Mila Kunis, the awesome Jewish actress we can’t get enough of, has confirmed that she’s cooler than pretty much every other actress out there during a press junket for her upcoming James Franco-filled flick Oz the Great and Powerful.

Watch as she rolls with the punches—and the pick-up lines—in this hilarious interview with a starstruck BBC Radio 1 reporter.

Watch Mila Kunis’ Best Interview Ever [The Scroll] Previously: Awkward High School Yearbook Photos of Your Favorite Jewish Stars
Lisa Frank Unicorns Take Over Urban Outfitters—And Mila Kunis is on Board

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Flu season is upon us, and whether you’ve had it or been around people who have it, chances are you’re probably complaining about it. From sickly coworkers to sniffling family members, no one is safe.

What better way to fight the flu*—and stay stylish—than with these printable flu masks bearing the faces of your favorite Jewish stars? Just download the PDF, cut along the dotted lines, punch holes where marked and tie the mask on, and you’re all set! You can thank us later, once you’ve Purell-ed. Masks by the one and only Margarita Korol of Urban Pop Art Projects.

Option 1: The Larry David

It’s pretty, pretty, pretty gross out there with everyone coughing all over the place. Take a bold stand against all the sick people around you by pledging allegiance to the king of principled decision-making.

Printer-friendly Larry David flu mask [PDF]

Option 2: The Lena Dunham

You’re almost kind of getting it together this flu season, but not so much that you’ve actually gotten a flu shot or taken any real precautions. Never fear, the unflappable writer/director/tweeter has you covered—literally.

Printer-friendly Lena Dunham flu mask [PDF]

Option 3: The Jason Schwartzman

Bored to death of the interminable flu season? Stroll around Brooklyn fearlessly with Schwartzman’s mustachioed face atop your own. Moonrise Kingdom khaki scout cap sold separately.

Printer-friendly Jason Schwartzman flu mask [PDF]

Option 4: The Natalie Portman

Flu season got you on your toes? Take a page from the Black Swan herself and you’ll get an Aleph for effort.

Printer-friendly Natalie Portman flu mask [PDF]

Option 5: The Woody Allen

Show the world—or everyone on the subway, at least—that you’re so much more than a run-of-the-mill hypochondriac with this facial salute to the master alarmist himself.

Printer-friendly Woody Allen flu mask [PDF]

*Fine print: These paper masks probably won’t prevent the flu or any other real afflictions, but they’ll go a long way toward combating hypochondria and looking awesome.

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The New York Times reports that Benjamin Millepied, better known around here as Mr. Natalie Portman, has been named the new Paris Opera Ballet director in a surprising appointment. That’s because he’s something of an outsider, having spent most of his time away from his native France, most recently choreographing the Oscar-winning Black Swan and marrying Jewcy’s patron saint, Natalie Portman.

Congratulations, whatever. The real story here is that he’s taking Portman and their super-baby, Aleph, with him to France: “Mr. Millepied said he planned to continue running the L.A. Dance Project until he began his new job, when he would move to Paris with Ms. Portman and their son.”

Not cool, dude. We are nothing without the possibility of a downtown NYC Portman run-in.

Paris Opera Ballet Picks Outsider for New Director [NYT]

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Kunis, who we this spring reported may or may not have been briefly possibly dating Ashton Kutcher, seems super chill in real life though, telling James Franco this week in Interview, “I don’t live lavishly, so it’s not like I have 20 assistants and travel privately and shop every day. I actually live a very mediocre lifestyle. [laughs]”

She also says things like, “This industry can eat you alive. I think it feeds you a lot of bullshit and then spits you right back out.” Team Mila for life.

The post Mila Kunis Goes All Black Swan in Her New Dior Ads appeared first on Jewcy.

We probably should have asked Jesse Eisenberg if he expected to be nominated for an Oscar when we interviewed him a few months back.  Eisenberg’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network netted him a  a nomination alongside fellow M.O.T. James Franco and Jeff Bridges — who isn’t Jewish, but seems to work pretty well with them.  The Coen Brothers, who directed Bridges in True Grit, and Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan, are all in the running for Best Director.

