Underdog Yuri Foreman beat Daniel Santos by unanimous decision recently in Las Vegas to become the first Jewish Israeli world boxing champion. Foreman, who was born in Belarus and emigrated to Israel at age 10, moved to Brooklyn to pursue his boxing career, but wound up taking another path as well – he is currently...

A Serious Man, the Coen Brothers’ most Jewy pic ever, held its U.S. premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York last night, with an afterparty at the venerable Friars Club. [Trailer after the jump.] The screening launched the new Friars Club Comedy Film Festival, happening this weekend. The film opens with a prologue entirely...

If you’re craving a cupcake topped with whipped vanilla frosting the next time you’re in the Holy Land, you’re in luck. A New York Times story about the American-style cupcake craze spreading across the Middle East mentioned three shops that recently opened in Israel, all in Tel Aviv. Debbie Stein, who is originally from Minnesota...

Jeremy Piven finally gave a bit more of his side of the fish story last night on David Letterman. [Video after the jump.] Piven dropped out of a hit Broadway revival of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow with Mad Men‘s Elisabeth Moss and multiple-time Tony nominee Raul Esparza. He claimed his doctors said he couldn’t continue with...

Pulitzer Prize-winner David Mamet will be writing and directing a new film about Anne Frank, to be released by Disney. The film will draw on Frank’s original diaries, the famous Broadway play by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich and original material by Mamet to frame the story (Perhaps he will Basterdize his script and Anne...

After the critical success of Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation, writer/director Andrew Bujalski‘s third film, Beeswax, (Trailer After the Jump) premiered at SXSW this spring. The New York Times praised the “mumblecore” film (a micro-budget indie with a DIY aesthetic that focuses on subtle shifts in personal relationships more than major plot points) as...

What’s Pope Benedict XVI got in common with Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses and Whitesnake? They all have albums on Geffen Records. Drawn from the archives of Vatican Radio, the Pope will appear on Alma Mater, singing "Regina Coeli" and other hymns, snippets of prayers and talks in Latin, Italian and other languages. The album also...

The new documentary Unattached explores the predicament of aging 20-year-old single women in the Upper West Side’s Modern Orthodox community failing to find a match. This "plague" is causing major anxiety in the community; the longer young people remain unwed, the more likely they are to leave the fold. The film has won a Student...

(500) Days of Summer, an off-beat romantic comedy starring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, was one of the biggest hits at Sundance this year, a trend that has actually continued into the real world for a change. This weekend it did the biggest business of the year of any limited release according to Variety, and...

Esther Klein was expecting a night of family fun with her grandkids when she borrowed Austin Powers on VHS from the Borough Park branch of The Brooklyn Public Library. Instead, the Brooklyn grandma was the victim of a diabolical scheme, that could have only been hatched by Dr. Evil, as long pornographic scenes appeared as...

Get ready to laugh your ass off.Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the creators of the Office and Extras, have their first joint feature coming out – Cemetery Junction. All we know is that it is "a 1970s-set comedy centered on three upstart professional men working at an insurance company" and stars Gervais (above as Hitler...

  Heeb sat down with the director Havana Marking to talk about her new documentary Afghan Star. The movie follows four very different contestants of the TV show of the same name, an American Idol-style talent contest whose third season finale was viewed by one-third of Afghanistan. The show has been truly groundbreaking. It has...