the traveler's resource guide to festivals & films
a FestivalTravelNetwork.com site
part of Insider Media llc.
Connect with us:
Reviews
New York Jewish Film Festival 2026 Roundup
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 25 January 2026 22:21
- Written by Kevin Filipski
New York Jewish Film Festival
Through January 28, 2026
Walter Reade Theater, Film at Lincoln Center
filmlinc.org
The 35th annual edition of the New York Jewish Film Festival—co-presented by the Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center—once again presents an enticing mix of documentaries and features. Here are capsule reviews of a handful of films I saw:
 |
Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause
Charles Grodin was many things: a terrific actor onscreen and onstage; an acerbically funny talk-show guest; and an impassioned political talking-head in the early days of MSNBC. All that is covered more than adequately in James L. Freedman’s heartfelt documentary, which includes interviews with many of his Hollywood colleagues and friends: Robert DeNiro and Martin Brest (his Midnight Run costar and director), Steve Martin, Elaine May, Martin Short, Carol Burnett, Ellen Burstyn and many others. But what’s eye-opening is Grodin’s activism for prison reform: he helped get several women who were wrongly jailed for drug offenses. There are countless hilarious film clips and appearances on Carson and Letterman, but the most poignant moments are the heartrending testimonials from the women Grodin helped release from prison.
All I Have Is Nothingness
When Claude Lanzmann died in 2018, his legacy was already cemented by his unforgettable nine-hour film Shoah, which eschewed archival Holocaust footage to instead let those who perpetrated and were victimized by the Nazi killing machine speak. Guillaume Ribot has made a valuable making-of feature using never-before-seen footage of Lanzmann meeting and ingratiating himself with several Shoah subjects and families. Lanzmann comes off as passionate, overbearing but always respectful—the perfect artist to create such a monumental work of witnessed history.
Orna and Ella
The closing of Orna and Ella, a beloved restaurant in Tel Aviv, after 25 years is recounted in this touching documentary by director Tomer Heymann, who records the final weeks leading up to the closing with sympathy and tact. We see these two graceful chefs-restauranteurs—whose intimate location was a rarity in that it made its own breads, pastas and ice cream on the premises—at the center of a bittersweet look at a beautiful personal and professional partnership.
Out of Exile: The Photography of Fred Stein
Renowned photographer Fred Stein, who grew up in Germany before fleeing Hitler and becoming famous after moving to France and America as a street portraitist and candidly capturing the likes of Albert Einstein, is the subject of this intimate documentary by his son Peter Stein and Dawn Freer. The filmmakers explore Fred’s compelling biography as well as a look at how his legacy is being handled by scholars and museum curators who are creating exhibitions of his historically important work.
Sapiro v. Ford—The Jew Who Sued Henry Ford
This little-known but important story about a Jewish lawyer and labor activist who sued Henry Ford for libel in 1927 after the racist mogul ran a smear campaign against him in his Detroit newspaper is recounted in Gaylen Ross’ enlightening documentary. Stephen Kunken engagingly recites Sapiro’s own words about his life, business and battle with Ford, while Ross effectively uses newsreel footage and Ford’s own words against him. The outcome of the suit—Ford agreed to a retraction, eventually shutting down his paper—was the first time hate speech suffered consequences in America, which up to that time had no laws governing its misuse.
Frontier
Judith Colell’s trenchant drama about the residents of a Spanish village near the French-Spanish border, who risk their lives to help Jewish refugees escape Vichy France, has very few melodramatic flourishes as it concentrates on the humanity of good people hoping for a small triumph over evil. The performances by a first-rate cast—led by Miki Esparbé as customs officer Manel, Maria Rodríguez Soto as his wife Merce, Bruna Cusí as helpful neighbor Juliana and Joren Seldeslachts as the local Nazi SS head—are superlative individually and together.
Fantasy Life (Closing Night)
Matthew Spear not only wrote and directed but also stars as Sam, a down-on-his-luck paralegal who gets a gig as a manny for a mostly invisible husband and his depressed and lonely wife, Dianne, watching their three young daughters, in this alternately amusing and enervating would-be rom-com. Although Amanda Peet is her usually winning self as Dianne, there’s nothing in Spear’s writing, directing, performance or bearing that would make anyone believe Sam would become her confidante and possibly something more.
Broadway Play Review—Jordan Harrison’s “Marjorie Prime” with June Squibb and Cynthia Nixon
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 25 January 2026 03:14
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Marjorie Prime
Written by Jordan Harrison
Directed by Anne Kauffman
Performances through February 15, 2026
Hayes Theatre, 240 West 44th Street, New York, NY
2st.com
 |
| June Squibb in Marjorie Prime (photo: Joan Marcus) |
When Marjorie Prime premiered in 2014, A.I. was still in its speculative stage. But now, with A.I. quickly becoming an all-encompassing nightmare, the plot of Jordan Harrison’s play is now disturbingly prescient. It begins with Marjorie, an elderly widow, sitting in her modest living room talking with a friendly young man named Walter, who turns out to be Marjorie’s deceased—but AI-generated—husband, who is part of a new computer program comprising what are called Primes, developed to help grieving people remember loved ones as they once were, keeping their (and the survivors’) memory alive.
