Netflix taketh away, but surely Netflix giveth again.

While a number of films will leave the streaming service come June (bye, Men in Black!), there’s a whole new roster of movies set to take their place, from Star Wars: The Last Jedi to Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (get you some early Kat Dennings). Plus, a couple of the films, both foreign, are explicitly Jewish. Here’s what you should keep an eye out for:

Maktub debuts on June 15th. The 2017 film is a dark comedy out of Israel. It starts with parallels to Pulp Fiction—a couple of thugs survive violence (a terrorist bombing) when out to eat after a job. Shaken from their experiences, they decide to take another path. The pair steals notes from the Kotel, and decide to make the prayers of supplicants come true, using the skills from their old job (strong-arming). Shenanigans ensue, especially because when the criminals exited their old life, they took the boss’s cash with them.

Maktub stars Israeli TV superstar duo Guy Amir and Hanan Savyon. As of January, the film was even slated for an American remake. So now’s your chance to say that you watched the original before everyone was talking about the English-language version, and that you liked the Hebrew one better.

To Each, Her Own (originally Les Goûts et les couleurs) drops towards the end of the month, June 24th. There’s not much information about the recent French film online, but Netflix describes it thusly: “Just as Simone works up the courage to tell her conservative Jewish family she’s a lesbian, she finds herself attracted to a male Senegalese chef.”

So, not much there, but it’s definitely an LGBTQ flick. The film’s director is Myriam Aziza, who has also done documentary work that touches on her own conflicted Jewish identity.

(Of course, this is only the new stuff. Netflix already has lots of Israeli and/or Jewish movies and TV.)

But if you’ve gotten through everything and need to wait for these movies, in the meantime, you can check out the trailer for Maktub below:

Still from Maktub via YouTube

The post Check Out Two Jewish Films Coming to Netflix appeared first on Jewcy.

Imagine a bunch of angry Jewish men in the same place, at the same time. Is it a daily morning minyan at a dying Conservative synagogue? Or is it a Noah Baumbach film? Yep, it’s the second one. The trailer is just out for The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), the writer-director’s latest project, fresh off of Cannes.

Jewcy is on a summer residency! To read this piece, and our others for July and August 2017, go to our big sister site, Tablet Magazine!

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The trailer is out for GLOW, an upcoming Netflix series starring your girlfriend and mine, Alison Brie (sorry, Dave Franco). And boy, does it look good.

“GLOW” is an acronym— and Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling is a real entertainment circuit that had its heyday in the 1980s, when this series takes place. Brie’s character, Ruth Wilder (please be Jewish, please be Jewish) is a struggling actor who winds up in the pro-wrestling business, where she finds an unlikely sisterhood, and empowerment and success in a way she never expected. Marc Maron also stars as Sam Sylvia, the somewhat skeezy director of the operation.

Historically, there weren’t that many Jews involved with GLOW, but two prominent performers, Chainsaw and Spike, aka the Heavy Metal Sisters (born Sharon and Donna Willinsky, respectively), were. But the new TV show is fictionalized, so here’s hoping. Regardless, the series features a diverse cast, and Brie is perfect and amazing, so we’re off to a great start.

Plus, Jenji Kohan is attached as one of the executive producers, so you really can’t go wrong. (Plus, former Jewcy and current Tablet writer Rachel Shukert is part of the production team.)

GLOW hits Netflix on June 23rd. In the meantime, check out the amazing, funny, touching trailer below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZqDO6cTYVY

Image via YouTube.

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Amy Schumer has announced that her next standup special will premiere on Netflix on March 7 (this reporter’s birthday, if you must know). This news is easy to miss, since it comes on the heels of a zillion other things she’s done lately.

Yes, Amy Schumer is many things, but idle is not one of them. Schumer had a roller coaster of 2016 (didn’t we all, Amy). She had a world tour. She faced controversy. She continued her TV show. It can be hard to keep track of what she’s even up to these days. So, we took some highlights of her 2016 (Seriously, we can’t possibly cover everything), and upcoming few months, so that we can easily see what’s been good for the actor, and what were her missteps.

Here we go:

Bad: In January, allegations of plagiarism surface against Schumer.

Good: In March, Schumer leaves a $1000 tip for her bartender when she sees Hamilton on Broadway.

Good: Schumer got to see Hamilton on Broadway.

Bad: In August, Schumer remains silent for an uncomfortably long time when one of her show’s writers makes some really offensive jokes on Twitter.

Good: The same month, Schumer’s memoir, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo comes out.

Bad: In October Schumer makes a Lemonade parody video, which many find offensive in its approach to the album’s social justice themes.  Her Medium post in response is a non-apology, which does not help matters.

Good: In November, Schumer celebrates one year with her boyfriend, Ben Hanisch. Is it gross to call him “dreamy?”

