Newlyweds Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are taking Krav Maga lessons, according to The Daily Mail. The couple started learning the Israeli military-style form of self-defense as part of their preparations for their second film together, By the Sea, which was written and will be directed by Jolie.

It’s their first joint appearance on the big screen since 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and apparently they’re going to play a married couple again. An unnamed and totally authentic-sounding ‘source’ told Us Weekly that the film will feature some “crazy sex scenes,” but other than that, plot details are scarce. We have so many questions: Will the film feature a fight sequence? Does Jolie play a Mossad agent? Could the Krav Maga moves be executed in the middle of a sex scene, thus giving it a unique, “crazy,” Israeli flavor? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

For now, here’s what we do know: Brad’s lost some excess poundage, Angelina’s happily reliving her Tomb Raider days, and even the kids are getting into it. Krav Maga—a recipe for celebrity shalom bayit.

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In a case of life imitating art imitating life (or something), the North Korean government has condemned Seth Rogen and James Franco’s forthcoming comedy about the assassination of dictator Kim Jong-un. In “The Interview,” due out in October, the duo play a talk show host and producer who manage to secure a coveted, improbable interview with the North Korean leader—and are then recruited by the CIA to kill him.

The Telegraph reports that a spokesman for the regime, Kim Myong-chol, said the movie “shows the desperation of the US government and American society.” He cautioned President Obama to “be careful in case the US military wants to kill him as well,” and argued that James Bond films “are much more enjoyable” than Rogen-Franco productions. (Clearly, he hasn’t seen their parody of Kanye’s Bound 2.)

Still, Kim Jong-un is apparently planning to watch the movie. And Rogen is delighted by the accidental publicity coup. When crazy dictators condemn satirical take-downs, everybody wins!

Apparently Kim Jong Un plans on watching #TheInterview. I hope he likes it!! http://t.co/5VrsgYlydE

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) June 20, 2014

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J.J. Abrams, the force behind “Star Wars: Episode VII,” is offering one lucky fan the chance to win a walk-on role on the super-secretive set of the movie. All you have to do is give a bit of tzedakah, via the ‘Force For Change’ charity campaign the director is spearheading for UNICEF.

“We want to put you in the movie, in Star Wars,” Abrams explains in the promo video. “You get to come to London, where we’re shooting the movie mostly at Pinewood Studios…You’ll get to meet the cast, go behind the scenes, and see the whole movie-making process. But more than that, we’ll put you in hair, makeup and wardrobe, and you’ll actually get to be in the movie.”

Various items are being auctioned off Kickstarter-style—there’s a ‘Force for Change’ t-shirt for $100, and an advance private screening for you and 20 of your best friends for a cool $50,000. (If only.) Happily, everyone who donates $10 or more enters the draw to win the set visit.

Money raised will benefit UNICEF’s Innovation Labs, which supports the development of all sorts of cool gadgetry to improve the lives of children in developing countries, like solar-powered learning kits, and mobile phone apps to help reunite families in the event of an emergency.

Click, donate, and may the force be with you. (C’mon, I had to.)

Image: Omaze

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Zach Braff’s new film, ‘Wish I Was Here,’ is the viral media gift that keeps on giving: first there was the (controversially) crowd-sourced fundraiser on Kickstarter, then there was the much-hyped Sundance debut, then there was the teaser trailer, and now—finally!—the full-length trailer, featuring a dog called Kugel and a rabbi who thinks personal happiness is overrated.

Braff—who wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the film—appeared on the Today Show this morning with co-star Mandy Patinkin to promote the trailer (which features a new song from Garden State darlings The Shins, written specifically for the movie).

The casting of the Homeland star, it seems, was bashert: the two actors bumped into each other on the streets of New York, and Braff had to work up the courage to approach his childhood idol. “I’m so shy around famous people,” he explained. “But with Mandy I’m a lifelong fan… I was like, ‘C’mon, get your courage. You have to go talk to Mandy Patinkin.'”

A few months after the initial encounter, they ran into each other again. “We were at Fairway having breakfast,” said Patinkin, “and he said ‘I got this movie.’ I read it, I wept like a baby when I read it, it was about family, it was about my sons and the connection to my sons, everything I wish for in a story; if you love somebody, tell them… you only get so many [days], don’t waste it. He asked me and I went, ‘What, are you kidding?!’ He took one of those little selfies and we were off and running.”

Patinkin plays Gabe Bloom, the ailing father of Aidan Bloom (Braff), a thirty-something actor who is flailing spiritually and professionally. Highlights from the trailer include: a dog named kugel! A very old, mean rabbi who doesn’t care about happiness! An adorable child who thinks “hairy balls” is cursing! Jim Parsons holding a mask! The release date is July 18.

Image: Today.com

Related: Network Jews: Saul Berenson from Showtime’s Homeland
Zach Braff On His New Role In “Bullets Over Broadway” And Being An Emo Kid

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Well, here’s a story to warm the cockles of your heart.

