In Movie Theaters the Week of
March 31st, 200817 films are being released this week
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Part road movie, part political investigation, a coast to coast adventure to find the truth about the red/blue divide in America today. |
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When Ossie Schectman, a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, made the first basket for the New York Knickerbockers back in 1946, who knew it was the precursor of today's NBA? For Jewish immigrants, especially youth, sports played an important role in helping them assimilate. By the 1920s, almost all urban Jewish neighborhoods had a basketball team. When these teams evolved into professional leagues by the late 1940s, Jewish players and coaches led the way.
Though basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith in Springfield MA, the game spread like wildfire through turn-of-the-century New York settlement houses and proved a perfect fit for urban Jewish kids. By the 1920s, basketball had become a staple of life in American Jewish communities, and many of the top teams grew out of these neighborhoods. The First Basket is the first comprehensive documentary to examine both the role that Jewish players had in the evolution of the game and the impact that basketball played in the assimilation of American Jews. The First Basket explores the profound influence that these Jewish pioneers had on the evolution of basketball as it grew from a game played with ash cans on tenement steps to the second most popular sport in the world.
In "The First Basket," writer/producer/director David Vyorst and narrator Peter Riegert explore the little-known, yet very important, Jewish history of the game. Chock full of vivid anecdotes and distinctive characters, the film brings back famous as well as unsung basketball legends such as Red Auerbach, Red Holzman, Dolph Schayes, Red Sarachek, Barney Sedran, Eddie Gottleib, Abe Saperstein, Ossie Schectman (that above-mentioned kid from New York who scored the eponymous First Basket), Ralph Kaplowitz, Sammy Kaplan and many more. These legendary players of professional basketball became role models and heroes to generations of fans and changed the face and perception, to this very day, of Jews in all athletics. |
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Rated: PG
Jodie Foster and Abigail Breslin star in "Nim's Island," about a magical place ruled by a young girl's imagination.
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Rated: R
A group of friends whose leisurely Mexican holiday takes a turn for the worse when they, along with a fellow tourist embark on a remote archaeological dig in the jungle, where something evil lives among the ruins. |
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Rated: PG-13
Oscar winners George Clooney and Renée Zellweger match wits in "Leatherheads," a rapid-fire romantic comedy set against the backdrop of America's pro-football league in 1925. |
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Rated: NONE
The movie centers on a woman, played by singer Norah Jones, who travels across the country searching for answers about love and finding comedic adventures along the way. |
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Rated: R
The dark comedy concerns a man whose life is upended by an email containing the names of every woman he's had sex with -- and every woman he ever will have sex with. |
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Rated: PG-13
Rolling Stones documentary that focuses on the two concerts from the group's current "A Bigger Bang" tour as well as historical and contemporary behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. A recent concert in Austin, Texas, was also filmed.
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Rated: R
A guy fed up with his job and married to a cheating wife reluctantly mentors a rebellious teen. |
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Rated: PG-13
Jack is a NYC advertising exec with a life as glossy as the ads he spins. Jill is new to the city, with nothing to stand on but her fiery personality and romantic ideals. Opposites attract, and together they author their own manifesto of "rules to live by." But Jill betrays Jack by violating rule one - Be Honest. |
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Rated: NONE
Summer in a new suburb outside Paris. Nothing to do but look at the ceiling. Marie, Anne and Floriane are 15. Their paths cross in the corridors at the local swimming pool, where love and the violence of desire erupts for the first time, bringing them together and tearing them apart. |
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Rated: NONE
Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) is charming but she is a mother snowed under by obligations. With her puppet shows, the classes she teaches and the two children, Simon and Louise, that she has been raising alone since their father left, she hasn't got a minute to herself. To help her, she takes in a young Taiwanese babysitter, Song Fang, who is a student at Paris University. On his way home from school, Simon, who is 7 years old, leads her through the streets and cafés of his neighborhood. Soon, Song Fang and Simon share an imaginary world: a strange red balloon follows them, even in the exhibition space of the Musée d'Orsay. While Suzanne is caught up in a court case involving her tenant downstairs, who refuses to leave, every day, Son Fang becomes more important in her life. In the end, it is Song Fang's Asian perspective that helps Suzanne get to grips with her life. |
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Rated: NONE
Summer in a new suburb outside Paris. Nothing to do but look at the ceiling. Marie, Anne and Floriane are 15. Their paths cross in the corridors at the local swimming pool, where love and desire make a sudden, dramatic appearance. |
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Rated: NONE
Poignant, often witty and exceedingly cinematic, "Jellyfish" tells the story of three very different Tel Aviv women whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a bride who breaks her leg escaping a locked toilet stall, ruining her chance at a dream Caribbean honeymoon. And attending the event with an employer is Joy, a non Hebrew-speaking domestic worker who has guiltily left her son behind in her native Philippines. As this distaff trio separately wends their way through Israel's most cosmopolitan city, they struggle with issues of communication, affection and destiny-but at times find uneasy refuge in its tranquil seas. |
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Rated: NONE
Set in Mongolia, a nomad woman attempts to get remarried in order to solve her financial difficulties. As she auditions suitors the web of deceit wraps tighter. |
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The voice of a new generation rocks and rhymes as Palestinian rappers form alternative voices of resistance within the Israeli-Palestinian struggle |
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