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Helen Mirren as Golda Meir and Liev Schreiber as Henry Kissinger, in Bleecker Street/ShivHans Pictures’ Golda Photo credit: Sean Gleason, Courtesy of Bleecker Street/ShivHans Pictures

Helen Mirren portrays Golda Meir, Israel’s first women prime minister, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in Golda. Internationally, Golda Meir is known as the “Iron Lady of Israel” and is an admired figure but she is more controversial in her home country of Israel. In the British historical drama Golda, Israeli-American director Guy Nativ and British scriptwriter Nicholas Martin aim to offer a fresh look at Golda Meir by focusing on her during the Yom Kippur War, when Israel found itself facing two invading armies, from Egypt in the Sinai and Syria in the Golan Heights.

Mirren plays Golda Meir in heavy makeup and prosthetics, transforming her appearenceappearance to more closely resemble the much-photographed Golda Meir and allow director Nativ to more...

The Operative Vertical Entertainment Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Yuval Adler Screenwriter: Yuval Adler, adapted from the Novel “The English Teacher” by Yiftach Reicher Atir Cast: Diane Kruger, Martin Freeman, Cas Anvar, Liron Levo, Yaakov Zada Daniel, Ohad Knoller Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 7/26/19 Opens: August […]

The post The Operative Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Stars: Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Mélanie Laurent, Lior Raz, Nick Kroll, Michael Aronov, Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Michael Benjamin Hernandez, Joe Alwyn, Greta Scacchi, Peter Strauss, Haley Lu Richardson | Written by Matthew Orton | Directed by Chris Weitz

In 1960 a team of secret agents, led by Mossad agent Peter Malkin, set out to track down Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer who masterminded the transportation logistics that brought millions of innocent Jews to their deaths in concentration camps during the Holocaust…

Director Chris Weitz’s Operation Finale follows the haunting and terrifying true story of a team of Israeli secret service agents and their tense mission to identify and extract Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust who escaped justice and fled to Argentina. Weitz film while almost perfectly evokes such a perfect 1960′s cinematic aesthetic and utilises a terrific cast, does little to showcase the haunting and intense thriller...

MGM’s Mossad spy thriller Operation Finale opened yesterday to $1M at 1,818 locations, a solid start for a political thriller aimed at adults and in sync with similar titles that have played the last weekend of summer.

Yesterday’s results are ahead of the opening day of the 2011 Labor Day weekend political thriller, Focus Features’ The Debt ($970K which went on to a $8.2M 3-day, $12.8M 4-day) and ahead of Oscar-winner The Constant Gardener ($929K opening day, $8.6M 3-day, $10.9M 4-day). Rotten Tomatoes’ score on Operation Finale was 63% fresh, but CinemaScore audiences gave an A- to this Chris Weitz directed pic which stars Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Nick Kroll, Melanie Laurent, Lior Raz, Joe Alwyn, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Aronov, Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Mike Hernandez, Greta Scacchi and Pêpê Rapazote. Operation Finale follows a team of secret agents in their pursuit of Holocaust Nazi architect Adolf Eichmann...

Once upon a time, Ben Kingsley gave his career best performance in Schindler’s List. Fast forward to 2018, and he’s actually playing a member of the Nazi high command. That’s a total 180, but if any actor can pull that off, it’s Kingsley. The Academy Award winning thespian has not had the best roles to play of late, but this week, he has a solid one to sink his teeth into. It’s Operation Finale, a dramatic retelling of a true life spy operation in the 1960’s. If it won’t be another Oscar player for Kingsley, it at least gives him one of his best roles in some time, and that’s worth something. The movie is an historical thriller, as you might have guessed. This is the plot summary available for it: “Fifteen years after the end of World War II, a team of top-secret Israeli...

MGM has released the final trailer for Oscar Isaac's great looking thriller Operation Finale. The story centers on the real-life event of a spy who is brought in to hunt and capture a Nazi war criminal named Adolf Eichmann who was hiding out in Argentina in the 1960s. He was one of Hitler's deadliest lieutenants.

Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) stars as Peter Malkin, "the Mossad member and head of a group of Israeli spies who took him down. Eichmann (Ben Kingsley) had murdered Malkin’s sister and her children and was the organizer of the transport of Jews to concentration camps in Europe. He escaped to Austria and then to Argentina after WWII."

Like the first trailer, this one does a great job of building the intensity and also offer up new details on how the story is going to play out.

Operation Finale was directed by...

MGM has released the final trailer for Operation Finale; the story of how a Mossad agent captures the Nazi officer, Adolf Eichmann.

The film is based on the team that hunted down and captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the major architects of the Holocaust. Eichmann organised the transport of Jews from countries all over Europe to concentration camps where millions were murdered. After the war, he fled to his home country of Austria and then moved to Argentina. He was finally brought to Israel on his capture to face crimes against humanity and the Jewish people. He was sentenced to hang and was executed in 1962, unrepentant all the way to the grave.

Directed by Chris Weitz, the film stars Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Lior Raz, Melanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Joe Alwyn, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Aronov, Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Mike Hernandez, Greta Scacchi and Pêpê Rapazote.