Marjorie’s daughter Tess, however, hasn’t completely bought into the new technology—it does have some bugs, like a Prime not having sufficient initial knowledge to have a substantive conversation—but hopes that her octogenarian mother’s failing memory is not rattled by a long-ago tragedy that happened to Marjorie and Walter’s beloved son (which has also affected Tess’ relationship with her mother). Tess’ supportive husband Jon, for his part, feels that there’s no harm in using a Prime and it might actually help if Marjorie hears about past events she may have forgotten, however painful. The intriguing first part of Marjorie Prime explores the ethics and morality of this new technology, which goes hand in hand with these characters’ feelings of guilt and grief.
But Harrison short-circuits interest in this tantalizingly dramatic dilemma by repeating the plot device, to ever diminishing returns. Two more Primes appear following a couple of deaths; obviously, overwhelming grief makes the decisions to use Primes plausible, but since one of the deaths is so contrived—and the flimsy explanation so unpersuasive—it severely cuts into the rest of the play’s ability to insightfully explore its urgently thorny subject.
It’s also hamstrung by the shoehorning in of pop-culture touchstones from Rosemary’s Baby and My Best Friend’s Wedding to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” (along with a mention of the Central Park installation The Gates), which is more cutesy than cutting. And the final scene shares thematic DNA with the ending of Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, to Marjorie Prime’s detriment.
Still, there are moments that are both slyly humorous and touching, like this exchange between Marjorie and Tess, laying bare their volatile but mutually needy mother-daughter relationship:
MARJORIE Oh no.
TESS What is it? (Marjorie’s face crumples. She shakes her head.)
TESS Mom, what is it? Did you have an accident?
(Marjorie gives a small nod, eyes down, deeply ashamed.)
TESS Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.
MARJORIE I’m sorry.
TESS Don’t be sorry.
MARJORIE I’m so sorry.
TESS It’s okay—It’s Shower Day after all.
Although Michael Almereyda is far from my favorite director, his 2017 film adaptation of Marjorie Prime—starring Lois Smith, who originated the role of Marjorie in Los Angeles and Off-Broadway, along with Geena Davis, Tim Robbins and Jon Hamm—“opens up” the play in a few subtle ways, including the introduction of characters only mentioned in Harrison’s script, and ends up more memorably affecting.
Onstage, the cast—under Anne Kauffman’s sharp direction on Lee Jellinek’s simultaneously realistic and symbolic set—can’t be faulted. Christopher Lowell makes an unnervingly gentle Walter and Danny Burstein is a sympathetic Jon. As Tess, Cynthia Nixon gives a devastating portrayal of a woman trying to bury long-held grievances, while 96-year-old June Squibb plays Marjorie with an oft-humorous bemusement that’s great fun to watch. Self-inflicted flaws abound, but Marjorie Prime still provides some needed theatrical food for thought.
Juilliard Orchestra Perform Beethoven & Ravel
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 19 January 2026 14:35
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Paula Lobo, courtesy Juilliard
At Lincoln Center’s wonderful Alice Tully Hall, on the night of Monday, November 10th, I had the privilege to attend a splendid concert featuring the precocious musicians of the Juilliard Orchestra, here under the distinguished direction of Fabien Gabel.
The event started impressively with an excellent account of Ludwig van Beethoven’s magisterial Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61, from 1806, with the accomplished James Birch as soloist. There’s some eccentricity in the introduction to the initial, Allegro ma non troppo movement—it is unusually complex and ambitious—but the music quickly becomes dramatic—the primary melody is especially beautiful, even haunting. The ensuing Larghetto is solemn too, while the Rondo finale, marked Allegro, is lively, dance-like and charming.
The second half of the evening was even more memorable, if only for the sterling rendition of Maurice Ravel’s extraordinary set of orchestrations—from his marvelous piano suite—Le Tombeau de Couperin, from 1919. In useful notes on the program by violist Noémie Chemali, who received a master’s degree from Juilliard 2022, she comments thus:
As Ravel notes, this work is “directed less in fact to Couperin himself than to French music of the 18th century,” a broader invocation of the Baroque keyboard tradition that shaped French musical identity.
She adds:
The movements most directly connected to Couperin—the Forlane and Rigaudon— draw inspiration from the Concerts royeaux, while the Prélude traces back to Couperin's pedagogical treatise, L'Art de toucher le clavier. The original piano suite was completed in 1917 with four movements, including a Fugue and Toccata that Ravel ultimately excluded from the orchestrated version he completed in 1919.
The opening, exquisite Prélude is more sprightly than might be anticipated in a work written as a memorial to fallen soldiers—it ends very softly. Also surprising is the seemingly even more playful Forlane that follows, but it is, again, thoroughly bewitching, if quirky; it too finishes gently. The succeeding Menuet is more lush and yet more transparently elegiac in tone—it closes very quietly. The concluding Rigaudon is energetic and brisk in rhythm—it also has a surprisingly cheerful quality, although the middle section is more subdued and slightly mysterious, but with ludic moments; the movement ends abruptly.
