Shoes loom large in the story of NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER. So, it was only right that when I spoke with that film’s writer/director, Joseph Cedar, on April 6, 2017, there would be a question or two about the expensive pair that is both the best and… Read More »
NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER
The title character of NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER, lives in a world of endless possibilities. Spinning schemes, half-truths, and complete fictions into a confident spiel about enormous profits and helpful introductions, he wanders the streets of New York stalking his prey of people on the edges of… Read More »
ON THE MAP — Dani Menkin Interview
It was the year, according to filmmaker Dani Menkin, when everything felt right. It was 1977 and the Maccabi basketball team was making history for the young country. Many years later, Menkin would make a documentary about the “miracle on hardwood” that played such a big part of his childhood. When I spoke with him… Read More »
ZERO DAYS — Alex Gibney, Eric Chien & Liam O’Murchu
Liam O’Murchu was the first person at Symantec to see the STUXnet code, and, as he told me when we talked on May 11, 2016, red flags went off about the elegant coding and suspicious dearth of bugs. I was interviewing him along with his colleague, Eric Chien and with Alex Gibney, the documentarian who… Read More »
PRINCESS
PRINCESS is an intimately observed film that forces us to face some uncomfortable truths. Told with unflinching honesty, completely eschewing the sensational in favor of the perceptive, we are plunged into a 12-year-old’s waking nightmare lived in a highly sexualized atmosphere created by her mother and her mother’s live-in boyfriend. The girl is Adar… Read More »
PRESENTING PRINCESS SHAW
Princess Shaw (AKA Samantha Montgomery) is a larger than life personality. It’s only fitting that she should have a larger than life experience, and to have it documented in PRESENTING PRINCESS SHAW, a documentary about hope, determination, and talent getting the attention it’s due. Princess was working at a nursing home to pay the bills,… Read More »
Shlomi Elkabetz Records GETT: THE TRIAL OF VIVIANE AMSALEM
GETT, the Hebrew word for a bill of divorce, is the third film in a trilogy made by brother-and-sister filmmakers Shlomi and Ronit Elkabetz. The theme, as Shlomi explained to me on October 6, 2014, is freedom, specifically women’s freedom in the modern world. Inspired by their mother’s life, it’s a contemplation on the nature… Read More »
Meeting THE GREEN PRINCE with Nadav Schirman, Gonen Ben Yitzak & Mossab Hassan Yousef
When THE GREEN PRINCE made its west coast debut at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on July 24, 2014, no one in the audience knew that the subjects of the documentary, former Shin Beit agent Gonen Ben Yitzak, and Mossab Hassan Yousef, the Palestinian son of a founder of Hamas, and the man Gonen recruited… Read More »
Alan Rickman Experiences BOTTLE SHOCK
When I spoke with Alan Rickman on July 27, 2008, it was in the course of a press junket at Chateau Montelena, a key location in, BOTTLE SHOCK. These junkets are usually the fluffiest of proceedings, with lightweight questions and limited time being the rule. Hence, questions about the mystery of wine and finding just… Read More »