Also...

"For the first time in our history we will judge our executioner. For the sake of the world, do not fail..." MGM Studios has debuted the second & final trailer for Chris Weitz's new film, titled Operation Finale, about Mossad agents in Argentina tracking down Adolf Eichmann, the infamous architect of the Holocaust. Based on a true story, Oscar Isaac stars as Peter Malkin who heads to Argentina with a team of secret agents in hopes of finding and capturing Eichmann. The first trailer for this was fantastic, and this one is even better. The full ensemble cast for this thriller includes Ben Kingsley, Lior Raz, Melanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Joe Alwyn, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Aronov, Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Mike Hernandez, Greta Scacchi, and Pêpê Rapazote. This has quickly become one of my most anticipated films to see this fall, I'm really looking forward to it.

“We’re all animals,” says Sir Ben Kingsley’s Adolf Eichmann in this intense trailer for Operation Finale. “Some of us just have bigger teeth than others.”

So it goes in director Chris Weitz’s thriller about the Israeli “catch and extract” operation in Argentina to bring to justice the chief architect of Hitler’s Holocaust.

This trailer – the last look at the thriller before MGM releases the film in theaters on Wednesday, August 29 – highlights, among other aspects of the movie, the psychological battle of wills between Kingsley’s Eichmann and Oscar Isaac’s Peter Malkin, one of the Israeli agents tasked with capturing the Nazi.

In exchanges that recall the evil mind games from classics like The Silence of the Lambs and The Exorcist, Eichmann, sounding like evil incarnate, tells Isaac’s agent, “My job was simple: save the country I love from being destroyed. Is your job any different?...

Exclusive: MGM’s Operation Finale, which follows a team of secret agents in their pursuit of Holocaust Nazi architect Adolf Eichmann 15 years after World War II, is moving up from its Sept. 14 opening to August 29, the Wednesday before the four-day Labor Day stretch.

We hear the film tested quite well in the mid 80s in the top two boxes in a Los Angeles-area screening, but tested through the roof in the high 90s elsewhere in the country. Labor Day is a prime time when upscale and older audiences head to the cinema, and with Operation Finale‘s new date, it gives the Chris Weitz-directed movie a jump on the crowded fall awards season competition.

Other notable adult-oriented pics that launched over Labor Day include The Constant Gardener ($33.5M domestic, plus four Oscar noms and a best supporting actress win for Rachel Weisz), George Clooney thriller The American ($35.6M), John Hillcoat...

This first trailer for the upcoming film Operation Finale does a great job of building the tension for the story that it tells. That story centers on the real-life event of a spy who is brought in to hunt and capture a Nazi war criminal named Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in the 1960s.

Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) stars as Peter Malkin, "the Mossad member and head of a group of Israeli spies who took him down. Eichmann (Ben Kingsley) had murdered Malkin’s sister and her children and was the organizer of the transport of Jews to concentration camps in Europe. He escaped to Austria and then to Argentina after WWII."

Operation Finale was directed by Chris Weitz (About a Boy) from a script written by Matthew Orton. The film also stars Lior Raz, Melanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds), Nick Kroll (The League), Joe Alwyn (Billy Lynn’s...

MGM has released their first trailer for Operation Finale, a post-World War II period thriller staring Ben Kingsley and Oscar Isaac. Kingsley plays Adolf Eichmann who, as described in the trailer as “Hitler’s deadliest lieutenant,” was personally responsible for overseeing the transportation and subsequent murder of millions of innocent Jews during the Holocaust. Taking place after the conclusion of World War II, the film tells the incredible true story of Israel’s intelligence service – the Mossad – and their plan to “catch and extract” the fleeing Eichmann from Argentina. Isaac plays Mossad operative Peter Malkin who’s assigned to execute said operation – and he feels the weight of mission as he’s warned in the trailer: “If you succeed, for the first time in our history, we will judge our executioner. If you fail, he escapes justice, perhaps forever. I beg of you, do not fail.”

Chris Weitz directed Operation Finale...

Oscar Isaac chases down one of the architects of the Holocaust in MGM’s first trailer for “Operation Finale,” the historical drama about the capture of Adolf Eichmann.

The trailer opens with Eichmann, played by Ben Kingsley, supervising the mass murder of hundreds of concentration camp prisoners, then defending his actions in a voiceover.

“You have no interest in what I have to say,” he says. “Unless it confirms what you think you already know. My job was simple: save the country I love from being destroyed. Is your job any different?”

Chris Weitz directs the drama from Matthew Orton’s screenplay about the capture of Eichmann, who organized the transport of Jews from all over Europe to concentration camps, where an estimated 6 million people were killed. When World War II was ending, Eichmann fled to his home country of Austria and then moved to Argentina. Eichmann was captured in Argentina in 1960 by the Mossad,...

The first trailer for Chris Weitz’s Operation Finale, starring Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley has arrived.

The film is based on the team that hunted down and captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the major architects of the Holocaust. Eichmann organised the transport of Jews from countries all over Europe to concentration camps where millions were murdered. After the war, he fled to his home country of Austria and then moved to Argentina. He was finally brought to Israel on his capture to face crimes against humanity and the Jewish people. He was sentenced to hang and was executed in 1962, unrepentant all the way to the grave.

