Adam Sandler's movies haver never represented the apex of cultural awareness, but they do tend to grapple, if somewhat brashly, with the finer points of human relations. In his latest raunchfest, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, the insolent comic creates "his stupidest character ever" (as an audience member muttered five minutes into last night's New York preview screening), but it's also his most symbolic one: Sporting a hyperbolic flair for disco music and using hummus as toothpaste, hardened Israeli soldier Zohan is a bloated creature of Semitic extremes.

Overall, however, the movie uses metaphors more than stereotypes. When Zohan and a furious Palestinian terrorist (John Turturro) use paddles to bat a live grenade back and forth, the result is a lowbrow editorial cartoon.

• Frank Capra, Jr. (1934-2007) - Pictured, son of film director Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life), with whom he worked as the second assistant director on the 1961 film Pocketful of Miracles. He also served as something of a Capra historian, providing introductions and commentaries on a number of DVD releases of his father's classics. He had his own projects as well, serving as an associate producer on Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Play it Again Sam, Marooned and the 1973 musical version of Tom Sawyer. He also produced Firestarter and Chuck Norris' An Eye for an Eye and was in charge of circus operations on the John Wayne movie Circus World, which was originally to be directed by Frank Sr. He died of prostate cancer December 19, in Philadelphia. (Variety)
• Mark Connolly (c.1962-2007) - Stunt man who was hit by a flying motorbike while working on Mission: Impossible II. He had just won a Supreme Court negligance case against MI2's second unit director Billy Burton when he died of cancer December 14. (Herald Sun)
• Joel Dorn (1943-2007) - Record producer at Atlantic Records in the 1960s and 1970s who went on to become an esteemed jazz archivist. He also served as music coordinator for John Sayles' Baby It's You. He died of a heart attack December 17, in New York. (Variety)
• John Harkness (1954-2007) - Toronto-based film critic who wrote for NOW magazine since its inception in 1981, as well as for Sight and Sound, Take One and the Cinemateque Ontario program. He also authored The Academy Awards Handbook. He died December 19 in Toronto. (MovingPictureBlog)
• Jack Zander (c.1908-2007) - Original animator of the character Jerry from Tom and Jerry; he worked on the Oscar-nominated Tom and Jerry shorts Puss Gets the Boot and The Night Before Christmas. He died December 17, in Pound Ridge, New York. (NY Times)

It must have been impossible to be a scene stealer in Frank Capra's You Can't Take it With You, but Charles Lane comes pretty close. He holds his own against the anarchic stylings of the Sycamore family as a straight IRS agent on a house call, and his inability to be patient with Lionel Barrymore's sweet Grandpa Vanderhof is priceless. Lane himself proved to be a much more patient man, especially where death was concerned. He lived a whopping 102 years before passing away on Monday night. He had lived so long, in fact, that he was reportedly one of the last to have survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (he was a year old at the time).

In addition to his short appearance in Capra's 1936 Best Picture-winner, Lane shows up in nine other films by Capra, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Arsenic and Old Lace, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and the one you're most likely to have seen him in, It's a Wonderful Life, where he plays a rent collector for mean old Mr. Potter (Barrymore again). According to a letter written to Lane from Capra, the actor was the filmmaker's "No. 1 crutch." Other classic films Lane appears in include Twentieth Century (with Barrymore again), The Music Man, Call Northside 777, Mighty Joe Young and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. His last big screen role was in that guilty pleasure starring Phoebe Cates and Emmanuel Béart, Date With an Angel. For more than sixty years, Lane was mostly a bit part character actor, usually typecast as some sort of judge, lawyer, salesman, clerk or agent, but he always commanded an audience's attention with his distinct features and speech.