Hailee Steinfeld, who was fantastic as Mattie Ross in True Grit, is up for Actress in a Supporting Role, and even though the Jewish Journal says “Israel does not make the cut,” Natalie Portman looks to become the first Israeli-born actress to win the major award. We’re pretty sure that “Team Portman” will be in full effect on February 27th.

Look down the list of all the nominees.  It’s a litany of Jewish names among dozens of actors, actresses, writers, directors and other brilliant film people

The post Jewish Oscar Nomination Roundup appeared first on Jewcy.

• A pep rally in Jerusalem: “Any Jewish woman who goes with an Arab should be killed; any Jew who sells his home to an Arab should be killed.”

• The score for Black Swan gets denied an Oscar nod.
  

• Ken Krimstein draws some comics over at the Jewish Book Council blog.

• The 100 greatest Jewish songs EVER!!!

• Neal Pollack talks about the books he read in 2010.

The post Daily Jewce: Jerusalem Hosts Rally To Restore Insanity, Black Swan Score Denied, Comics, Jewish Songs And More appeared first on Jewcy.

So about Black Swan: it was definitely no Bring It On or Clueless. When I posted on Twitter that I was going to see the film, a couple of tweeps asked me to write my thoughts on it. So, if you’re coming for your usual chicken Caesar from Chop’t at FFJD headquarters and want to stamp your frequent buyer card, this might not be it. This is also not a traditional review.

But it’s very important, nonetheless. And I am basically the female version of A.O. Scott. Sometimes we need we need to put on our smart girl, critical film yarmulke.

I won’t spoil the movie for anyone, but I will say that this was by far one of the darkest, scariest, and most grotesque movies I’ve ever seen. But for me, and for a lot of other women, what took center stage wasn’t the bouts of crazy. It was Natalie Portman’s body.

Jezebel wrote a piece criticizing the praise of Natalie Portman for excessive “discipline” for the role. Basically, argued Jezebel, Portman lost 20 pounds she didn’t have to lose, ate nothing, and trained for eight hours a day. AKA, she had an eating disorder. Call it what you want, “dedication to a role,” but let’s call a spade a spade: Portman’s body in the movie is nothing short of horrific.

Presumably, that was the point- to show the pain of Nina, a crazed, neurotic, and psychologically disturbed woman, via her body. Furthermore, I presume that beyond allowing her to physically manifest Nina’s inner turmoil, losing so much weight also allowed Portman to connect with the character on a deeper and more truthful emotional level. Psychoses aside, Portman’s rail thin physique was also crucial to painting a realistic picture of the ballet world.

But this really hit home for Portman devotees, about 90% of whom are Jewish. Natalie Portman is the girl of every Jewish boy and girl’s dreams. I myself have fallen victim to her beauty, her brains, and her talent. When I met her, I told her that I thought that she was an amazing example for young Jewish women. She thought I was a nut, but I guess I got my point out there.

Seeing Portman’s body in this distressing state shined a bright and particularly poignant light on the sad reality of weight in ballet. Ballerinas are all about “pretty,” pink, tutus, femininity. The dream of six year old girls. However, as we see in Black Swan, ballerinas endure unbelievable pain for their bodies, especially when it comes to objective physical ideals can have devastating costs. Dancers often food (vomiting, the cake Nina refuses to eat, being praised during measurements for losing weight).

This film coincides interestingly with a reviewer who called the Sugar Plum Fairy in the New York City Ballet’s body resembled someone who had “one sugar plum too many.”

Other than exposing the depressing truth that ballet – an American cultural institution – encourages women to attain a deathly level of skinny, the movie was spectacular. So, go see it and tell me what you think.

_________

Email FFJD at fiftyfirstjdates@gmail.com

Follow FFJD on twitter and Be a Fan on Facebook!

