Israel Tagged Articles at Cinematical

At least once every month -- and especially during the recent Apatow craze -- my friend and I briefly discuss the heartbreaking awesomeness that is The Last American Virgin (1982). Not only does this film feature one of the greatest soundtracks in movie history, but also included is this vicious tonal shift that sticks with you (in my case, for years and years ...). The flick came up once again in a conversation the other day, and only two hours later we received an email from a dude who wrote up a solid piece on the history of the Israeli teen sex comedy series Last American Virgin is based on, beginning with the one and only Lemon Popsicle (or Eskimo Limon) as it celebrates its 30th anniversary.

Consisting of nine different films, the Lemon Popsicle series is kinda like the American Pie series here in the states, except the former always focused on the same three guys and whatever horny misadventure they found themselves in at the time. Some suggest Lemon Popsicle inspired Porky's (released the same year as LP's American remake, Last American Virgin) -- which, of course, helped inspire the teen sex comedy genre going forward -- and there's no denying its influence on the future of the teen sex comedy; the pop-centric soundtrack, the awkward set of friends (fat guy, cool guy, nerd formula), the story beats (losing of virginity) and so on.

If you're a fan of the genre (and a lot of us are), definitely check out Oren's article, How To Stuff A Lemon Popsicle, over at Films in Review. What do you think? Without Lemon Popsicle, do you think we'd have films like Superbad?

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.

This past weekend kicked off the 12th annual Tel-Aviv International Student Film Festival, an event that was to feature master filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard as one of its honorary guests. But this morning, it was announced that Godard has backed out due to "circumstances beyond his control." Those circumstances, according to someone close to the filmmaker's office, are related to political pressures brought about by a group called The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Godard received an open letter from the group last week urging him to cancel his trip to Israel, making comparisons between the Jewish state and South Africa during apartheid.

Considering the recent celebrations of Cannes 1968, which was partially shut down by protesting filmmakers, including Godard (who wanted the festival to continue, though without prizes awarded), it's interesting to see the Breathless filmmaker still boycotting festivals after all these years. Of course, politics aside, it's probably of great disappointment to the young future filmmakers who were looking forward to meeting the cinema legend.

Not the act, or even the movie about performing the act in the city, but the word "sex" from advertisements in Jerusalem and Petah Tikvah (which is where the Egyptian musicians were trying to go in The Band's Visit, remember?). Apparently the large religious population of both cities isn't comfortable with the word appearing on ubiquitous billboards, which puts the Israeli distributor of this summer's Sex and the City in a tough spot. Advertising that includes the film's title is out.

Now, it is kind of funny that while the movie can be shown anywhere, ads for it are banned in certain cities because they include the word "sex." But it might not be as petty as it seems at first glance. After all, people have to make an affirmative choice to go see the movie in a theater, or rent it on DVD; billboard and poster advertising is invasive and inevitably confronts unwilling audiences. It's not necessarily irrational to let theaters show the film but ban certain forms of promotion that everyone will see. This sort of thing isn't unprecedented in the United States: we permit sales of tobacco, for example, but ban television advertising and, in many communities, billboards near schools; we permit pornography, but not always graphic advertising for same. The ban on "sex" strikes me as the same sort of thing. You can still argue that a sensibility that is offended by any mention of the word "sex" is itself silly, but that's a can of worms.

[story in USA Today, via Movie City News]

I wasn't wild about seeing The Band's Visit. From the publicity materials, it looked like another one of those watered-down, Hallmarky foreign-language films that have slowly seeped into the American box office, stuff like Like Water for Chocolate, Il Postino or Life Is Beautiful that appeals to wide audiences without ever rising above pure fluff. (Many of these films fell under Harvey Weinstein's scissors, and were each similarly shaped according to his commercial instincts.) But happily The Band's Visit has its own rhythms and personality apart from all this. It's a crowd-pleaser, to be sure, but an expertly crafted and hugely rewarding one.

Written and directed by Eran Kolirin, making his feature debut, the film is a member of that great, but underused genre: disparate personalities thrown together by unexpected circumstances, like Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944), Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men (1957) or John Hughes' The Breakfast Club (1985). The Band's Visit sets up its visual displacement right away, as the eight members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Band from Egypt wait at an Israeli airport, on an almost abandoned, sun-baked platform, vainly hoping that their hosts will pick them up. They stand, starch-stiff in their immaculate uniforms, silent instruments crated at their feet. The leader, Tawfiq (Sasson Gabai, also in Rambo III -- no kidding) decides to take action. He orders the band's youngest member, a tall ladies man, Khaled (Saleh Bakri) to get directions. But in speaking to an attractive girl behind a counter, he gets the wrong pronunciation and the band winds up in a desolate town on the far side of the country.

As I reported over the weekend, Israel's submission for next year's foreign-language category at the Oscars is The Band's Visit, a well-received comedy about an Egyptian police band that gets lost in Israel. It swept the Ophirs (Israel's Oscar equivalent), winning eight awards including best picture and best director. It won awards at Sarajevo and Cannes. And Sony Pictures Classics reportedly paid more for it than anyone has ever paid for an Israeli film.

So what's the problem, Oscar-wise? It might have too much English in it.

L.A. Weekly's Nikki Finke reported on Sunday that the film's "rivals" -- people involved with movies that weren't selected, one assumes -- are claiming that more than 50 percent of The Band's Visit's dialogue is in English. The Academy rules for this category (which you can read in their entirety here) simply say that to be eligible, a film must be "predominantly" in a language other than English. The rules don't give specifics about percentages.

