Simon & Schuster releases the sobering, important “Anatomy of a Genocide:  The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz”

The details in the book are sobering and scary. In Anatomy of a Genocide:  The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz  (Simon & Schuster, $30), Omer Bartov explains that ethnic cleansing doesn’t occur as is so often portrayed in popular history, with the quick ascent of a vitriolic political leader and the unleashing of military might. It begins in seeming peace, slowly and often unnoticed, the culmination of pent-up slights and grudges and indignities.

Anatomy of a genocide 9781451684537 hr

The perpetrators aren’t just sociopathic soldiers. They are neighbors and friends and family. They are human beings, proud and angry and scared. They are also middle-aged men who come from elsewhere, often with their wives and children and parents, and settle into a life of bourgeois comfort peppered with bouts of mass murder: an island of normality floating on an ocean of blood.

For more than two decades Bartov, whose mother was raised in Buczacz, traveled extensively throughout the region, scouring archives and amassing thousands of documents rarely seen until now. He has also made use of hundreds of first-person testimonies by victims, perpetrators, collaborators, and rescuers. Anatomy of a Genocide profoundly changes our understanding of the social dynamics of mass killing and the nature of the Holocaust as a whole. Bartov’s book isn’t just an attempt to understand what happened in the past. It’s a warning of how it could happen again, in our own towns and cities—much more easily than we might think.

The book is a fascinating and cautionary examination of how genocide can take root at the local level—turning neighbors, friends, and even family members against one another—as seen through the eastern European border town of Buczacz during World War II.

Kendra relocates from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Oh no! Will her marriage survive? What about a seventh season?

Not every girl next door in a former Playboy model. Unless you’re Kendra W. Bassett. No, the “W” does not stand for “wonderful” but “Wilkinson”, her maiden name before she hooked up with and married her husband, Hank Bassett. He’s now making the transition from NFL football player to business man   and she’s balancing motherhood and her business ventures.

And so they star in Kendra on Top in, as some call it “the shocking reality series that follows America’s favorite reality queen.” In the upcoming Kendra on Top:  Season Six (MPI Media Group), Kendra relocates from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for a life-changing opportunity, one that could propel her career in a dynamic new direction.

But will her time away from her family and friends have a disastrous effect? And can her marriage to survive the distance?
Meanwhile, rumors of a tell-all book resurface, fracturing an already fragile relationship with her mother, Patti. When Kendra finds out, she’s forced to give her mother an ultimatum: Forget about writing the book or never see your grandchildren again.
The season culminates in a shocking reunion you’re going to have to see to believe. It’s all in the new double-DVD set of all 16 episodes of the hit reality show.

We now run toward the great news about a great city. And a great marathon.

We love that source known as “unknown”. And we often love his/her quotes. Like this one: “Running is nothing more than a series of arguments between the part of your brain that wants to stop and the part that wants to keep going.”

We now run to tell you about a great new First Run Features film, that honors a city and its historic marathon. From its humble origins 120 years ago to the present day, Boston immerses the viewer into the wondrous kaleidoscope of the oldest annually contested marathon in the world.

Evolving from a workingman’s challenge to welcoming foreign athletes and eventually women, the iconic race
played no small part in paving the way for the
modern marathon and mass participatory sports.

Narrated by Oscar winning Boston native Matt Damon, Boston features many of running’s greatest champions including Shalane Flanagan, Meb Keflezighi, Bill Rodgers, Frank Shorter and Joan Benoit Samuelson.

The documentary pays such homage to Boston that its Executive Produced is  Academy Award nominee and Boston Marathon competitor Frank Marshall; its original soundtrack was recorded by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Face it: I will come in last. Boston (the city and documentary) always comes in first.

Somewhere out there is a genius songwriter. Her name is Cynthia Weil, now starting a new chapter of her life

On our list of favorite female songwriters: Cynthia Weil. We have never lost that lovin’ feeling for her. And we are not kidding. Somewhere out there are other good female songwriters, but Weil, a Grammy award-winning and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, is a genius. Make that Genius. 

Weil, still as stunning as special
Collaborating with her husband, Barry Mann, she has written countless standards.  Our all-time favorite is “Blame It on the Bossa Nova”, a song that was a huge hit for Eydie Gorme, a friend we so sorely miss.

Weil has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (only the third woman to receive this honor in the non-performing category). She has been honored with multiple Grammy nominations and two Grammy awards for “Somewhere Out There,” which won the awards for “Motion Picture Song of the Year” and “Song of the Year.” Weil is so important in the history of pop music that she is featured as a real-life character in the Tony Award-winning musical Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.

Weil. Such a novel woman. It’s only fitting, then, that her new children’s book, 806: A Novel (Tanglewood Publishing, $16.99), has a teen songwriter as its main character.  The book hits shelves on March 13.

