1198 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Hebrew (Page 47)
Exterminate All the Brutes
StudioHBO Documentary Films,
Following on from his work on I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck takes a holistic look at imperialism, the construction of whiteness, and how we form narratives about the violence of the past in HBO's four-part documentary series Exterminate All The Brutes. In doing so, Peck covers a lot of ground, moving from genocides to scientific racism to colonization and more, explicating the links between them all. He does a lot of brilliant work here, but the series doesn’t quite have the precision or focus to make it great. Continue Reading →
God's Pocket (In Hebrew: כיס של אלוהים)
This might sound harsh, but God’s Pocket is a movie that has no business existing. There’s a void where its central relationship should be: set in working-class Philadelphia sometime in the mid-twentieth century, Mickey (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Jeanie (Christina Hendricks), are an inexplicably estranged married couple. She completely hates him, though “why?” – a pretty obvious question – is never explored. Continue Reading →
The Conversation (In Hebrew: השיחה)
Not many artists have stretches of greatness so profound that they transcend their medium. They’re not looked at as just a musician or athlete or director, but part of the fabric of modern pop culture at a particular time. What The Beatles meant to the 1960s, or what Michael Jordan meant to the 1990s, is how Francis Ford Coppola defined the 1970s. Continue Reading →
The Serpent Queen
For the podcast, I sat down with Scherrer to discuss the unique challenges of the project, that line between being period-appropriate and too on-the-nose, and working with some of the most interesting instruments and period synthesizers of the day to craft the haunting, tension-laden score for The Serpent. (He also talks -- and plays -- us through the winding tension of the series' title theme.) Continue Reading →
Shiva Baby (In Hebrew: שבעה בייבי)
SimilarAlex Strangelove (2018), West Side Story (2021),
“Does Danielle want to go to law school or grad school?” An almost casual question to her mother, the truth is, Danielle (Rachel Sennott) has no idea where she’s going – so she joins her family for a shiva. “Abby,” her “uncle’s second wife’s sister” has passed; Danielle takes a break from Manhattan and her final college finals to see her parents and their suburban Jewish community. Confined to the unending funeral service, Shiva Baby understands how just how terrifying the question “what are you doing next?” can ring in one’s ears. Continue Reading →
2046 (In Hebrew: 2046)
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, 2046 feels undeniably otherworldly. The sumptuousness of the imagery, the fractured timeline, the computer-generated cityscapes of the future, the fact that everyone speaks in different languages and dialects, and yet there exists no communication confusion—all of it melds into a truly transporting experience. Like many of Wong Kar-wai’s works, however, the film roots itself deep in honest feeling. Thus, no matter how much it seems to be unfolding in a world far from our own, the viewer can understand every emotion the characters experience. Continue Reading →
My Blueberry Nights (In Hebrew: לילות בלוברי)
Though My Blueberry Nights has been largely left untouched in the renaissance of Wong Kar-wai’s work like the pies at its center of the film, it’s finally time to cut a slice and see what can be savored. From the outside, it looks like a Kar-wai blueberry pie. It has a sugar crisped lid that’s inviting and promises hidden depths. Yet, as our fork reaches the bottom, we find it soggy. Continue Reading →
花樣年華 (In Hebrew: מצב רוח לאהבה)
If repression is the ultimate aphrodisiac, there are few films that make such a case for it than Wong Kar-wai’s sumptuous 2000 masterpiece In the Mood for Love, one of the most passionate, delicately rendered on-screen odes to yearning cinema has ever produced. Continue Reading →
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
The Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime crossover event on April 1st will mark not only the premiere of a new Law & Order spinoff, but also the return of one Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). For the first 12 seasons of SVU Stabler and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) were the SVU team, the perfect partners. Continue Reading →
Owning Mahowny (In Hebrew: לשלוט במהוני)
Dan Mahoney (Philip Seymour Hoffman) doesn’t want to win anything – he just wants to gamble. He drives a shabby car, wears a cheap suit, and lives with a woman he clearly doesn’t love. Most of his life is just a front – Mahoney maintains his appearance as a respectable, up-and-coming bank manager to facilitate his destructive hobby, even as a bookie barges into his office to collect the ten grand Dan owes. From the moment we meet him until Owning Mahoney’s final frame, he has no endgame. He just wants to bet. Continue Reading →
