving Private Ryan” which I learned in Hebrew school has something to do with Jewish values? It wouldn’t take a post from me to get you to watch either of those. However, six years after being released, no one seems to want to watch “Munich.” It’s a depressing subject for sure, but it its also as captivating a political allegory as it is a thrilling and suspenseful film.

“Munich” is based on the tragic events surrounding the 1972 Munich Olympics, in which members of the Israeli Olympic team were kidnapped and subsequently murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Spielberg recaptures the terrifying image of a hooded kidnapper standing on a terrace, and the chilling line said by a news anchor, “they’re all gone.” In response, the Israeli government assembles a team of Mossad agents to target and kill the terrorists. The team includes Eric Bana as the conscience-ridden Avner, as well as Daniel Craig and Ciaran Hinds.

When “Munich” was first released, it was greeted with much controversy. Many claimed the film, a work of historical fiction, to be anti-Israel. To believe that such a devoted, charitable Jew as Spielberg would ever make a film against his spiritual homeland is as ridiculous as the alien spaceship emerging out of the ground at the end of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

While “Munich” does suggest that perhaps some of the people killed might not have been involved in the kidnapping, and at one point it does allow one of the terrorists to speak, this is not saying that Israel should not exist. It is rather a universal statement as old as time about the dangerous tole that revenge takes on the individual and that in the terrible Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides forget that we both bleed the same blood. In today’s polarized political environment, saying that both sides could be at fault is a small miracle.

Politics aside, “Munich” is something that few acknowledge it to be: an extremely well-made thriller based on the principles of film in the era that Spielberg first began working in (1970s) and the filmmakers of the past that inspired him (Hitchcock). One scene involving a phone, a bomb, and a little girl, will have you at the edge of your seat, begging you to wonder how it could possibly end.

One of Spielberg’s greatest pitfalls throughout his career is how easily he can fall into the trap of sentimentality. “Munich” is another one of his film’s about the importance of family, but it never falls into the trap of sentimentality. The ending is hardened, but also very thoughtful. “Munich” will evoke an intense political and theological discussion on this seventh night of Hanukkah but above all, everyone will enjoy the fact that for once, the Jews are the ones who are doing the ass kicking.

Eight Nights of Hanukkah, Eight Nights of Movies: Night #6

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A Night at the Opera


As today is Christmas, I almost considered making this a cheat day and recommending multiple Christmas classics. However, “A Christmas Story” runs for 24 hours straight, and almost everyone has seen “Elf” at this point. Instead, I decided to dig back really far and pull out a Marx Brothers classic from 1935.

Any Marx Brothers movie could have made this spot, but “A Night at the Opera” manages to stand out. “Duck Soup” could have made for the mirror scene alone and “A Day at the Races” for the scene in which they try and be doctors. However, nothing beats “A Night at the Opera” in both its wit and its slapstick. The four Jewish brothers from New York City got their start in vaudeville before hitting the big screen and bringing their crazed theatrical antics along with them. Comedy would never be the same.

The end of the silent era allowed comedians to make movies that portrayed humor not just through bodily movements but also through dialogue. The Marx Brothers were masters at wordplay, and Groucho was truly Hollywood’s first smart ass. The scene in which Groucho and Chico start tearing up the parts of a contract they don’t agree with (“there ain’t no sainty clause!”) is masterful at both types of comedy.

Of course, the highlight of this movie is a miracle of slapstick: the stateroom scene. Characters keep piling and piling on into a tiny room as they keep ordering more and more hard boiled eggs, until someone opens a door and everyone falls out. It is not necessarily the part where everyone falls out that is so funny, but the ensuing madness, and the question of how many people can possibly fit into this room before the inevitable collapse. Sometimes, it is the telling of a joke, and not the eventual punchline, that can be funniest.

“A Night at the Opera” is a comedy that is truly timeless. To entertain people for over seven decades for is a rare gift that only the greatest of comedies can provide. Here is something that both you and your grandparents can laugh at together.

Eight Nights of Hanukkah, Eight Nights of Movies: Night #5

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Wet Hot American Summer


Every summer, hundreds of thousands of Jewish children from the Northeast (mainly Long Island, Westchester County, New Jersey, and Southwestern Connecticut) are taken from their homes. The food is poor, and the conditions are less than sanitary. They are isolated far away from society, with barely a cell tower in sight. They are forced to leave their friends, families, and even their iPhones behind. God forbid they must go without Words with Friends for eight weeks.

I am talking about summer camp, of course.