Directed by Chris Weitz, the film stars Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Lior Raz, Melanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Joe Alwyn, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Aronov, Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Mike Hernandez, Greta Scacchi and Pêpê Rapazote.

Also in trailers – Matthew McConaughey rocks...

"If it is him, we need an elite crew." MGM Studios has released the first trailer for Chris Weitz's next new film, titled Operation Finale, a film about Mossad agents in Argentina tracking down Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi architect of the Holocaust. Based on a true story, Oscar Isaac stars as Peter Malkin who heads down to Argentina with a team of secret agents in hopes of finding and capturing Eichmann. The huge ensemble cast for this thriller includes Ben Kingsley, Lior Raz, Melanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Joe Alwyn, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Aronov, Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Mike Hernandez, Greta Scacchi, and Pêpê Rapazote. This looks damn good, the voiceover and the way the score builds is terrific. And it also looks good because Oscar Isaac is always awesome in anything. Here's the first trailer for Chris Weitz's Operation Finale, direct from YouTube: This...

“My job was simple,” says the man heard here in this new trailer for MGM’s Operation Finale. “Save the country I loved from being destroyed.” Self-justifying to the end, that man is Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi logistical mastermind responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews in concentration camps.

Portrayed by Ben Kingsley, Eichmann is seen in flashbacks to World War II and years later in Argentina, where he’s hunted by a team that includes Mossad agent Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac). Operation Finale traces Malkin’s 1960 attempts to deliver Eichmann to the world’s justice.

“If you fail,” Malkin is told, “he escapes justice, perhaps forever. I beg you do not fail.”

The thriller also stars Lior Raz, Melanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Joe Alwyn, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Aronov, Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Mike Hernandez, Greta Scacchi and Pêpê Rapazote.

Chris Weitz directs from Matthew Orton’s script.

Exclusive: Ohad Knoller (Munich), Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht (X Company), Mike Hernandez, Greta Scacchi (Brideshead Visited) and Pêpê Rapazote (Netflix's Narcos) have joined the cast of MGM's thriller Operation Finale, which is currently filming in Argentina. Chris Weitz (A Better Life) is directing the project from a script by Matthew Orton. Oscar Isaac stars as legendary Mossad agent Peter Malkin in the period film, which is based on a true story of the 1960 covert…...

1916 Happy Centennial to Best Actor winner Peter Finch (Network), one of only two posthumous acting winners in Oscar history. The other is Heath Ledger. (Curiously they were both Australian)

1924 Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita, 8½) is born in Italy. Becomes one of the all time great movie stars by his mid 30s. His career spans over 50 years of cinema.

1933 Greer Garson weds Edward Snelson, first of three husbands, though the cohabitation is brief. Ten years later she famously marries her screen son in Mrs Miniver.

1934 ...And God Created Brigitte Bardot in Paris

1945 Mildred Pierce opens. Joan Crawford will win Best Actress for this fabulous noir melodrama

1949 Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis first film together My Friend Irma

1950 American indie icon John Sayles is born in New York. Among his most famous films: Return of the Secaucus 7, Passion Fish, and Lone Star

1951 Franchot Tone marries Barbara Payton, his third wife, a disastrous marriage for both.

Title: A Tale of Love And Darkness Director: Natalie Portman Starring: Natalie Portman, Gilad Kahana, Amir Tessler, Moni Moshonov, Ohad Knoller, Makram J. Khoury, Neta Riskin and Alex Peleg. Based on the novel by Amoz Oz, ‘A Tale of Love And Darkness’ marks the first film written, directed and starring Academy Award actress Natalie Portman. The story retraces Oz’s memories growing up in Jerusalem, with his academic father Arieh and his dreamy and imaginative mother Fania, during the years before the Israeli statehood. They were one of many Jewish families who moved to Palestine, from Europe, during the 1930s and 40s, to escape persecution. Fania’s delusion becomes a prominent protagonist [ Read More ]

The post A Tale of Love And Darkness Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

"Your innocence will never abandon you..." Focus World has debuted a brand new official Us trailer for Natalie Portman's directorial debut, a drama called A Tale of Love and Darkness, set against the backdrop of the end of the British Mandate for Palestine and the early years of the State of Israel. Natalie Portman plays Fania Oz, the mother of Amos Oz, a person from real life who eventually becomes a writer, journalist, and advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film focuses mostly on his youth and his relationship with his mother. The cast includes Amir Tessler as the young Amos Oz, as well as Gilad Kahana, Ohad Knoller, Makram Khoury and Rotem Keinan. This looks powerful with some stunning cinematography by Slawomir Idziak (of Black Hawk Down, Gattaca). Have a look below. Here's an official Us trailer for Natalie Portman's A Tale of Love and Darkness,...