Godzilla vs. Kong (In Hebrew: גודזילה נגד קונג)
SimilarGodzilla (1998), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Night at the Museum (2006),
Watch afterBlack Widow (2021), Nobody (2021), The Suicide Squad (2021),
One of the most fascinating things about Godzilla -- whether in his original Japanese provenance in his long-running series of films, or in the comparatively-recent "MonsterVerse" Westernization of the big lizard, courtesy of Warner Bros. and Legendary -- is that he's so malleable. On the one hand (as with the original 1954 Ishiro Honda film and Gareth Edwards' flawed but philosophically-intriguing 2014 reboot), he can be a poignant vehicle to explore the apocalyptic anxieties of nations ravaged by atomic bombs and climate change. Continue Reading →
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
A thirty-plus-year veteran of film and TV scoring, Kiner's a chameleon who can work with the themes and motifs set by other composers and spin them into broader, more dynamic cues demanded by the rigors of television storytelling. That's borne out in his work for Star Wars, especially, where at this point he's written more music for the universe than John Williams himself -- while he finds moments to work in familiar motifs and themes, Kiner also carves out room for experimentation, which you can hear in the more synth-heavy scoring for Clone Wars: The Final Season. Continue Reading →
The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers
It’s been 25 years since we last saw coach Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) and his ragtag hockey team came out victorious in D3: The Mighty Ducks. But when they return in the Disney+ spinoff series The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, things are a little different. For instance, Bombay isn't the same man he was; he now hates hockey and kids. Continue Reading →
Invincible
SimilarBen 10: Omniverse, GARO, HAPPY!, Loonatics Unleashed, Madan Senki Ryukendo, Mirai Sentai Timeranger, The Batman,
StarringJon Hamm,
While there are many ways to adapt material to another medium, there do seem to be two prominent schools of thought. Some want adaptations of existing works to take the source material as a jumping-off point. The original text should inspire the creators of the new media, but should make their own perspective felt. On the other hand, there are those that crave pure accuracy. They want the new piece to resemble the original as closely as possible, in tone, point of view, and style. Continue Reading →
Defending Your Life (In Hebrew: נחיה ונאהב)
Welcome to the Criterion Corner, where we break down some of the month’s new releases from the Criterion Collection.
#1070: Secrets & Lies (1996), dir. Mike Leigh
Secrets & Lies - Criterion
One would be hard-pressed to find a more keenly-observed chronicler of everyday life than England's own Mike Leigh. While some of his films dabble in the historic and histrionic (Topsy-Turvy, Mr. Turner, Peterloo come to mind), it's in his modern-day profiles of the workaday Briton -- Life Is Sweet, Naked, Career Girls -- where his quiet, observational eye holds the most purchase. 1996's Secrets & Lies might well be the purest distillation of Leigh's kitchen-sink dramas; he touches on social issues of class and race, but only slightly, with none of the preachiness Ken Loach is occasionally guilty of. And in so doing, speaks volumes about those very issues while keeping its focus on its individual characters and how they navigate those spaces.
Secrets & Lies is about two worlds colliding: one belongs to Hortense Cumberbatch (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, masterful in her quiet calm), a successful middle-class optometrist who takes an interest in tracking down her biological mother after her adoptive one dies. The culprit, we learn, is Cynthia (a Cannes-winning performance from Brenda Blethyn), a brittle, middle-aged factory worker falling apart at the seams at her advancing years and her fractious relationships with her daughter and brother (a steady Timothy Spall). Hortense is Black; Cynthia is white -- dynamics that cause first confusion, then strife in these family dynamics, as Cynthia eventually brings Hortense into the explosive relationships around her. Continue Reading →
春光乍洩 (In Hebrew: מאושרים יחדיו)
Like most pieces of queer cinema, Happy Together was widely misunderstood on its initial release. Looking back on its reviews in 1997 by American critics, there’s a puzzling emphasis on the narrative. Specifically, many critics at the time took umbrage for what they perceived as a “laggy” storyline. So prominent were these criticisms that they ended up giving the film a Metacritic score just one point about Star Wars: Episode III- Revenge of the Sith. Continue Reading →
Nailed It!
