Your favorite Jewish/Maori filmmaker/dreamboat is at it again. He has officially announced his next project, but, in traditional Waititi style, it’s not what you expect.

The film is called Jojo Rabbit, which sounds cute enough, and the premise also starts out sweet: It’s the story of a lonely little boy who creates an imaginary friend. That friend happens to be Adolf Hitler.

Waititi, in addition to helming the project, will play Hitler, which is the first hint that everything is going to be OK— a Jewish person of color doesn’t read as the literal Führer. Waititi has explained that this Hitler is “goofy” and “charming” (presumably to absurd, parodic degrees), an invented father figure for the protagonist.

Also starring in the film is Scarlett Johansson, so there’s another Jew in the mix. There have been differing synopses for Jojo Rabbit floating around since Waititi wrote the screenplay six years ago, but it seems that the plot includes the little boy discovering that his mother (Johansson) is hiding a Jewish teenager. In any case, the film definitely takes place in fascist Germany, so it’s going to be a rather dark comedy.

Waititi always has many irons in the fire, so we can also continue to anticipate his stop-motion Netflix movie about Bubbles the Chimp, and his sequel to mockumentary masterpiece What We Do in the Shadows entitled We’re Wolves.

Image via Flickr

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When actress Scarlett Johansson signed on as spokesperson for the Israeli company SodaStream in January, a P.R. battle of epic proportions erupted. Supporters of BDS pressured her to step down because the company has a factory in the West Bank, and Israel advocates urged her to stay on, citing the company’s favorable standing with its Palestinian employees and commitment to “doing the right thing and helping people.”

The upshot: Johansson stuck by SodaStream and ended her eight-year relationship with the charity Oxfam, which opposes trade from Israeli settlements.

Now the actress has spoken out in support of SodaStream, highlighting their environmental credentials and assiduously steering clear of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

“I’m not an expert on the history of this conflict, and I’ve never professed to be. But it is a company that I believe in, that I think has the ability to make a huge difference, environmentally. [SodaStream’s CEO] Daniel Birnbaum has said many times that this factory is one he inherited, and that he doesn’t want to fire people – the majority of those people being Palestinian.”

Johansson has been quietly but firmly reiterating this stance since the controversy first erupted in January, but this is her most lengthy statement yet. In the lead-up to her appearance in SodaStream’s Super Bowl commercial, she told the Huffington Post that the company was “building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine.” And in an interview with Dazed Magazine in February, she alluded to her discomfort with her default position a “role model,” saying she “never wanted to step into those shoes.”

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Word on the street is that ScarJo is preggo! (I know, that’s an absolutely atrocious rhyme, but I couldn’t resist.) The 29-year-old actress has been engaged to her partner Romain Dauriac, a French journalist, since September. She was previously married to actor Ryan Reynolds—they separated in 2010, and divorced in 2011.

In December 2013, Johansson told the UK’s Daily Mail that it “would be nice” to have a family, but that she was waiting for the right time: “I think you have to plan it like anything else. At some point it is something I look forward to. I am fortunate in that I have had a long career–20 years–that has been very diverse. So, you know, picking a time to plan a family feels like something that I could do and not feel as though I was missing out.”

Looks like the time is now. B’sha’ah tovah, Scarlett!

Here’s a recent pic of the parents-to-be looking very normcore:

See also: Scarlett Johansson’s Super Bowl SodaStream Debut Is Official

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Scarlett Johansson’s controversial SodaStream ad made its official debut, and—politics aside—it was kind of… uninspiring. Here’s the uncensored version with a shout-out to Coke and Pepsi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxq4ziu-wrI

The hotly anticipated Seinfeld reunion turned out to be an ad for Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Others thought it was meh; I thought it was kind of cute. (The subversive master-bathroom sneak is a particular pleasure of mine. (TMI?))

The main takeaway here? Seinfeld is rich beyond compare if he can afford a Super Bowl ad slot. (But I guess we already knew that.) Also, Wayne Knight and Jason Alexander look exactly like they did in 1998, minus a bit of hair. What is their fountain of youth?

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

The Coke ad was culturally diverse and surprisingly lovely, and featured two guys wearing kippot (at 0:34). It goes without saying, but don’t read the (racist) comments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8iM73E6JP8

Our favorite? The trailer for Noah, which looks awesome and thrilling and a little bit ridiculous and unlike anything we learned in Hebrew school:

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Scarlett Johansson has the most sought after vocal chords in show business. Her sultry, smoky voice is one of her prized attributes—she’s even playing the voice of a sexy operating system that Joaquin Phoenix has the hots for in the upcoming film Her—a part that, some speculate, could make Oscar history considering the unlikelihood of an actor winning an Academy Award without actually appearing on screen. But that’s Johansson’s voice for you; it could even make healthcare sexy. And, it has, sort of. Mother Jones reports:

Last Friday, Planned Parenthood announced that they had enlisted three actresses to help them inform Americans about details of the Affordable Care Act. Scarlett Johansson, Aisha Tyler, and Gabrielle Union (all active in progressive politics) each recorded special phone messages to remind callers about Obamacare eligibility.

