Meet the Jewish parents, Spanish-style
Friday July 28, 2006
Meet the Jewish parents, Spanish-style
To be perfectly frank, I can’t make a good case for why I liked the Spanish Jewish family comedy “Only Human” so much more than the American Jewish family comedy “Keeping Up With the Steins.”
Perhaps stereotypes are less grating in a foreign language. Or maybe the characters are familiar but not painfully familiar, if you know what I mean.
Or, more likely, Dominic Harari and Teresa de Pelegri’s debut feature benefits from a more appealing cast and a wittier screenplay. Can you imagine anything funnier than a container of frozen soup intended for Shabbat dinner skidding out a seventh-story window and beaning a passerby?
OK, lots of things. But that absurdist incident morphs into a resonant plot device that somehow manages to be hilarious and poignant, surreal and transformational.
The movie begins on a terrific note, with an enchanting couple clearly in love (and lust) expressing their nervousness (and desire) as they climb in an elevator. Leni (pale-skinned redhead Marian Aguilera) has brought Rafi (the bearded Guillermo Toledo) home to meet her Madrid family, and they’re both taking a big risk.
Leni’s Jewish brood is a breeding ground for tsuris. Older sister Tania (Maria Botto) is a nymphomaniac belly dancer with a spoiled and petulant 6-year-old daughter. Her younger brother David (Fernando Ramallo) is newly observant, and his demands on this Erev Shabbat are making everyone testy. And her beloved elderly grandfather Dudu (Max Berliner) is not only blind but also a little dotty.
That leaves her mother, Gloria (Norma Aleandro), a deeply unhappy woman with no sex life, no control over her underachieving children and no prospects for improvement. Where’s Senor Dalinsky? Who knows? He could be working late yet again or, God forbid, having an affair.
Rafi should have no problem making a great impression on this crowd. Except he’s not exactly how Leni had represented him when she called her mother to set the date. He’s not Israeli, you see. He’s Palestinian.
Now, Rafi’s lived in Spain since he was seven, so he’s just as assimilated (both culturally and in appearance) as Leni. And I’m not sure that it’s any more of a shanda than if he were a generic non-Jewish Spaniard.
But it does allow for some entertaining dialogue that skewers stereotypes and, in a pithy lovers’ quarrel, condenses every argument and justification ever compiled by Israelis and Palestinians into a two-minute drill. (If only Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” had been as economical in its political exchanges.)
The filmmakers met in Columbia’s graduate film program more than a decade ago, and became collaborators — and husband and wife. Harari was born in England of Egyptian Jewish ancestry, while de Pelegri is Spanish Catholic and subsequently converted to Judaism.
Harari and de Pelegri originally set the film in London, but their Spanish producers lobbied for a change of venue. All to the good, I say, since the film has an ebullience that one does not associate with England.
“Only Human” has a warm spot in its heart, and sooner or later every family member is “rehabilitated” and welcomed back into the fold. The film doesn’t offer a message or life lesson that we haven’t gleaned from a thousand other movies, but we don’t expect one.
It does remind us, with brio and a certain amount of self-deprecation, that first (and even second) impressions can be deceiving.
I can’t claim that “Only Human” is an especially memorable movie, but its vivacious cast effortlessly sweeps us up in its ditzy maelstrom. By the time the film consciously steals the last line of Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot” for its own closer, we’ve come to appreciate the Dalinsky clan more than ever seemed possible when they opened the door for Leni and Rafi.
“Only Human”opens Friday, July 28 at the Opera Plaza Cinema in S.F.
Audioslave Front Man To Do Bond Theme
NEW YORK, July 27, 2006
 Audioslave singer Chris Cornell, shown here performing at Xtreme Rock Radio's annual "Holiday Havoc" concert in Las Vegas on Nov. 19, 2005, will perform the title song for the new James Bond movie. (GETTY IMAGES/Ethan Miller)Fast Facts "Casino Royale" stars Daniel Craig in his debut as Agent 007. The movie, based on the very first Bond book written by Ian Fleming, will be released on Nov. 17. |
Cornell joins a long and diverse list of music superstars who have provided songs for Bond movies — including Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Paul McCartney and Wings, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and Garbage.
Prior to Audioslave, Cornell was lead singer of 90s alt rockers Soundgarden. He released a solo album, "Euphoria Morning" in 1999, and has contributed songs to soundtracks in the past, including "Mission: Impossible II."
The next Audioslave album, "Revelations," is due out Sept. 5, according to the band's MySpace page. Lead guitarist Tom Morello told Rolling Stone that the album is a "big hard rock record with a funky bottom." The set includes a song about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which Morello says is the band's most political song to date.
"Casino Royale" stars Daniel Craig in his debut as Agent 007. The movie, based on the very first Bond book written by Ian Fleming, will be released on Nov. 17.
Craig, a classically trained British actor, has a long list of credits including the 2005 Steven Spielberg film "Munich," the Paul Newman-Tom Hanks film "Road to Perdition" in 2002, and the Nicole Kidman sci fi movie "The Visiting," expected in theatres next year.
Craig, who is 38, has also done a lot of work on American television, where he won fans on "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," back in 2001.
By Judy Faber
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