'Munich' movie cover 'Munich' movie review: Steven Spielberg tackles political time-space continuum in wildly uneven but ultimately satisfying thriller Alternately intriguing and irritating, thought-provoking and banal, subtle and patronizing, the biggest surprise about Steven Spielberg's Munich is that it – however grudgingly – works. The film, which Spielberg himself has referred to as a "prayer for peace," follows five men contracted by the Israeli government to avenge the massacre of that country's athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Sizable chunks of this political thriller with a Message (capital "M") are simplistically written, clumsily acted, and handled with the director's notoriously heavy touch, but the old adage – blood begets blood – even if somewhat muddled, is too timely not to make an impact. Complex 'Munich' movie plot Based on George Jonas' 1984 book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, whose veracity has been questioned in some quarters, Munich begins as...

Baz Luhrmann's Gatsby is a glittering hymn to the age of jazz, while the monster-robot blockbuster Pacific Rim is daftness writ large

Nothing about F Scott Fizgerald's The Great Gatsby feels especially festive: it's all critical despair in stifling summer air, chilled mint juleps and crisp linen suits. Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (Warner, 12) is another matter: this luxurious pudding seems more at home in the run-up to Christmas (when it was originally slated for release in cinemas) than it did back in May. That may be because Luhrmann has never met a bauble, sparkler or strand of tinsel he didn't like: like all his films, this Gatsby is dressed and decorated to scrumptious excess.

Critics trotting out the tired "style over substance" epithet were missing the point. Style is substance in Luhrmann's universe, and as such, the film is rather effective in capturing the beautiful but damned...

Poor Yossi (Ohad Knoller). Ten years after Yossi and Jagger, Yossi is now a 34-year-old heart doctor with a broken heart who has chosen to totally immerse himself in his work in a willful attempt to forget his past. Visibly depressed, Yossi rarely goes out, he doesn't exercise. He turns down a piece of chocolate because he is watching his figure, but then he engulfs an overflowing plate of noodles. After the gut-wrenching conclusion of Yossi and Jagger, it is no surprise that Yossi is still reeling from Lior's death. Everyone wants Yossi to loosen up, to smile, to have fun, instead of being a grumpy "old" curmudgeon; but Yossi seems determined to avoid falling in love or even touch another human being, as if he wants Lior to be the last person he will ever hold. Even when Yossi does find a date online, it turns out to be...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 21, 2013

Price: DVD $27.99

Studio: Strand Releasing

Ohad Knoller is romantically troubled Israeli physician Yossi.

The 2012 Israeli drama-romance Yossi is a sequel to the 2002 film Yossi & Jagger, both of which are directed by Eytan Fo.

Yossi & Jagger was the ultimately tragic love story of two men serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. With Yossi, director Fox returns to find out what has happened with the character.

Since the events of Yossi & Jagger, Dr. Yossi Hoffman (Ohad Knoller) has become a valued and dedicated cardiologist, often using his work as a way to escape from dealing with his anguished life. He lives alone, still closeted, unable to break through the walls and defenses built around him since the death of his lover. Even his co-workers find it almost impossible to get close to him.

But Yossi’s daily routine at the hospital is shaken up by the arrival of a mysterious woman.

Eytan Fox’s gay-themed drama Yossi is a an emotional story of starting to find one’s way back after losing a love – something to which everyone, gay or straight, should be able to relate to. The new film takes place ten years after the tragic events of Fox’s earlier Yossi And Jagger, an international hit film from 2003 about Yossi, an Israeli commander whose secret gay lover Levi is killed during a raid on Lebanon. A decade later Yossi (again played by Ohad Knoller) is still suffering over the death of Levi, remains closeted (just as he was as a soldier) and appears to have few, if any friends. Now chubby and unshaven, he’s become a respected cardiologist. He spends a lot of time at the hospital where he works avoiding the wasted sexual advances of a clueless female colleague and even more time at home trolling gay porn and hook up sites.

Yossi

Eytan Fox's superb sequel to his award-winning love story, Yossi & Jagger (2002), has finally arrived. The original told of two Israeli soldiers situated on the Lebanese border, whose clandestine love affair was struggling to survive in a friendly yet homophobic atmosphere. Jagger, who was a little more out there, did his darnedest to loosen up Yossi (Ohad Knoller), begging him to quit the army and live with him in a more tolerant ambiance such as the one Tel Aviv could furnish. The rosy vision unsettled Yossi, but not for long. Jagger was killed in an ambush - - and buried as a brave heterosexual, at least in the eyes of his parents and his compatriots.

Now jump a decade ahead. Dr. Yossi Hoffman is a highly respected cardiologist, yet a lonely, slightly out-of-shape homosexual. A workaholic, he refuses to take vacations, and his free evenings are neatly eviscerated by TV shows with laugh tracks.

Yossi

Directed by Eytan Fox

Israel, 2012

Eytan Fox’s follow-up to his 2002 short-feature Yossi & Jagger is an accomplished, sweet love and regret story.

Yossi (Ohad Knoller) is a closeted young doctor. When Varda (Orly Silbersatz) shows up at his hospital for a routine check-up, Yossi’s military and romantic past leads him to a new crossroads in his life.

Yossi is ostensibly divided into two halves. The first half takes place largely in Yossi’s Israeli hospital and the surrounding city and is a trudge towards obvious exposition. It’s the second-half, taking place almost solely in a beach resort, when director Fox’s compositions feel freer and the narrative takes on a looser lilt that Yossi eventually succeeds.