OK, so it’s not sexy, but it is badass. Listen to hear Johansson talk about women’s choices for healthcare plans.

Listen to Scarlett Johansson Try to Sell You on Obamacare
[Mother Jones]

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Surprise, surprise. Scarlett Johansson is Esquire’s 2013 Sexiest Woman Alive, not that we needed a magazine to tell us that, just look at the woman. And, it’s not the Don Jon star’s first title either. Johansson was named Sexiest Woman Alive in 2006 as well. She could very well win each and every year and few people would contest the matter. Esquire reports:

This year, Scarlett says, has been the busiest of her life. One movie released, two more coming out in the next five months, and two more in production. She finished a full run of a Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in March. In the movie she has out right now, Don Jon, she plays the hot, manipulative girlfriend of a porn addict. She makes a hootchie girl elegant, offering ascendant beauty in every scene. Hers is an unstressed beauty, which may be why her look is so mutable, more slender than buxom and fleshy. Her next movie is Under the Skin, a horror film in which she plays a flesh-tearing supernatural wandering across Scotland.

She’s even sexy as a flesh-tearer. We vote Johansson 2014, and so on and so forth.

(Photo by Danny Martindale/Getty)

Previous: ‘Under the Skin’ Stars a Very Spooky Scarlett Johansson

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After a relaxing, muggy Labor Day weekend, we have just the jolt you need to get back into work mode. Under the Skin, directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Scarlett Johansson, is premiering at the Venice Film Festival today, and this new trailer will frighten all who can’t attend, holding us over until the film’s release.

Johansson told Variety, “Under the Skin is actually not a science-fiction movie, it’s sort of a movie that asks existential questions and much more complex than the logline.”

Logline, schmogline. It’s scary. Fire burning, waves crashing, creepy eyeballs, and ominous scoring. Happy Tuesday, or something.

(Photo by Danny Martindale/Getty)

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• Can director Etan Cohen trick Bill Murray into signing on for Ghostbusters 3?

• We’re a little upset that Tom Cruise was only a footnote in Amy Levin’s analysis of the five tropes that plague media coverage of religion.

• Zomg, Scarlett Johansson gets paid more per movie than Angelina Jolie.

• Watch Howard Stern and Howie Mandel duke it out on America’s Got Talent over contestant Big Barry.

The post Daily Jewce: ScarJo’s Big Bucks, Stern Battles Mandel on AGT, and more appeared first on Jewcy.

Today in Tablet Magazine, Rita Rubin reports on the evidence that suggests that, among Jews, nose jobs are no longer as popular as they used to be. Rubin explains:

In 2011, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 37 percent fewer Americans got nose jobs than in 2000. The economy surely played some role: Surgical cosmetic procedures across the board declined by 17 percent during that period, coinciding with the economic downturn, which left people with less money to spend on nonessential surgery. But rhinoplasty, or “nose reshaping,” saw one of the sharpest drops among all procedures, from 389,000 in 2000 to 244,000 in 2011.

However, Rubin notes increasing numbers of Hispanics and Asian Americans seeking rhinoplasty, which leads her to conclude, “If the total number of nose jobs in America is rapidly declining, while their popularity rises among certain non-Jewish groups, one likely conclusion is that rhinoplasty is declining among Jews.”

To pay tribute to the role of the nose job in the American Jewish consciousness as the procedure nears cultural extinction (or something), we figured we’d showcase the most talked-about Jewish nose jobs and remember a simpler time, when rhinoplasty was rampant and imperfect schnozes were so last season:

Sarah Jessica Parker: From Girls Just Want To Have Fun to women just want to go to Abu Dhabi.

(Photo by Jeff Schear/Getty Images for Ann and Robert H. Lurie Hospital of Chicago)

Tori Spelling: Beverly High’s own Donna Martin becomes a reality TV star.

ScarJo: The big screen’s Russian-born Black Widow whose maternal family comes from Minsk IRL.

Natalie Portman: the Israeli-born, Long Island-bred actress formerly known as Natalie Hershlag.

Jennifer Grey: the Dalton grad who will always be Baby to us.

Just saying, ladies:

Also…

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• David Samuels calls the Jay-Z and Kanye West album ‘Watch the Throne’ “the sonic equivalent of a $10 million bat mitzvah.”

• Police found Boston University Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi pledges bound and covered in honey and hot sauce in the fraternity house basement.

• Drake’s people “paid a standard rental fee for the use of the synagogue’s facilities” for his bar mitzvah-themed HYFR music video.

• Scarlett Johannson on playing the first female superhero, the Black Widow:

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