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• A heartwarming tale about a “43-year-old college dropout from Los Angeles who says he made a lot of money in finance, became interested in Nazi memorabilia and ended up on an undercover odyssey where he posed as a neo-Nazi to befriend a former Waffen SS officer and recorded many of their conversations with the plan to someday expose the man’s role in the Third Reich.”

• Israeli hummus will continue to flow at Princeton University.

• The New York Mets are being sued by the trustee trying to recover money from the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.

• They should have just called this “fake-ass Mark Zuckerbergs.”

• Natalie Portman sports a very literary purse at the Black Swan premiere.

The post Daily Jewce: Israeli Hummus Will Flow At Princeton, NY Mets Getting Sued, Natalie Portman’s Book Bag And More appeared first on Jewcy.

A few months ago here at Jewcy, we wondered if Black Swan was going to be the best film of the year?  At that point, we only had a few indications on which to base such a sweeping prediction.  There was, of course, Darren Aronofsky’s trajectory as a filmmaker up to that point: four films equaling a body of work that rivaled the early efforts of any filmmaker and a bag of trick’s at his disposal that had the ability to astonish any viewer.   Other than that, a short trailer had been released that didn’t tell us much more than we already knew: Black Swan was a film about ballet dancers starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, but it subtly hinted at something more, something dark beneath the surface that in it’s subtleness and restraint, intrigued and titillated us more than some kind of fast cut, special effects light show, or gore fest.  Still, the question lingered, can Aronofsky pull off the visceral attack on the senses that he’s so beautifully executed in Pi and Requiem For a Dream or play to our empathy and tap into kind of humanistic venerability that he did in The Wrestler?  could he possibly pull of what we’ve come to expect as a “Darrenofsky flick” about ballet?  If so, it seemed safe to say that our prediction from this summer would hold as truth, Inception not withstanding.  Having witnessed the 107 minutes of unrelenting, often punishing film that make up Black Swan, it feels quite safe to say that, indeed, Black Swan is the year’s best film.

Black Swan revolves around a New York based ballet company’s production of Swan Lake, and follows around, Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman, as she struggles through the demands of being granted, and subsequently performing the shows lead role of the Swan Queen, which demands a dancer portray two characters, one that represent light and beauty, and another that represents darkness.   Mila Kunis plays the role of Lily, a new edition to the company who is the black swan to Nina’s white swan.  Nina neglects the social life of a pretty young woman living in the city entirely to spend every free minute practicing and preparing herself to dance by not eating and manipulating her body in various ugly ways.  Lily on the other hand, only practices when she’s at work, choosing to spend the rest of her time hitting the bars and clubs, getting drunk and getting laid, which she can do because her grace is natural, she doesn’t even warm up.  Barbara Hershey plays the role of Nina’s mother, a former dancer whose life centers around the care of her daughter, living vicariously through her career, keeping her daughter in something of a box, much like one that she keeps by Nina’s bedside, with the tiny spinning dancer inside.  Winona Ryder plays the role of Beth, a dancer who used to play the Swan Queen until Thomas, the company’s director, played by Vincent Cassel, decides to recast a younger, fresher swan.   Ryder, who’s chosen her roles carefully and sparingly since the shoplifiting incident so many years ago, plays this small yet seminal role beautifully, portraying a character whose every move is motivated by darkness.  A series of events unfold that prod and jar the viewer so as to feel plopped into the position of this desperate woman in coveted spot where potential threats lurk around every corner, many of which come from within.   Think of the The Shining, Nina Sayers is an amalgamation of the roles of both Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duval.