I can say this is all true firsthand as I am a Jewish summer camp survivor. I am a veteran of five summers at Camp Island Lake. I can’t quite pinpoint what draws Jews in particular to summer camps. Perhaps it is the need to be around Jews, congregate with them, breed with them, and eventually create future generations of nice Jewish doctors and lawyers who will marry your daughter.

But I digress. “Wet Hot American Summer” best captures the summer camp experience. Usually, a movie that I believe perfectly captures something I have experienced in my life does so because it is totally realistic. In this case, “Wet Hot” brings back this previous part of my life because it is utterly ridiculous. It takes place at the fictional Camp Firewood in the 80s, but it was filmed at Camp Towanda, which is basically down the road from my old summertime stomping grounds.

“Wet Hot American Summer” came from the comedy group behind MTV’s “The State,” who would also later go on to make Comedy Central’s eccentrically brilliant “Stella.” “Wet Hot” was largely panned and ignored at the time of its release. Ten years later, it has become an unlikely cult classic. The humor of “Wet Hot” is as bizarre as anything you’d expect from the minds of Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain. Some of the major comedy set pieces include a raft that doesn’t move down raging rapids, a falling satellite, and a talking can of vegetables. All of these scenes made me feel nostalgic for a decade I didn’t even grow up in.

The ensemble is just as funny as the absurdist situations, and many actors in this movie went on to become superstars (a young Bradley Cooper makes one of the boldest moves of his career here). There is also a scene where a few of the characters go into town for the day, become drug addicts, and then return back to campus totally fine. This is funny not just because the transformation occurs over such a short period of time, but these seem like the kind of people that this would happen to. I also always wondered what my counselors would do when they went into town for the day. They might as well have been doing this every single day.

“Wet Hot” might not go over too well with your older relatives (they will probably use words like “stupid” and whatever the opposite of “clever” is), but it is close to the modern day equivalent of the Marx Brothers, the other Jewish absurdist comedians. More on them tomorrow night.

Eight Nights of Hanukkah, Eight Nights of Movies: Night #4

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A Serious Man

This is a ser- I’m a ser- I’m, uh, I’ve tried to be a serious man, you know? Tried to do right, be a member of the community, raise the- Danny, Sarah, they both go to school, Hebrew school, a good breakfast…


“A Serious Man” begins with the blast of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love,” linking the past to the present, and drowning out a dull Hebrew school lesson. In this day and age, what does it mean for a Jewish man to be a serious man? If you are looking for a movie that is both religiously faithful and an existential mind trip for the halfway point of Hanukkah, then look no further. This is the first and probably the last movie you’ll ever see that’s based on both the Talmud and Schrodinger’s Cat.

Who else could have made a movie like this than Joel and Ethan Coen. It is based partly on their own childhood growing up in a Jewish family in a mostly Jewish suburb of Minneapolis, and the rest is a lot of things that could have happened, but probably didn’t. “A Serious Man” begins with a short parable that takes place in a shtetl. It might explain every one of the following events we see, or none of them. Maybe it is what the Coen Brothers say it is: their attempt to create their own Jewish fable. The rest of the movie focuses on Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a father who goes through a crisis of faith after his wife leaves him and he begins to lose his children to the 60s. No one, not even a string of rabbis, can provide him with guidance.

“A Serious Man” is funny not in a haha kind of way, but more in the kind of way that if you watch it multiple times, the ultimate mind f**k of it all is kind of hilarious. This is the Thinking Man Jew’s kind of movie. And that is not to say that anyone can’t like this movie. However, some people might not appreciate “The Goy’s Teeth” quite as much. For those who are passionate people watchers, especially of the Jewish kind, this movie gives a prototype of every Jew you can think of. Some will find stereotypes, others will find hilarious objects of affection.

“A Serious Man” definitely will not inspire as much joy and laughter after a candle lighting as say, a Woody Allen or a Marx Brothers movie, but it will definitely inspire fervent debate and conversation. If you are really curious about what that cut to black at the end means, I only have so many answers. Instead, I would refresh on your Bar Mitzvah torah portions. And then pick up some physics textbooks. Philosophy might work, too.

If this movie makes you crave for from the Coen Brothers tonight, I would check out “The Big Lebowski” immediately afterwards. It’s a great movie but that’s just like, my opinion, man. 

Eight Nights of Hanukkah, Eight Nights of Movies: Night #3

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Radio Days


“Annie Hall.” “Manhattan.” “Hannah and Her Sisters.” I could have gone with any of these timeless Woody Allen classics, so why did I choose “Radio Days”? It wasn’t an attempt to be original (“Annie Hall” is an easy choice, but it is a deserving one at that), but rather that “Radio Days” may just be the ultimate Jewish family comedy, and both a heartwarming and heartbreaking nostalgia trip.