Ohad Knoller gives a strong performance as the title character, but he too feels limited by the stuffy opening to the film. It’s unclear whether Fox thinks that the narrative...

A lovingly rendered slow burn of a character study, Yossi impresses its message upon viewers with a quiet fortitude. In this sequel to Yossi & Jagger, we find Yossi (Ohad Knoller), a 34-year old heart surgeon in Tel Aviv, still mourning the loss of Jagger, his lover from a decade prior. A former fellow officer in the Israeli Defense Force. More than both a little oversensitive and a little overweight, Yossi’s obsessive inability to break from his state of grief leads him to an unending cycle of malaise. Dalliances in outdated pornography, junk food binges, and Internet dating prove to be an unsurprisingly poor substitute for love. Unsure of how to navigate his psychical shortcomings in the dating sphere, he posts photos of his healthier, younger self so as not to scare off potential suitors on dating sites. As Yossi is Eytan Fox’s (The Bubble, Walk on Water) touching follow-up to the controversial Israeli film illustrating...

Ten years ago, Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox made an unexpected splash with Yossi & Jagger, a 67-minute wartime romance about two Israeli soldiers, the titular Yossi (Ohad Knoller) and Jagger (Yehuda Levi), who struggled to conceal their love during mandatory service at the Israel-Lebanon border. The film struck a chord with a great wealth of viewers, won Knoller an acting prize at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival, and announced Fox as a formidable directorial talent. As Fox tells it, it also allowed him to take part in a cultural revolution that’s unfolded in Israel—and beyond—throughout the last decade, giving him …...

Closet Space: Fox Brings a Welcome Addendum to Celebrated Film

Eytan Fox’s much celebrated 2002 film, Yossi & Jaggar, concerning a passionate and secret love affair between two male Israeli soldiers, one of which dies tragically in combat in the arms of the other on the border of Lebanon, clapped a melancholy ending on what seemed a romance impossible to openly disclose both in time and place. A decade later, after debuting several other successful films, Fox returns with Yossi, who has also aged ten years and still remains in the closet. Not only does this followup serve as a continuation of a character from a film that’s gone on to develop a cult status in the queer film canon, but also as survey of progress in the acceptance of queer representation.

Still mourning the death of his lover, Jaggar, Yossi (Ohad Knoller) now works as a physician in an Israeli hospital,...

Title: Yossi (Ha-Sippur shel Yossi) Strand Releasing Director: Eytan Fox Screenwriter: Itay Segal Cast: Ohad Knoller, Lior Ashkenazi, Orly Silbersatz, Oz Zehavi, Ola Schur Selektar Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 1/8/13 Opens: January 25, 2013 There are many ways that the cultures of Iran and Israel are dissimilar. In Iran’s population there exists not a single homosexual, at least not since 1979. If you can’t believe the president of that country, whom can you believe? In Israel, for example, gays may not always be out of the closet but that macho country happily has no problems with gays in the army. Not only that, but gay men and hetero men [ Read More ]

The post Yossi Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Returning to the acclaimed role that won him the Tribeca Film Festival's Best Actor award in Eytan Fox's Yossi & Jagger back in 2003, Israeli screen star Ohad Knoller gives yet another extraordinary performance as Yossi, a gay man living out a solitary existence in Tel Aviv. To celebrate the DVD release of Yossi (2012) on Monday 10 December, we're delighted to be able to offer our word cinema-savvy readers one of Three DVD copies of the film, courtesy of the dedicated team at UK Lgbt distributor Peccadillo Pictures This is an exclusive competition for our Facebook and Twitter fans, so if you haven't already, 'Like' us at facebook.com/CineVueUK or follow us @CineVue before answering the question below.

Read more »...

Nearly a decade ago, the Israeli director Eytan Fox made Yossi & Jagger, a controversial movie about the gay love affair between two officers in the Israeli Defence Forces, one of whom – Jagger – is killed in Lebanon. In this quiet, admirably acted sequel, the still grieving survivor, Dr Yossi Hoffman (Ohad Knoller), is a 34-year-old, overweight, workaholic cardiologist in Tel Aviv with two embarrassingly solicitous colleagues (an amorous nurse and a skirt-chasing fellow surgeon) trying to draw him out of his solitude. By chance, a middle-aged patient turns out to be Jagger's still grieving mother, and in a delicately handled sequence Yossi is tempted to engage with her and her husband. One consequence is the father's invitation to inspect the lover's carefully preserved bedroom (a scene that inevitably echoes Brokeback Mountain).

Another is a drive down to Eilat for a lonely weekend during which he gives a lift to four soldiers...

Sightseers | Great Expectations | The Hunt | Laurence Anyways | Rise Of The Guardians | Trouble With The Curve | Yossi | Alex Cross | Talaash

Sightseers (15)

(Ben Wheatley, 2012, UK) Steve Oram, Alice Lowe, Eileen Davies, Richard Glover. 88 mins

It's been billed as Badlands meets Nuts In May, but what separates this English country killing spree from its influences is its finely tuned sense of humour, which owes more to Alan Partridge or Edgar Wright. That's the black icing on a cake that's already rich with satire, twisted romance and gruesome violence, as our caravanning couple carve a murderous swathe through our nation's more mundane tourist attractions. It makes you proud to be British.