Simply put, Black Swan is the most visceral film to come out since Requiem For a Dream and in a many ways it’s a return to form for Aronsofky to the kind of out of the box creativity that he introduced in Pi and honed in Requiem. Only, in Black Swan the neurosis that he deals with is much more complex. Physical and emotional dependence, the kind he illustrates so beautifully in Requiem is something that most of us can identify, if not empathize with.  In Black Swan, it’s an obsession with perfection that drives our protagonist to the inferno that’s in store for her, the kind that drives anorexic’s and cutters, as much as it does Olympic athlete.  Nina ripping apart her fused toes, cracking and shoving different body parts in and out of place and peeling away at layers of her skin is akin to Jared Leto shoving a needle into the puss-filled purple crater in his arm at the end of Reqiem for a Dream.  His evocation of the grotesque in frighteningly real circumstances, in this film, feels like an unequivocal nod to Cronenberg, a surprise, coming from a director who rarely nods — unless Kubrick is at the opposite end.  His take on eroticism, purity and gender in this film, also goes a level deeper than he has in the past.   Aronsofsky also revisits the kind of creative trickery that tempered his first two films.  It’s the kind of thing that would have many critics writing off a director as being gimmicky or overly stylized, but Aronofsky executes them with such control and restraint that it never feels that way.  When Portman spins early in the film to practice for the finale of Swan Lake (in which a dancer spins around at least ten times in a row) the camera spins with her, swinging and stopping, swinging and stopping, which somehow never has a “look what I can do” underpinning.  Importantly, Aronofsky also incorporates the over-the-shoulder biographical storytelling style of The Wrestler, a film that for the most part lacked the stylized photographic tricks of his earlier films.  Black Swan has the best of the three films, at the same time incorporating the mind bending, cerebral intricacy of The Fountain.  We know from very early on in the film, as Nina waits on the subway and a ominous sound effect jangles our bones, putting us in the shoes of a young woman alone on a creepy subway, that we are watching a film in this directors body of work.  It’s warning for what is to come, a final onslaught of madness that mirrors the dizzying over the top conclusion to Swan Lake.

Some people may not like Black Swan and I don’t think it’s unfair to say that –like  was the case with Stanley Kubrick– a lot of this director’s best work will take time to be appreciated.  The dialogue for some will feel awkward and borderline campy.  The motif of duality, the dark and the light, to some might feel like a clobbering over the head not unlike all six seasons of Lost.  In the theater while watching this film, after long stretches of intense psychic attack, the audience’s reaction tended toward the humorous, laughing after some of the most macabre moments in the film.  What most will fail to grasp is the mastery over emotions the director displays during these moments.  Some of the dialogue is somewhat absurd, yes.  In fact, it’s almost operatic in it’s grand, absoluteness.   It’s brash, like an aria by a fat lady wearing a horned Viking helmet, which is, indeed, the point.

There’s about a month left in the year, and yet, a lot might still happen.  This is just about when all the films gunning for this year’s Oscar’s are released.  Variables aside, there are few films thus far that have a chance at besting Black Swan.  Of course, Inception for many is first thought, and a fair one.  Nolan and Aronosfky are the most exciting directors in the world of mainstream film today. Aronofsky debuted with more of a DIY attitude, finishing Pi by simply asking everyone he knew for a hundred bucks.  Nolan’s major debut, Memento, was far more sleek, however comparable to Pi in tone and ambition. A healthy rivalry between these two could make for an exciting future for film, particularly now that both directors have passed the proving stage of their careers.  Between the two, Aronofsky is  more likely to go for broke to satisfy an artistic vision. Famously, Aronofsky told Nick Cage after he’d been given the lead in The Wrestler that Mickey Rourke was the only person who could play the role, knowing it would cost him his budget.  While his commercial sensibility exists, it’s not as honed as Nolan’s and it’s less of a drive, either a good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

Meanwhile, few other films thus far even come close to compare.  I Love You Philip Morris, soon to be released is a beautifully executed adventure to story, almost a gay Catch Me If You Can.  The Social Network, like Fincher’s Zodiac, succeeds as an experience, without the kind of staying power a great film demands.  There’s still time but there don’t seem to be any releases on deck that will make the difference.  Aronofsky in all his films, but especially in this most recent effort, does one thing better than any other director, he makes a film feel like it’s happening to you, he grabs you by the fucking collar and says, “Watch the pretty ballet!” and then he stabs you in the face.

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