During our pandemic lockdowns, who amongst us hasn’t recruited quarantined friends and family into a baking project beyond our experience? Now imagine the pressure of concocting an elaborate bake with a pal or family member for all the world to see. With Netflix’s Nailed It! Double Trouble, bakers pair up in teams of two to recreate extravagant bakes and win $10,000. While some elements have changed in this new season, host Nicole Byer still panics at the push of a button, chef Jacques Torres still imparts wisdom to the contestants, and the bakers reach new heights of spectacular cake fails. In the words of guest judge Ron Funches, “I love a good hot mess.” Nailed It! Double Trouble is the good hot mess we need, seeing twice the fun and chaos from amateur bakers. Continue Reading →
Swan Song (In Hebrew: שירת הברבור)
Udo Kier gets a lovely late-career showcase, and Leah Purcell directs a brustling but unfocused feminist Western.
(This dispatch is part of our coverage of the 2021 SXSW Film Festival.)
Much like time in a Tracy Lawrence song, the 2021 South by Southwest film festival marches on. However, while SXSW will continue on until March 20, the Narrative Spotlight section has reached its final day with two entries. The vast differences between this pair of features reinforces the level of variety found in this festival. The first of these closing Narrative Spotlight projects is a wistful yet joyous endeavor starring the one and only Udo Kier. Continue Reading →
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
WandaVision may have spoiled us. The first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier isn’t bad. It’s a solid dose of meat-and-potatoes superhero storytelling with a big screen feel. But it’s also very traditional, in a way that the first Marvel Studios show to hit our television screens simply wasn’t. That leaves the newcomer feeling a little disappointing by comparison. Continue Reading →
Au revoir là-haut (In Hebrew: להתראות שם למעלה)
Two old flames reuniting, a harried nursing home worker, and Dante Basco's family affair mark SXSW's Narrative Spotlight.
(This dispatch is part of our coverage of the 2021 SXSW Film Festival.)
One year ago, the idea of doing a virtual version of the South by Southwest film festival would have sounded like an insurmountable task. Now, it’s just one more piece of “normal” life that we take for granted. For the second year in a row, SXSW has gone online and though that’s led to a lot of changes, that hasn’t altered the fact that the festival is still home to distinctly-rendered indie projects. Some of those films can be found in the Narrative Spotlight section of the festival, which kicked off with a trio of titles, including See You Then. Continue Reading →
Potato Dreams of America (In Hebrew: תפוח אדמה חולם על אמריקה)
SimilarHitman (2007), Rope (1948),
(This dispatch is part of our coverage of the 2021 SXSW Film Festival.)
As vaccinations soar, stimulus payments go through, and studios seem a bit more eager to get people back in theaters, it feels as though the days of COVID-era film consumption are drawing to a middle. To that end, I wonder if we'll miss the unfettered access and pyjama-based marathons virtual film festivals have allowed us. One hopes they'll stick around, given that virtual fests allow more and more people to access these small, independent films that could use all the eyes and exposure they can get. The 2020 SXSW Film Festival was the first to go virtual (and The Spool was one of the few outlets to continue to cover those entries!), so it's fitting that we've come full circle in 2021 with a more full-fledged virtual fest.
Keep an eye out at The Spool for dispatches on the major categories and full reviews of the festival's three headliners; in the meantime, let's dig through Day 1's offerings of the fest's Narrative Feature Competition. Continue Reading →