Cinematical's James Rocchi saw the film at Toronto (and liked it). His recollection is that it was mostly in Hebrew and Arabic without too much English. He told me: "The use of English to me seemed like either a) people talking about song lyrics or other concerns in the language they were written in or b) a natural sort of meeting place -- 'I speak Arabic; you speak Hebrew; we both speak bad English....'"

The Academy won't get into it until after the Oct. 1 submission deadline. If they decide the film is not "predominantly" in a foreign tongue, they'll disqualify it -- and it won't be the first time. Just two years ago, Singapore's entry, Be with Me, was bounced for this very reason. We'll keep you posted on the fate of Israel's film.

As we've reported on various countries' candidates for the Best Foreign Language Film category at next year's Oscars, we've observed that many of them are longshots at best. Countries like the Philippines and Singapore have never even secured a nomination in the category, let alone a win. That's not to say it won't happen this year; just that it's not as likely.

But now two countries with solid Oscar track records have announced their entries: Israel is putting up The Band's Visit, while the Czech Republic offers I Served the King of England. Israel has submitted a film every year since 1977 and fairly regularly before that, earning six nominations but no wins so far. The Czech Republic had six nominations including two wins back when it was Czechoslovakia; since the split in 1993, Czech Republic has had three nominations, with a win in 1996.

Israel's The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret) automatically became its Oscar entry when it took the top prize at the Israeli Film Academy Awards on Thursday. The comedy, about an Egyptian police band that gets lost in Israel, won the audience award at the Sarajevo Film Festival and the Jury Coup Du Coeur in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes. It also played at Toronto, where Cinematical's lovely and talented James Rocchi reviewed it favorably. Sony Pictures Classics is set to release it in the U.S.; Variety says the amount they paid was a record for an Israeli film.

I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále) is based on an epic novel and spans years before and after World War II. It was directed by Jiri Menzel, whose film Closely Watched Trains won the Oscar back in 1968.

If I said to you "Want to go to Jerusalem?" your first reaction probably wouldn't be: "What movies are playing there?" but that's the way my diseased mind works. So I did a little surfing and found the site for the Jerusalem Cinematheque. They show up to five different films every day, and the programs are fascinating. For example, on Monday, August 20, they're screening Because I Said So (Diane Keaton today), Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Diane Keaton in the '70s), Odette Toulemonde (a recent comedy from France/Belgium) and Le Process de Jeanne D'Arc (Robert Bresson's 1962 version). Next Friday they're showing the latest Pirates of the Caribbean, two by David Fincher (Zodiac and Se7en) and the 1938 Pygmalion. Other titles this month include lesser-seen films by Samuel Fuller, Peter Bogdanovich and Clint Eastwood, plus a good selection from France and India.

As far as mainstream movies go, you can rest assured that Israelis are also subjected to the likes of Rush Hour 3, Bratz: The Movie and No Reservations. (They're even showing Evan Almighty.) But there are also Israeli titles like The Secrets ("two women discover their own voices in a repressive orthodox culture"), Beaufort (tense months for young soldiers just before Israel pulled out of Lebanon), Noodle (Mili Avatal (pictured) as a widowed flight attendant dealing with an abandoned Chinese boy), Stefan Braun (a very personal doc in which a man grieves for his lost love), News From Home (Amos Gitai's doc about memory and identity) and Jellyfish (an acclaimed drama about three women in Tel Aviv).

Beyond that generous assortment to choose from, a number of independent foreign films are playing. Some have already opened in the US (La Vie en Rose, The Boss of It All, The Golden Door, Private Fears in Public Places, After the Wedding, Sunflower ), while others have not (Irina Palm, Hunting and Gathering). Overall, I'd have to say that Jerusalem has an enviable variety of films playing.

For many of us, no film can offer a full comprehension of the suicide bomber. A fictional film like the Oscar-nominated Paradise Now can attempt to humanize him and an in-depth documentary like Pierre Rehov's Suicide Killers can give a rounded discussion of motives, but it is impossible to really put a viewer in the shoes and mind of such a person. Film can serve as an excellent stepping stone, though, and while a fictional story is fine to pique interest in the subject, it is Rehov's documentary, with its intent to fully explain and analyze, that gives us the better introduction.

Suicide Killers is not exactly an educational starting point, and it does not go too much into the history or politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Instead it is more of an essay documentary in which Rehov sets out to understand the psychopathology of the Palestinian suicide bomber. The film features a number of mental health experts weighing in on reasons and incentives, some of which are obvious or well-known like brainwashing and the promise of eternal paradise. Other explanations are more complex, such as the idea that suicide bombers are subconsciously responding to their heightened sexual repression and frustration.

In the city of Jerusalem, soldiers patrol the streets and perform routine ID checks. It is a place on constant terror alert, and the military presence helps to maintain a defense against the Palestinian threat. In the Israeli film Close to Home, most of these female soldiers are like Smadar (Smadar Sayar), a woman apathetically serving her compulsory duty who would rather goof off during her shift than confront Arabs. Recognized by her superiors as a possible slacker, Smadar is partnered up with a goody-goody named Mirit (Neama Shendar), who none of the women like. Just as in every other story of a mismatched pair forced to work together, the two slowly become friends.

Close to Home is no buddy-cop, action-comedy, though. Basically it follows the same pattern of the genre, but it leaves out the action and the comedy so all that is left is a predictable narrative with no entertainment appeal. Even with its likeable, attractive leads, the film is a lifeless effort from writer-directors Vidi Bilu and Dalia Hagar.