Jewish actress Ginnifer Goodwin (who rose to fame on the cult HBO show Big Love) just tied the knot with her Once Upon a Time co-star Josh Dallas. But as Goodwin explained on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week, their wedding plans almost went awry the morning of the big day, when Goodwin’s wedding planner called her in tears, informing her that her car had been broken into and the couple’s ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) had been stolen. The star was all set to draw up a makeshift document, when fate—and two random Jews in Hollywood with really good Hebrew skillz—intervened. And they all lived happily ever after.

Get the full story here:

http://youtu.be/0s_xHJXDGuQ

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The teaser trailer for Zach Braff’s new Kickstarter-funded film, Wish I Was Here, has just been released. It contains very little dialogue (there is one notably twee line at the beginning—Braff’s character tells his daughter she can buy any costume wig she likes as long as it’s “unique and amazing, like you”*), and it doesn’t reveal much about the plot of the film, but the sound and aesthetics are pretty much Garden State redux—which is either the most amazing or worst thing on earth, depending on your feelings about Garden State.

Kate Hudson is cast as Braff’s wife, Mandy Patinkin as his ailing (possibly dying) father, and there are lots of lovely, sun-dappled shots of Los Angeles/California. At one point, we see Braff looking uber-serious as he follows a kippah-wearing man (rabbi?) down a hallway. And it’s all scored by The Shins’ “Simple Song,” from their 2011 album Port of Morrow.

The movie will be released on July 18.

Compare and share, guys:

WISH I WAS HERE

GARDEN STATE

*Does anyone actually talk like that?

Related: Zach Braff On His New Role In “Bullets Over Broadway” And Being An Emo Kid

(Image: Youtube)

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There’s a lovely piece up on the Jewish Currents blog by L.A.-based Yiddishist Hershl Hartman, who had the privilege of tutoring the late Harold Ramis for a Yiddish-speaking cameo in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Ramis plays L’Chaim(!), the Hasidic music producer to John C. Reilly’s washed-up titular rock star. In the all-too-brief scene, L’Chaim and Cox revert to Yiddish to avoid being overheard by prison guards. It’s a really zany, delightful Mel Brooks-ish moment.

Writes Hartman:

I provided the producers of Walk Hard with a transliteration of the lines I’d re-written, and they brought me a tape recorder in which to read the lines for the actors, weeks before filming began. Reilly, as the star, had disdained to use those aids, so most of my day on set was devoted to drilling him. To no avail. Finally, director Jake Kasdan had “idiot cards” made to be held off-camera so that Reilly could read his handful of Yiddish phrases during filming.

Ramis, on the other hand, met me in his trailer with the lines already memorized. I had only to correct some slight errors in pronunciation. He explained that, though he didn’t speak Yiddish as a child in his native Chicago, he had heard enough being spoken around him so that the task was not difficult.

Reilly’s accent is abysmal (it sounds like he’s auditioning for the role of Hans Lada in Inglorious Basterds), but it’s worth watching for Ramis. Flawless.

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Variety reports that Zach Braff’s Kickstarter-funded movie “Wish I Was Here” will be in movie theaters in New York and Los Angeles on July 18. (If you’re perturbed by the idea of a rich movie star soliciting squillions of dollars for a major film project via the internet poor, you’re not alone.)

Here’s the unofficial IMDB synopsis of the movie, which stars Kate Hudson and marriage-officiant extraordinaire, Mandy Patinkin(!):

Aidan Bloom, a struggling actor, father and husband, who at 35 is still trying to find his identity; a purpose for his life. He winds up trying to home school his two children when his father can no longer afford to pay for private education and the only available public school is on its last legs. Through teaching them about life his way, Aidan gradually discovers some of the parts of himself he couldn’t find.

Do we detect lightly Jewy undertones from the “conservative/Orthodox”-raised filmmaker? Let’s hope so!

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Oh, this is EXCELLENT news. The Wrap reports that Tina Fey is set to produce and star in a film adaptation of The Taliban Shuffle, a memoir by Kim Barker about her time as an “adrenaline junkie” war reporter in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Michiko Kakutani called it first, when she wrote this review for The New York Times in 2011:

It’s not just that Ms. Barker is adept at dramatizing her own adventures as a reporter — though she develops the chops of a veteran foreign correspondent, she depicts herself as a sort of Tina Fey character, who unexpectedly finds herself addicted to the adrenaline rush of war. It’s also that Ms. Barker has discovered a voice in these pages that enables her to capture both the serious and the seriously absurd conditions in Af-Pak (Afghanistan and Pakistan), and the surreal deal of being a female reporter there, with dating problems ranging from the screwball (a boyfriend competing to cover the same story) to the ridiculous (being romantically pursued by the former prime minister of Pakistan).

The book is described by publisher Random House as “darkly comic,” so it seems like good fodder for Fey’s sardonic sense of humor—we’re imagining Zero Dark Thirty meets The Paper.

