Washington DC’s Edlavitch Jewish Community Center sponsors the annual JxJ Festival, featuring music, films, and a variety of talks, discussions, and resources for the arts. This year’s film program is spectacular. Some of the highlights: June Zero: The opening night film is directed by Jake Paltrow (brother of Gwyneth, son…

The Hoover Institute is funded by the usual suspects in the ultra-right, climate change denial, corporate power community: ExxonMobil, Kochs, Scaifes, Donors Trust, etc. Corporate apologist David F. Larker, who does not disclose the funders of his research at the CEO-supporting Rock Center at Stanford Law School, and his colleague…

It was The Woman King that edged out all of the competition at The Black Reel Awards this year. With six wins out of the fourteen nominations, The Woman King nabbed wins for Outstanding Film, Outstanding Director, Outstanding Ensemble, Breakthrough Actress, Outstanding Score and Outstanding Editing. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s sweeping epic…

The biggest surprise among the acting Oscar nominations this year was Andrea Riseborough as Best Actress. There were three reasons awards-predictors did not expect to hear her name. First, the movie she starred in, “To Leslie,” was made for under one million dollars and made about $30,000. Very few people…

After 13 Oscar nominations without a win, songwriter Diane Warren might feel like an “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” when it comes to the gold statuette. Her nominations include “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” “Because You Loved Me,” “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” and “Somehow You Do.”…

I’m sure BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s response to the obnoxious, accusatory, misleading, letter he received from 19 Republican state attorneys general will be measured, diplomatic, and thoroughly lawyered over. He will hope to mollify them to continue to be able to do business with the government pension funds. …

Remember the fable of stone soup? A traveler comes to a town famous for the miserliness of its inhabitants. He tells them he has the secret of making soup from a stone. They are very excited about this money-saving possibility and gather around him as he places a stone in…

Sixty-one years ago today, on May 9, 1961, my dad, the 35-year-old Chairman of the FCC, Newton Minow, made three significant appearances. In Washington, he gave his famous “vast wasteland” speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, telling them that while “when television is good, nothing is better,” he expected…

The 1931 James Whale film about Dr. Frankenstein’s re-animated monster still thrills us today. In a new novel with a title taken from one of the film’s most memorable lines, author Julian David Stone takes us behind the scenes as producer Carl Laemmle, Jr. struggles, negotiates, manipulates, and promises to…