Great Expectations (12A)

(Mike Newell, 2012, UK/Us) Jeremy Irvine, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter. 128 mins

To be honest, expectations weren't that great for this lavish, handsome, star-stuffed but essentially orthodox Dickens adaptation. Despite the epic scope, the dense plot feels crammed in, and...

Eytan Fox directs a moving followup to his drama about an Israeli commander whose gay lover is killed in Lebanon

Ten years have passed since the tragic events of Yossi & Jagger, director Eytan Fox's drama about an Israeli commander whose gay lover is killed during a raid on Lebanon. Now we're back with Yossi (Ohad Knoller), free of the military, but trapped by his grief – for the death of his sexual confidence as much as for Jagger. Fox uses the introduction of young, out-and-proud soldier Tom (Oz Zehavi) to argue that Israel has changed, and it's just that Yossi – sleepwalking through his job as a doctor – is too lonely to notice. There's a bit of drag in the opening act, and Fox would rather talk about social politics than foreign affairs, but it's a film full of tenderness, resting on a tremendous, sad performance from Knoller.

Rating: 3/5

DramaIsraelGay rightsHenry Barnes

guardian.

★★★☆☆ Somewhat unfortunately released in cinemas at a time when sympathy for the Israeli military is perilously low, Eytan Fox's melancholic romance Yossi (2012) - the belated follow-up to his own Yossi and Jagger (2002) - is a surprisingly touching story of loss and rekindled sexuality. Featuring a sensual soundtrack (courtesy of Devendra Banhart and Israeli songstress Keren Ann) and several noteworthy performances, including key turns from Ohad Knoller and Lior Ashkenazi, Yossi functions well as a sensitive and emotive portrayal of one ageing individual's journey back from the depths of grief and despair.

Read more »...

Yossi

Directed by Eytan Fox

Israel, 2012

Philadelphia Film Festival

Eytan Fox’s follow-up to his 2002 short-feature Yossi & Jagger is an accomplished, sweet love and regret story.

Yossi (Ohad Knoller) is a closeted young doctor. When Varda (Orly Silbersatz) shows up at his hospital for a routine check-up, Yossi’s military and romantic past leads him to a new crossroads in his life.

Yossi is ostensibly divided into two halves. The first half takes place largely in Yossi’s Israeli hospital and the surrounding city and is a trudge towards obvious exposition. It’s the second-half, taking place almost solely in a beach resort, when director Fox’s compositions feel freer and the narrative takes on a looser lilt that Yossi eventually succeeds.

Ohad Knoller gives a strong performance as the title character, but he too feels limited by the stuffy opening to the film. It’s unclear whether Fox thinks...

Brace yourselves. This list of the Top 100 Greatest Gay Movies is probably going to generate some howls of protest thanks to a rather major upset in the rankings. Frankly, one that surprised the hell out of us here at AfterElton.

But before we get to that, an introduction. A few weeks ago we asked AfterElton readers to submit up to ten of their favorite films by write-in vote. We conducted a similar poll several years ago, but a lot has happened culturally since then, and a number of worthy movies of gay interest have been released. We wanted to see how your list of favorites had changed.

We also wanted to expand our list to 100 from the top 50 we had done previously. We figured there were finally enough quality gay films to justify the expansion. And we wanted to break out gay documentaries onto their own list (You'll find the...

Strand Releasing has acquired North American rights to Eytan Fox’s Yossi, the sequel to 2002’s Yossi & Jagger, which Strand also released domestically. The first film told of a gay love affair between two Israeli soldiers, and the sequel follows Yossi, played by Ohad Knoller, as he meets a new man while on vacation. The film, written by Itay Segal, had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Strand plans to screen the movie at festivals this fall and open it theatrically in early 2013. The deal was negotiated between Strand’s Jon Gerrans and Films Distribution’s Nicolas Brigaud-Robert.

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Romeo and Juliet: Hailee Steinfeld, Douglas Booth Starring Lol‘s Douglas Booth and True Grit‘s Hailee Steinfeld, a new version of Romeo and Juliet is currently being shopped around at the Cannes Film Festival. Partly financed by Austrian design house Swarovski, this latest adaptation of Shakespeare’s love story was written by Academy Award winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) and directed by Carlo Carlei. A Best New Director David di Donatello nominee for The Flight of the Innocent (1993), Carlei’s previous English-language foray, the Matthew Modine vehicle Fluke, was a major box-office flop in 1995. In recent years, Carlei has worked on Italian television; his most recent TV movie was a remake of Roberto Rossellini’s Il General della Rovere (2011), starring Pierfrancesco Favino in the old Vittorio De Sica role. According to the Los Angeles Times blog 24 Frames, producer Ileen Maisel wants “every teenager in the world to come see” Romeo and Juliet.

Ten years after a tragic love story between two Idf soldiers... we catch up with one of them.