806: A Novel806: A Novel takes readers on a life-changing road trip with more than a few twists and turns. Taking on the thought-provoking topic of sperm donor kids seeking their father while facing challenges and disappointments along the way, the story is balanced by its humor, newfound familial relationships, and heartfelt moments. Teens will connect with KT, Jesse, and Gabe for different reasons during their journey as they race through the book to discover how everything turns out.

We told you she was a genius. By the way: Is it any wonder that “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”, is the most played song of the 20th century? I pray she will continue making her own kind of music.

“Slavery and the Making of America” is a must-see, must-own piece of history

Black History Month is winding down, but there’s one more PBS Distribution program that is a must-see, must-own DVD.  Slavery and the Making of America, produced by THIRTEEN/WNET New York, is a landmark series documenting the history of American slavery from its beginnings in the British colonies through the years of post-Civil War Reconstruction.  The program examines the integral role slavery played in shaping the new country’s development, challenging the long held notion that it was exclusively a Southern enterprise.

Through the remarkable stories of individual slaves, the program offers fresh perspectives on the slave experience and testifies to the active role that Africans and African Americans took in surviving their bondage and shaping their own lives.

Tirelessly leading the fight for racial and labor justice, Dolores Huerta has evolved into one of the most defiant feminists of the 20th century

She is one of the most important, yet least known activists of our time. Tirelessly leading the fight for racial and labor justice, Dolores Huerta evolved into one of the most defiant feminists of the 20th century—and continues the fight to this day, at 87.

With unprecedented access to this intensely private mother of eleven, Dolores (PBS Distribution) chronicles Huerta’s life from her childhood in Stockton to her early years with the United Farm Workers, from her work with the headline-making grape boycott launched in 1965 to her role in the feminist movement of the ’70s to her continued work as a fearless activist. Featuring interviews with Gloria Steinem, Luis Valdez, Hillary Clinton, Angela Davis, her children and more, Dolores is an intimate and inspiring portrait of a passionate champion of the oppressed and an indomitable woman willing to accept the personal sacrifices involved in committing one’s life to social change. The film is released March 27.

“In the 1970s, the national grape boycott that Dolores Huerta helped organize played out in the small rural Minnesota farming community where I grew up—supported by our Catholic church along with tens of thousands of religious organizations across the country,” says Lois Vossen, Independent Lens executive producer. “More than forty years later, Dolores is still an indefatigable architect for social change on behalf of poor, underrepresented people, urging them to seek self-determination with her refrain ‘Si Se Puede’ (‘Yes We Can’).”

It was in 1955 that she would meet a likeminded colleague, CSO Executive Director César E. Chávez. The two soon discovered that they shared a common vision of organizing farm workers and in 1962 they launched the National Farm Workers Association, which would evolve into the United Farm Workers and bring national attention to the conditions faced by farm laborers.

Dolores’s lobbying and negotiating talents helped secure Aid for Dependent Families (AFDC) and disability insurance for farm workers; she was also instrumental in the enactment of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, which granted California’s farm workers the right to collectively organize and bargain for better wages and working conditions. While the farm workers lacked financial capital, they were able to wield significant economic power through hugely successful national boycotts. As their principal legislative advocate, Dolores became one of the UFW’s most visible spokespersons.

While directing the first National Boycott of California Table Grapes out of New York, Huerta met Gloria Steinem and was introduced to the burgeoning feminist movement which rallied behind the farm workers’ cause. Having found a supportive voice with other feminists, Huerta began to challenge gender discrimination within the farm workers’ movement.

At age 58, Dolores suffered a life-threatening assault while protesting against the policies of then-presidential candidate George Bush in San Francisco. Following a lengthy recovery, she began to focus on women’s rights, traversing the country on behalf of the Feminist Majority’s “Feminization of Power: 50/50 by the Year 2000” campaign which encouraged Latinas to run for office.

Dolores continues to work tirelessly developing leaders and advocating for the working poor, women, and children as founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in March of 2013 and has received numerous awards including The Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award from President Clinton in 1998, Ladies Home Journal’s “100 Most Important Woman of the 20th Century,” and nine Honorary Doctorates from U.S. universities. In 2012, President Obama bestowed Dolores with her most prestigious award, The Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The real former NYPD officer tells his tale in “Frank Serpico”

In the early ’70s, one man stood up to the New York City police force. Hailed as a hero by many, hated by others, officer Frank Serpico made headlines when he blew the whistle on a culture of bribery and corruption within the department.
Serpico imp.jpg
His one-man crusade for police reform inspired the 1973 Al Pacino film that bears his name, but the real-life saga is as gripping as anything Hollywood could dream up.
Now, in Frank Serpico (IFC Films), Frank tells his story in his own words: From his Italian-American roots in Brooklyn to his disillusionment with the NYPD to his riveting account of a dramatic drug bust (and possible set-up)
that ended with him being shot in the face.
Featuring music by Jack White and interviews with Serpico’s associates and admirers, including writer Luc Sante and actor-filmmaker John Turturro, this is an inspiring, all-access portrait of a courageous man who refused to betray his ideals.
Save the date: Frank Serpico is released March 13.