Good: In December, Schumer buys back the farm her family once owned and then lost when her family took a hit financially when she was a child.

(Probably) Good: Schumer is going to attend the Women’s March protesting the presidential inauguration next week.

(Maybe) Good: Schumer’s Netflix special, filmed in November 2016, debuts in March.

YOU DECIDE: Schumer’s film Snatched, co-starring Goldie Hawn, comes out in May.

We leave you with the trailer for Snatched, so that you may draw your own conclusions about the film you have not yet seen:

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In a way, the 2013 documentary “Brave Miss World” (recently released on Netflix) is two movies: It’s a celebrity biopic about Linor Abargil, the Israeli Miss World of 1998, and it’s the story of how a woman becomes an anti-rape activist.

Abargil was brutally raped in Milan at the age of 18 by travel agent Uri Shlomo Nur, just seven weeks before winning the Miss World crown. In order to heal and raise awareness about the prevalence of rape, she started a website for women to share their stories, and the film (produced and directed by Cecilia Peck) picks up in 2008 as she prepares to travel to meet them.

“Brave Miss World” offers viewers two distinct kinds of voyeurism: we see Abargil’s journey from Miss Israel to model to activist to Orthodox mother of twins, and we hear the tragic, intimate narratives of the rape victims Abargil visits and interviews, her brow furrowed in consternation and anger as she listens to their storms.

With no qualifications other than her own experience and her fame, Abargil travels from Ohio to South Africa doling out advice—even commands—to women who have been brutalized in countless ways. “I’m not going to tell you, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry for you, it’s so sad’,” Abargil says to one victim who doesn’t want to come forward to her family. “Ok, I can tell you that, but it’s not going to help you recover.” She valiantly goes on, telling the survivor, “You need to heal yourself and we need to push each other to do it, no mercy.”

Abargil has a message: speak out about your assault, for that way lies the land of the healed. “It’s the hardest thing to do, I know, to speak, but then, it’s like the best pill,” she tells a survivor. “It heals you.”

She is absolutely convinced of this by her own experience, and astounded by survivors who might prefer to mourn and heal privately. Her reaction to such women is equal parts endearing and unsound. “Why do you think all the victims—it’s really bother me, it’s why I’m asking—on TV they cover their faces? Why they don’t stand and talk about it?” She demands of a rape crisis center director, who patiently explains that many victims fear being shamed. Thanks to supportive family and friends, and a natural tenacity, Abargil is remarkably impervious to this stigma.

There is something supreme and even magnificent about her confidence. A group of teenage girls in South Africa—some as young as 13—confide that people don’t listen to them when they talk about being raped. “She just wants attention,” one says, mimicking the attitudes of their supposed protectors. “Even though she cries, she wants attention,” another girl recalls being told. They all nod in recognition.

“You know what you say when they tell you you want attention?” Abargil says. “You tell them, ‘Yes.’” The girls all laugh. “True! This is what I want. And if you don’t give it to me, I’ll cry louder.” It’s such a wonderful and restorative message for women of all cultures who are silenced and told that they are attention-seekers when they report rape, and Abargil conveys it with a zealous charisma.

It’s her confidence and intuition that told her how to talk to her rapist on the night she was abducted and attacked (It was only a one night stand, Don’t worry, I swear I’m not going to tell anyone), which probably saved her life. That same confidence took her from moderating a website where women write in with their rape stories, to meetings with Fran Drescher and Joan Collins—who both share their rape stories on camera—to law school and the office of the Attorney General.

But anti-rape activism is only one of the things Abargil becomes stubbornly attached to, against the advice of family and friends. She also begins a transformation midway through the film from a secular to a wholly religious—and I mean religious—existence. With the help of a flirtatious Breslov rabbi, Abargil pulls her family, gay best friend, and boyfriend (later husband), into the sphere of her new spiritual existence, replete with head covering, modest dresses, and a refusal to touch men. This is not a person who does things in half measures.

Victims of rape could do worse than have an advocate in the stunning, stubborn Abargil. But still, there’s something discomfiting about the way her grim cause is boosted by the cult of celebrity. While visibility is crucial to help raise awareness about important causes—think #BringBackOurGirls, or even Angelina Jolie’s mastectomy op-ed—”Brave Miss World” prompts the question: isn’t there something smarmy about those who need a celeb to say “I was raped” in order to care? Also, what is the long-term impact of public confession on rape survivors? Abargil’s thesis—that talking about sexual assault publicly is healing and cathartic—is not one she has arrived at through an education in psychology.

The two main threads of the film—celebrity biopic and activism—exist in tension with one another, rather than being complementary. Abargil’s conversion to ultra-Orthodox Judaism is surprising and largely unexplained; unsettling, even. And the fact that we need a white beauty queen to stamp her disapproval on African rape for it to come to our attention is extremely depressing.