Eytan Fox's new feature, Yossi, which opened the World Narrative track at Tribeca 2012, is a spare movie, that, in a sense, presents a rather unusual view of the Israeli medical profession, one centered around the lonely adventures of a 34-year-old Tel Aviv pulmonary specialist.

It also depicts an Israel that shows, miraculously, a land in which the Palestinian population has suddenly gone Awol.

Yossi (Ohad Knoller, who won the Tff 2003 Best...

The Guardian Loki himself Tom Hiddleston wrote a piece defending the superhero movie genre which he thinks ought to be taken more seriously. Well written and impassioned but let's play devil's advocate for a moment. Isn't the money enough? Wouldn't it be nice if people could respond to dramas about the human condition without the comforting distance of genre?

Slant 15 famous movie monkeys in honor of the just released Chimpanzee

Ultra Culture makes a funny re: "exclusive image" of Katy Perry. Honestly I rarely open emails with the word "exclusive" in the header. They'll have to drop it from Websters soon since it lost its meaning somewhere at the tail end of the 20th century.

Pajiba screw context. Just appreciate the Jennifer Lawrenceness of it all

IndieWire somehow in the midst of my manic schedule, I missed the news that Eytan Fox had made a sequel to the wonderful Yossi...

Artistic Director Frederic Boyer Has a Tribeca Film Festival CommunityArtistic Director Frederic Boyer wants the annual Tribeca Film festival to be a community of filmmakers and film lovers.Slideshow: 12 Films Back Stage Looks Forward to at TribecaBack Stage picks the 12 narrative feature films you won't want to miss in this year's Tribeca Film Festival lineup.The Top 4 Panels to Hit at the Tribeca Film FestivalIn addition to a plethora of exciting films, Tribeca offers a slew of fascinating special events. Here are four that look hot.Predicting the Best Performances at the 2012 Tribeca Film FestivalEstablished actors such as John Hawkes and Michelle Williams join up-and-comers Will Rogers, Jess Weixler, and Abbie Cornish at Tribeca.Jenna Fischer's New Film Hits Tribeca Film Festival'"The Office" star Jenna Fischer produces and acts in "The Giant Mechanical Man," written and directed by her husband Lee Kirk. Actors Greta Gerwig, Ohad Knoller, and.

This year's Tribeca Film Festival (site) opens on Wednesday with the world premiere of The Five-Year Engagement, which, like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is directed by Nicholas Stoller, produced by Judd Apatow and stars Jason Segel, and closes on April 28 with Joss Whedon's The Avengers. In the New York Times, Stephen Holden notes that the new programming team (Frédéric Boyer, former artistic director of the Directors' Fortnight, Sundance vet Geoffrey Gilmore and Genna Terranova) have slimmed the lineup down to 90 features from 150 just two years ago: "As a result Tribeca is no longer a catchall basin for middling stray films seeking a showcase." What's more, "for the first time [the] world narrative and world documentary competitions have official opening-night films":

The opening narrative feature, Eytan Fox's Yossi, is the sequel to his gay love story, Yossi and Jagger, for which the Israeli actor Ohad Knoller won a best actor...

HollywoodNews.com: The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff), presented by American Express®, today announced the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections, along with selections for the out-of-competition Viewpoints section—the program established last year that highlights personal stories in international and independent cinema. Forty-six of the 90 feature-length films were announced. The 11th edition of the Festival will take place from April 18 to April 29 at locations around New York City.

The Festival was curated by a new programming team this year. Frédéric Boyer has joined Tff as Artistic Director, having most recently served as Artistic Director and Head of Programming for the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. Geoffrey Gilmore, Chief Creative Officer of Tribeca Enterprises, has expanded his role in overseeing the Festival program. Genna Terranova has been promoted to Director of Programming and Cara Cusumano returns as Programmer.

“It’s been so gratifying to watch the new programming...

The Tribeca Film Festival announced half of this year’s movie showcase, the 11th edition of the New York celebration set for April 18-29. James Franco’s behind-the-scenes General Hospital feature, Francophrenia, will have its North American premiere in the Viewpoints section – the program established last year that highlights more personal stories. “He’s kind of constructed this really interesting and well-crafted film about that experience that plays with the boundaries of documentary,” says Genna Terranova, Tribeca’s director of programming. “It’s a bit tongue in cheek, as James himself can be. He’s a bit enigmatic and the film is as well.

With The Five-Year Engagement set as the opening title for the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, they’ve announced more of the line-up today with World Narrative & Documentary Features as the Viewpoint titles. We’ve got the next film from The Exploding Girl director Bradley Rust Gray, Jack and Diane (as well as a first look about featuring Juno Temple, thanks to Styd).

There is a new Harmony Korine short as well Kate Bosworth‘s While We Were Here and The Girl, starring Abbie Cornish. James Franco also has his latest film, Francophrenia, featuring footage from his performance on General Hospital. Nothing sticks out too greatly yet, but if I see something as interesting as Beyond the Black Rainbow or Magic Valley like last year, I’ll be a happy man. Check it out below and come back Thursday for the rest of the announcement.