And now, to celebrate, here’s Fey and Amy Poehler’s killer 2014 Golden Globes opening. ‘Cause why not?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT3uNSZpK7c

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Guess what! My new book, Love Me, just came out this week, and I am relatively confident that you are going to. Love it, that is. (I’ve spent a lot of time in therapy and I no longer need you to personally love me.)

It’s the scintillating sequel to my book Starstruck, which came out last year, and the second in my YA series set in the Golden Age of Hollywood. That “scintillating” is the precise word used by Kirkus Reviews to describe it, and if you’re at all familiar with how Kirkus normally reviews things, you’ll know that really means something. They also called it “sizzling,” “with more twists and turns than Mulholland Drive,” and a variety of other nice things. I’m sorry. I’m not a braggart by nature, but my grandmother is dead so now I have to tell you these things myself.

The bottom line is you should buy it, and you should also buy the first book in the series so you’ll know what’s going on. Let me put it this way, if you loved Valley of the Dolls, but thought what was really missing from it was a scene where your Yiddish-speaking great-grandmother complained to her Oscar nominated son about the fruit in her hotel (“it’s too shiny!”), then this is the book for you.

Anyway, in honor of the holiday we’re observing today, the delightful people here at Jewcy asked me to share my knowledge on how to celebrate a real old-fashioned Valentine’s Day in Hollywood, 1939. Ready? Here goes!

Wake up face down on the floor of a hotel, still fully clothed from the night before. Stagger to the bathroom and throw up. Ugh, is that really you in the mirror? Well, they can fix it in make-up. Light up a cigarette. Call the studio and have them send a car over and an errand boy with a change of clothes for you to leave in. Is the boy blind? No? Can they get a blind one? Well, can they blind him specially? Because seriously, no one can see you like this and live. Seriously.

Finish screaming at the secretary who refuses to cooperate. You’ll get her fired later today. Light another cigarette. Call down to order a huge elaborate breakfast, which you’ll charge to the studio. When it comes, send the whole thing away again immediately and pop a couple of those little green pills Dr. Lipkin prescribes to keep you up, up, up, peppy peppypeppy. And thin. Don’t forget thin. But you still have a headache, so you have to look around for some Scotch. Oh, there it is, under the bed. It spilled, but you can mop most of it up with a handkerchief and wring it into your mouth, the way you fed milk to the orphaned baby bird you found in the barn that time, back on your parents withered farm in the Dust Bowl, when you were a different person with a different name.

The studio car arrives with the blindfolded boy (it was the best they could do, you guess) who brings your clothes up to the room. He’s docile and surprisingly good-looking, and you briefly consider seducing him, but there’s no time. You have to get home for a Valentine’s Day photo shoot with your studio-mandated co-star in life and art. You despise each other, but manage to look convincingly in love for the cameras, as you always do. After the shoot his over, your co-star propositions you, “because it’s Valentine’s Day, what the hell.” You’ve got a throbbing pounding headache, but you figure, why not? Might as well go through with it once, just to see what you’re not missing.

It’s over quick, although you managed to make a lot of noise so the photographers packing up outside can go spread it all over town how you two are really in love. After a few final insults, you leave, feeling completely disgusted with yourself and the lie your life as become, and pop a few more green pills before you take the car over to see your actual lover, which has to be done in complete secrecy because a) you’re married b) they’re married c) you are of the same sex or d) they can’t do anything for your career. You spend a blissful few hours together indoors and in bed, fantasizing aloud about why you can’t do this all the time. Why you can’t just run away together and live on a farm or something. But you can’t, because then you wouldn’t be famous anymore, and you would rather be dead.

Oh, and you should probably fret out loud about Hitler and whether he’s really going to invade Poland or not, because this is 1939 and his decision could have serious repercussions for the whole world. You know?

That evening, the studio sends you on another date at the Cocoanut Grove with the despised co-star you nonetheless slept with that morning. You feel disgusted with yourself and full of self-hatred for this double life you’re leading. But the cameras, oh, the cameras. Pepped up on pills, you know you’re talking too fast, so you have a bottle of Scotch to slow you down. But things are going badly, and you know you’re acting not quite right, so you decide to leave. I mean, not before you manage to spill a plate of Lobster Newburg all over yourself and then vomit right at the feet of the coat check girl. You get in your car and immediately crash it straight into the wall of the Ambassador Hotel, possibly injuring or even killing an innocent bellman. Don’t worry, the studio fixers will take care of that and make sure his remains are returned to his loved one.

In the meantime, you figure you might as well get a room for the night and we find you in the morning exactly as you were at the beginning of this day. It’s just like Inside Llewyn Davis.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Buy LOVE ME for whoever you love!

Rachel Shukert, a Tablet Magazine columnist on pop culture, is the author of the memoirs Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going To Be Great. Love Me, the second in a series of three novels, is new from Random House. Her Twitter feed is @rachelshukert.

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