But despite these aesthetic quibbles, the film is inspiring. There is something uplifting about a woman like Abargil, whose dogged approach to the things she wants spills over into a desire to help other women. A woman who gets everything she wants. A woman who survives a brutal rape by telling her rapist exactly what he wants to hear, who presses charges against him unsuccessfully in one country and—never discouraged—jails him in another. It’s uplifting to see a woman with such power, who never doubts her story or her right to happiness, or her belief that all other women deserve the same.

The post REVIEW: “Brave Miss World” Charts Linor Abargil’s Path from Israeli Beauty Queen to Anti-Rape Activist appeared first on Jewcy.

Come June 6th, you can catch me on a serious Netflix binge of Jenji Kohan’s hit jail-bird series, Orange is the New Black. The trailer released yesterday, and the gangs all back! Red, Taystee, and my personal favorite, Nicky, played by Jewish actress Natasha Lyonne, are all back for round two, and it’s clear that Piper’s WASP-y shell has hardened quite a bit from her stint in solitary confinement.

Although Laura Preppon’s character, Alex, will reportedly make her exit this season, she also appears in the trailer. And we see there’s a new matriarch on the block threatening Red’s cell-supremacy! Of course, her name is “Vee.” Such a tough jail-chic name. That one, abrupt syllable thing.

Check the trailer for yourself, and scroll below for a video of the cast summing up season 2. Let’s just say it’s “deep, dangerous, and extraordinary.”

(Image: promo)

The post ‘Orange is the New Black’ Season 2 Trailer is Here! appeared first on Jewcy.

There’s a lot of Jew-glam out there this television premiere season. From Lizzy Caplan’s portrayal of Virginia Johnson in Masters of Sex to Sarah Michelle Gellar and Amanda Setton’s The Crazy Ones, the season is awash in Jewish lovelies. Of course, there’s The Goldbergs, and don’t forget Andy Samberg’s new sitcom in which he plays a cop.

Perhaps in light of this tabulation, I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was to see a subtle leather yarmulka atop the head of an extra in a scene two minutes and forty-five seconds into The Blacklist—NBC’s new action-thriller series starring James Spader and Megan Boone, during an innocuous scene in the underbelly of the FBI or the CIA or whatever, when two flunkeys return with buckets full of files on Spader (“What do you want to know about him?” “Everything.”). But I was surprised! I was surprised because I know that guy— I know guys who work in Washington and wear subtle leather yarmulkas, and the idea that central casting has figured out that the Jewish extra is not a Satmar Chussid or a fat nebbishy friend, but a neatly attired modern Orthodox guy, seems to me symptomatic of a cultural shift not unrelated to the glut of Jewish glamor on the small screen this season: we’re not on the Upper West Side Shtetl anymore. That that leather yarmulka could be subtle enough to make its bearer frankly invisible suggests that Jewish practice and culture has acquired a ubiquitousness, much as Jewish actors have acquired a ubiquitous versatility that has taken them from being relegated to the ranks of Woody Allens and nagging mothers. It’s no longer a thing, one might say. My brother is married to a Jew, is how someone else might put it.

The ubiquity of Jewish actors and characters is the reason Jason Biggs’ character on Orange is the New Black fell flat. His overt Jewishness, while not offensive, as some critics suggested, felt extremely retrograde— it was so Jewish-character-circa-1977, in the Alvy of Annie Hall model; it was so not the ubiquitous and versatile millennial Jew— Schmidt from New Girl, Ari Gold from Entourage, Hannah Horvath of Girls. The Jewishness of these characters hangs from them comfortably, like a favorite garment (think of Hannah’s summer uniform of shorteralls), rather then constraining them like a straightjacket of neurotic ticks, or keeping them locked in to certain kinds of roles (narcissistic rich writer, mama’s boy, self-pitying, witty). And if The Goldbergs shows us anything, it’s that the Jewish family is even capable of calling up the nostalgia reserved for the homebred and the corn-fed: the Jew in American TV has transcended his status as special interest group to become positively American. These are some good times to a be a Jew in this country, if TV can teach us anything, which it probably can’t.

For more on the millennial Jew, be sure to check out Jewcy’s excellent series called “Network Jews“.

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It’s summer, which means time to hole up inside your apartment, crank the A/C up, and grab your laptop for some quality Netflix binge-watching. In that spirit, we present our streaming-friendly Network Jews summer installment, Netflix Jews. And what better show to start than with AMC’s addictive, critically-acclaimed crime drama Breaking Bad, which nabbed 13 Emmy nominations this morning?