The concert finished enjoyably with a satisfying reading of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s enchanting Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543, from 1788. The Adagio introduction to the beginning Allegro is majestic, like the movement as a whole, and its musical material recurs throughout its main body which is more dynamic and at times celebratory. It precedes an Andante con moto that too has a somewhat weighty ethos and before long becomes more impassioned, but it’s not without serene measures. The consequent Menuetto, marked Allegretto, although less somber, retains an elevated approach, but the delightful Trio section is more jovial in spirit, while the Allegro finale is exhilarating and exultant. The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.
January '26 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 14 January 2026 22:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Streaming Releases of the Week
Christy
(Black Bear Pictures)
David Michôd’s fast-paced, Oscar-bait biopic about boxer Christy Martin—one of the first female (and first out lesbian) boxers to hit it big—Sydney Sweeney burrows into her character, trying on an outsized Dukes of Hazzard accent and enough sweaty physicality in her major awards-season bid.
Of course, the movie went belly-up at the box office—most likely because the conservatives who defended her jeans/genes ad didn’t want to actually see a queer heroine—but it’s certainly watchable, proficiently tackling the high (and low) lights from the undoubtedly dramatic life of a woman who fought all comers, including her abusive, and murderous, manager and husband (Ben Foster, in another amusingly overdone portrayal).
(Sony Pictures Classics)
Writer-director James Vanderbilt’s efficient dramatization of the postwar trials of Nazi officials spotlights Hitler’s right-hand man Hermann Göring, played menacingly but with a glint of amused hubris in his eye by Russell Crowe. His conversations with American army psychologist Douglas Kelley—played decently by Rami Malek—are the centerpiece of a film that gets many details right but doesn’t do much more than a documentary on the subject would.
There’s also the long shadow of Stanley Kramer’s self-important but memorably acted Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) but, in these fraught times, a Cliff’s Notes version might speak to us more pointedly.
In-Theater Releases of the Week
My Neighbor Adolf
(Cohen Media)
When Mr. Polsky, a Holocaust survivor living in a rural area of Colombia, notices that his new and reclusive neighbor seems somewhat familiar, he starts collecting evidence that Mr. Herzog is actually Hitler himself in Leon Prudovsky’s goofy comedy-drama that has some laughs but never follows through on its premise.
David Hayman is an amusingly exasperated Polsky and Udo Kier a wonderfully expressive Herzog, but the actors are let down by Prudovsky and Dmitry Malinsky’s soggy script, filled with superficial rather than subtler moments.
(Neon)
This second adaptation of Donald Westlake’s sly novel The Ax—the first was a leaden Costra-Gavras film in 2005—Korean director Park Chan-wook’s version is less clunky but still too scattershot to truly work. When Man-su, a longtime employee of a paper factory, is laid off, he scrambles to find a new job while his stay-at-home wife, messed-up teenage son and young cello prodigy daughter all deal with what becomes a shockingly pared-down existence. Desperate, Man-su decides to get rid of any competitors for a job by killing each off.
What in Westlake’s book is a spot-on satire on the excesses of capitalism—especially of the era it was written, in the late ‘90s—becomes in Park’s hands amusing but numbingly repetitive. So many sequences are dragged out that, accompanied by chipper music (when it’s not somberly classical), Park’s directorial sledgehammer is never more apparent. Even the acting, especially by Lee Byung-hun as the put-upon protagonist, suffers by approaching hysteria quickly instead of by degrees.
Sirāt
(Neon)
In Olivier Laxe’s apocalyptic slowburn, a father and his young son join a group of ravers in the Moroccan desert to look for his missing daughter; soon, though, the group starts being picked off one by one in a vast, unforgiving landscape that has become a theater of war.
It begins promisingly but, as Laxe ratchets up the tension, his characters are interchangeable and mostly unsympathetic, which turns the film into a miserabilist stunt, viscerally effective but emotionally remote. And when the minefield explosions take over, it becomes a surprisingly lax and ultimately pointless exercise.
Respighi—Maria Egiziaca
(Naxos)
Italian composer Ottorino Respighi’s 1931 theatrical triptych follows the prostitute Maria of Alexandria, whose sacrifice later earned her Catholic sainthood, in a dramatically tense account accompanied by some of Respighi’s loveliest music. This audio recording of Pier Luigi Pizzi’s 2024 Venice production centers on the fiery aliveness of soprano Francesca Dotto, whose Maria could have been merely symbolic but instead is a flawed, fully achieved protagonist.
Respighi’s score sounds luminous performed by the Venice State Opera orchestra and chorus under the baton of Manlio Benzi. The Blu-ray of this staging was released more than a year ago, and the visuals add immeasurably to the powerful story.
More Articles...
Newsletter Sign Up
Upcoming Events
No Calendar Events Found or Calendar not set to Public.