Set during the 1930s and 40s, “Radio Days” is told in a series of vignettes that all connect back to the audio device that once ruled the world. Allen himself is never present onscreen, although he is the story’s narrator. A very young Seth Green is Allen’s stand-in onscreen under the name Joe. Joe obsesses over the radio so much that it starts to concern everyone in his family, especially his father (Michael Tucker). Joe is the youngest in a loud and rowdy household that includes an aunt and uncle and grandparents, as well as a family of Communists that live next door. His Uncle Abe (Josh Mostel, perhaps better known as Principal Anderson in “Billy Madison”) brings home a huge bag of fish everyday and eats them. Raw.

 Allen so lively brings about an era in which imagination was king. It’s funny to hear Joe’s parents complain that he’s rotting his brain away by sitting in front of the radio all day, and think that parents said the exact same thing about television decades later.

“Radio Days” is as much about the stars of radio as it is about the listeners. One in particular is Sally White (Mia Farrow) who has a difficult time making it as first, as listeners couldn’t see beautiful face but could hear her voice, which sounds exactly like Lina Lamont’s fingernails-on-a-chalkboard voice in “Singin’ in the Rain.” Luckily, one of these two people was actually able to make it.

Joe’s family, who spends all their time in Rockaway, and the radio stars, who spend all of their time at fancy parties, never come together. However, the idea Allen wants to bring about is that the radio brought these stars, these stories, into Joe’s living room, and they never left. That is the beauty of radio, of television, and of film: they make the unreal become a very real part of our lives. In that sense, Joe’s family came to life for me and almost felt like my own. However, arguments, while frequent for us, never amount to debating whether or not the Atlantic is a greater ocean than the Pacific.

While the movie’s end is sad in one sense, as the stars of radio realize they will not shine forever, it is also optimistic in that sense. When one star flickers and dims, another one shines, and a new opportunity comes about. Celebrities might not be famous forever, but the art they create makes them immortal.

“Radio Days” is that lasting artifact of Allen’s self-deprecating humor and a prime example of why the king of neuroticism can never be dethroned. While it is funny, it is also so realistic. If you’ve ever had more family members piled into your house than you can count, and you remember it as a terrifying yet hilarious experience, then you should pile every single one of those family members back together in one room and watch “Radio Days.”

Eight Nights of Hanukkah, Eight Nights of Movies: Night #2

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Eight Nights of Hanukkah, Eight Nights of Movies is a new series in which for each night of Hanukkah I will recommend a new movie to watch. Each movie might have been made by a prominent Jewish filmmaker, or embodies a prominent part of Jewish culture. Because I missed the first night, as I was embarking on a great Florida migration, I will recommend two for the second night.


Inglourious Basterds 


Here is a movie that needs no introduction, as I can barely go a day (or a blog post) without talking about it. With “Inglourious Basterds,” Quentin Tarantino earned the title of Honorary Jew for fulfilling any little Jewish boy’s childhood fantasy of getting vengeance on the Nazis. But it is not just a violent, one-dimensional revenge fantasy but rather a morality tale that dares us to ask whether or not our enemies can actually be human. This might be the only movie of its kind that will actually make you feel like a more enlightened human being. The movie also includes moments of gripping suspense and utterly insane hilarity. Despite the newfound enlightenment you may have found, it will not stop you from standing up and cheering after the movie’s history-bending twist (most people probably know what it is at this point but if not, I will spare the spoiler). No movie will make you feel prouder to light the menorah tonight.

Leaves of Grass


I didn’t really think “Leaves of Grass” was as brilliant as some believed (Ebert called it a “masterpiece”). It is flawed and its narrative probably made more sense in novel form, but it is certainly “whacky” and inventive enough for me to recommend to the more adventurous cinephile. Edward Norton is brilliant as always, this time giving two performances in one movie, one as a philosophy professor and the other as a drug dealer. Most shocking about “Leaves of Grass” is that it reveals that there is indeed a Jewish community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That is, in case you were the kind of person who likes to track down Jews in random parts of America. It is partly based on writer-director Tim Blake Nelson’s life growing up in a Jewish family in Tulsa. “Leaves of Grass” is not just a crime-thriller-satire but an examination on Jewish identity. I can’t say I “get” the whole thing but if one of you does, please feel free to explain it to me.