When the final eight episodes of Breaking Bad begin airing on Aug. 11, all eyes will be on the cancer-ridden chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin Walter White (Bryan Cranston), his former partner Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), and Hank, the DEA agent brother in law (Dean Norris) who SPOILER just figured everything out. But the show has taken on an increasing number of supporting characters as Walt’s business expands. The first and longest-lived of these adjunct members of the White empire is lawyer Saul Goodman. Played with delightful smarm by Mr. Show star Bob Odenkirk, Saul has provided Walter with much-needed extra-legal advice (helping set up Walt’s former employer as a money laundering front), assistance in sticky situations (using his secretary to throw Hank off the trail of Walt’s RV), and most importantly for viewers, a stable source of comedy on a show that is usually deadly serious.

Breaking Bad may be on its last eight episodes, but a Goodman-based spinoff now seems to be in “full speed ahead” development—good news for some fans, aggravating for others, and as good a reason as any to catch up on the show.

OK, fine. Saul Goodman is definitely not Jewish. He’s Irish (his real last name is McGill), and he changed his name because he wanted to attract clients interested in hiring a Jewish lawyer. His family life isn’t particularly kosher, either—he claims to have caught one of his ex-wives having an affair with his stepfather. But that’s not to say Saul doesn’t have Jewish qualities. In trying to present himself as a Jewish stereotype, Saul becomes a dark reflection of those same stereotypes—a conniving lawyer obsessed with his own bottom line.

Saul debuts in the appropriately titled Season 2 episode “Better Call Saul” as a so-called criminal lawyer rather than a criminal lawyer called in to counsel Walt’s snatched dealer Badger (Matt L. Jones). Saul is a cheesy lawyer prominent enough that his ads are displayed on the bench Badger gets arrested on, right before he’s properly introduced in this horrifying ad showcasing his lack of ethics and Constitution-draped office.

After Walt and Jesse kidnap him to ensure Badger doesn’t rat them out, Saul becomes Walter’s consigliere (Saul makes the Godfather reference explicit). Using his extensive criminal connections, Saul spends the next few seasons helping Walt’s business with increasingly difficult situations from money laundering to attempted assassination attempts.

Saul does demonstrate some moral awareness beyond his desire to save his own skin. In the most involved Saul ever gets directly in Walt’s scheming, he has his assistant/bodyguard Huell (Lavell Crawford) pickpocket Jesse to trick him into believing Gus had taken his ricin-laced cigarette and poisoned Brock, his girlfriend’s son. At the beginning of the fifth season, Saul realizes he’d been duped into helping with Walt’s plan to poison Brock and attempts to quit in protest, only to be intimidated into staying on.

Breaking Bad’s premise entails the continual moral growth and decay of its characters—Vince Gilligan famously describes the show’s arc as transforming Walter from “Mr. Chips to Scarface.” Jesse begins the show as a criminal addict, but nurtures his inherent talent and matures into one of the most compelling, sympathetic characters in television history. Walt’s wife Skyler goes from a frustrated housewife to a steely, money-laundering schemer.

In this very uncharacteristic televised universe built on the concept of change, Saul Goodman is the one constant. Though his circumstances change slightly over the course of the show (particularly when he prepares to go on the run), his own moral character, founded on an intense focus on his own survival, does not. Considering the adage that drama is about change (nominally) and comedy about stasis, it makes perfect sense that Saul has largely usurped Jesse as Breaking Bad’s biggest source of comic relief

Not only does Saul’s ingratiating tone and ability to profit from any situation (he gets Walt and Jesse to pay him to become clients when they kidnap him), his horrific, clash-heavy fashion sense and love of excess never changes. “Garish” might be an understatement for a character whose subtler outfits consist of yellow shirts and purple ties. Even Breaking Bad costume designer Jennifer Bryan had to “throw out every rule of coordination.” And one of his pet projects is a laser tag arena he first attempts to convince Walt to use as a money-laundering front, then uses as a hideout for Jesse.

Most notably, Saul seems like the only character certain to survive the events of the final season of Breaking Bad. Not only is he a slippery enough operator that it’s hard to see him getting either caught by the law or killed, Saul now seems likely to wriggle out of even the more serious, real textual ending of the show itself. It’s still unclear whether the Saul spinoff in development will be more comedic or dramatic, half an hour or an hour. Hopefully, the new show will find a distinct tone from Breaking Bad while still maintaining the mother series’ fingerprints, mixing Saul’s lighter nature with the darkness of what he does for a living. Regardless, escaping the boundaries of the series to find a completely new life as the protagonist of his own story is … well, s’all good, man.

Previously on Network Jews: David Rosen, the unlucky mensch on ABC’s Scandal

Agent Mulder, Supernatural Expert and Conspiracy Theorist on 1990s sci-fi hit The X-Files

Michael Ginsberg, the Smartass Ad Man on Mad Men

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The post Netflix Jews: Saul Goodman, Breaking Bad’s Scheming Lawyer appeared first on Jewcy.