“The Paris Opera” hits all the high notes when it comes to a fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary

Sweeping in scope yet full of intimate moments, Film Movement’s The Paris Opera,  offers a candid look behind the scenes of one of the world’s foremost performing arts institutions. Over the course of one tumultuous season, director Jean-Stéphane Bron nimbly juggles multiple storylines, from ballet and opera rehearsals, to strike negotiations, last minute crises and ticket disputes, revealing the dedication of the talented personnel who bring breathtaking spectacles to the stage night after night.

 
It’s Autumn 2015 and, at the Paris Opera, new director Stéphane Lissner is putting the finishing touches to his first press conference.  Backstage, artists and crew diligently prepare to raise the curtain on a new season with Schönberg’s opera, Moses and Aaron.  However, the announcement of a strike and arrival of a 2000-pound bull in a supporting role complicate matters greatly.  As the season progresses, more and more characters appear, playing out the human comedy in the manner of a documentary Opera.  Enter promising young Russian singer, Mikhail Tymoshenko, who begins at the Opera’s Academy; in the hallways of Opera Bastille, his destiny will cross paths with that of Bryn Terfel, one of the greatest voices of his time.  And Lissner will have to weather star choreographer Benjamin Millepied jumping ship soon after taking over as director of ballet at Palais Garnier.  But when the terrorist attack at The Bataclan plunges the city into mourning, the company recognizes the show must go on.
And it does.

 

Nancy Cartwright’s wonderful “love affair” with Federico Fellini shines in “In Search of Fellini”

We have been in love with Federico Fellini’s films since we were 8 1/2.
We’ve also been in love with Lucy. Of course, that Lucy, but we’re on the ball with a different Lucy.
Let us explain.
A coming-of-age adventure, the film In Search of Fellini follows Lucy, a small-town girl from Ohio who discovers the delightfully bizarre films of the legendary Italian filmmaker and sets off on a journey across Italy to find him. Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson for nearly 30 years!) is a co-writer and executive producer; the film is actually inspired by her true life events: her fascination with and search for Federico Fellini, in Italy, as a young woman. Nancy has even kept the original letters that she wrote to Federico Fellini (on a Corona typewriter) in the mid ’80s as well as correspondence from his office. This winsome drama, from Spotted Cow Entertainment, also starring Maria Bello and Mary Lynn Rajskub, arrives on DVD on February 23.
Lucy Cunningham has never kissed a boy, never had a job and never really had friends. Her best, and perhaps only, friend is her mother, Claire (portrayed by Bello), who has shielded her from all the bad in the world, including Claire’s own terminal illness. Claire’s no-BS sister, Kerri (Rajskub), urges her to break her silence and tell Lucy the truth before it’s too late. Lucy, aware that something is up, goes to Cleveland for an ill-fated job interview. There, she stumbles into a bizarre and wonderful festival of the films of legendary Italian director Federico Fellini and is instantly swept away with his Oscar-winning film La Strada (1953).  The cleverly enigmatic tragicomedy leaves Lucy restless and aching for answers, and in a burst of courage, she leaves her small-town home to find the filmmaker and unlock his mysteries and her own.

What follows is a strange and spectacular journey through the romantic dreamscapes of Italy, as Lucy encounters characters, fantasies and nightmares from Fellini’s films.  Her journey of discovery and life counterpoints Claire’s gradual decline into death. Apart but connected, they fulfill both of their dreams as truth and fiction intertwine into the ultimate Felliniesque journey.

 

The hell with VD. Celebrate life and love with your NYC besties, Abbi and Ilana, in “Broad City: Season 4”.

The flowers are dead.
The chocolates are gome.
The champagne is flat.

Doesn’t matter. That was Valentine’s Day. The love is still in the air with Galentine’s Day. What better way to celebrate than with your NY besties, Abbi and Ilana. Grab a few giant dirty martinis, a plate of bagel bites, some churrons and the new release of Broad City: Season 4.  Wasn’t that kind of Paramount Home Media Distribution?

The fourth season of the critically acclaimed series finds Abbi and Ilana growing up as they contend with gray hairs, the prospect of real relationships and, of course, living under a T***p presidency. The two-disc DVD set includes all 10 episodes from the fourth season as well as deleted & extended scenes, “Hack into Broad City” and “Behind Broad City.”

YAS KWEEN!