World Narrative Feature Competition

• All In (La Suerte En Tus Manos...

SXSW kicks off later this week, but once your done slurping the BBQ sauce off your fingers, pack your backs and head north to Manhattan as the Tribeca Film Festival is gearing up to unspool in April. To whet cinephile appetites, organizers have dropped the lineup for the World Narrative Feature Competition, World Documentary Feature Competition and Viewpoints lineups and there are plenty of titles to take note of.

Among the narratives, the anticipated "Jack And Diane" from Bradley Rust Gray will make its world premiere. Starring Juno Temple and Riley Keough, the film takes a teenage lesbian love tale and twists the formula, with one of them revealing she's a werewolf. Add to that a cast rounded out by Dane DeHaan, Jena Malone and pop star Kylie Minogue (as a tattooed lesbian, of course) and you can see why this will be one of the hottest tickets at the fest.

It seemed like director Eytan Fox disappeared from the public eye, but this year he's planning a comeback. 20 years ago his short film After made a name for him as someone who put homosexuality at the center of his works. He moved on to direct a few other features and TV series, his breakthrough came a decade later, with Yossi and Jagger, a 65 min TV film that broke out from the little screen to be shown at movie theaters locally and internationally. His follow-up was the hugely successful Walk on Water, and after that came 2007's The Bubble, which was a local commercial success, but became a punching bag for most of the critics. Almost four years later, Fox is back: earlier this year it was announced that a Mamma-Mia type TV series he directed was re-cut into a feature length film, and sold to distribution in the U.S.

BERLIN -- While more somber than darkly comic, Joseph Cedar's "Beaufort" fits nicely into the tradition of war story absurdism pioneered by Joseph Heller's novel "Catch-22" and Robert Altman's film "MASH".

That it's an Israeli film may speak to a growing weariness in that country about being on a continual war footing. Given the futility of Israel's recent invasion of Lebanon, "Beaufort" is a cautionary tale that arrives perhaps a year too late.

The film has less to do with the Middle East than with war as an institution. Young soldiers with families and girlfriends fight and die, and often it is for a piece of ground that is more symbolic than strategic. Such a universal theme could find audiences outside of Israel in Europe and North America.

Cedar and Ron Leshem's screenplay, based on Ron Leshem's best-selling novel, "Im Yesh Gan Eden", focuses on the final weeks of the Israeli occupation of Beaufort Castle, a hilltop fortress in Lebanon dating back to the Crusades. The Israeli Army conquered the fort in 1982 in the early days of the first Lebanese war. Its continued occupation of the hill until 2000 signaled Israeli control of that part of Lebanon.

But after Israel announced its intention to withdraw from that country, the soldiers' presence at Beaufort is pointless. Exposed to continual danger from mortar shells and rocket attacks, the young men no longer have a viable mission. What they are defending is a mountain they will soon abandon.

The central figure is Liraz Liberti (Oshri Cohen), the 22-year-old commander. He probably is the only one at Beaufort who wants the job. Where once he took pride in his leadership, he is now paralyzed in his decisionmaking. The mission no longer has any point, yet here they sit amid raining mortar shells. The only intelligent command would be to withdraw, but it's one he refuses to issue until ordered to do so.

A bomb squad expert (Ohad Knoller) arrives to dismantle a bomb lying on a minor dirt road used only to bring supplies to the fortress. The mission is as dangerous as it is futile.

Then a powerful rocket attack kills a solider in an outpost, signaling renewed enemy interest in creating as many casualties as possible to make the Israeli withdrawal look like a chaotic retreat.

Finally, the evacuation draws near. The army wires the whole place to blow the fortress up. Yet on what should be a last night with only a dozen soldiers left, withdrawal orders do not arrive: Everyone must hold tight for another pathetic day.

Within the safe walls and an underground city of concrete, the young men develop a world onto themselves, cut off from friend and foe, with its own dark humor and rituals.

Does your mother know you're here? one soldier asks another. It turns out most of the men's families have no idea.

Another soldier idly says he's "guarding the mountain," then after a pause adds: "So it won't escape."

The movie doesn't completely escape war film conventions. The chief offense is the scene where we really get to know about a guy and his girl moments before he gets killed, a tradition that was old in John Wayne movies.

Otherwise, this is a solid effort with superb production values and a musical score by Ishai Adar that you hardly notice at all: It's just a low, anxious murmur throughout the movie.

BEAUFORT

United King Films/Metro Communications/Movie Plus

Credits:

Director: Joseph Cedar

Screenwriters: Ron Leshem, Joseph Cedar

Based on a novel by: Ron Leshem

Producers: David Silber, Joseph Cedar

Executive producers: Moshe Edery, Leon Edery

Director of photography: Ofer Yanov

Production designer: Miguel Markin

Music: Ishai Adar

Costume designer: Maya More

Editor: Zohar M. Sela

Cast:

Liraz: Oshri Cohen

Koris: Itay Tiran

Oshri: Eli Eltonyo

Ziv: Ohad Knoller

Zitlawy: Itay Turgeman

Running time -- 131 minutes

No MPAA rating...