Jewish Film Festival Preview

So far, I’ve screened three films and one TV episode that will play this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Here’s what I thought of them:

B+ Afternoon Delight
The plot sounds like broad, comic farce: A young Jewish mother and housewife invites a stripper and sometimes prostitute to move into her home and become her young son’s nanny. When Afternoon Delight tries to be funny, it generally succeeds. But writer/director Jill Soloway mostly plays it straight, taking this absurd premise and seeing what might realistically come out of it. The result is mostly thoughtful, entertaining, grounded in reality, and sexy.

Afternoon Delight plays only once at the festival, as the Berkeley Big Night presentation. That will be at the California on Saturday, August 3, at 6:30. It will open for a regular theatrical release on August 30.

B+ The Trials of Muhammad Ali
A well-made documentary about a great subject, The Trials of Muhammad Ali looks a man who is arguably the most important athlete of the last 50 years. At the age of 22, with very little experience, Cassius Clay became the heavyweight champion of the world. A devout member of the Nation of Islam, he changed his name to Muhammad Ali, took on controversy, and risked both jail and a destroyed career for resisting the draft ("No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger"). Eventually, he would return to the ring and more triumphs. Director Bill Siegel has made a competent and conventional documentary, but Ali’s story and charisma makes it a very moving and exciting tale.

Just one problem: There’s absolutely nothing Jewish about this film except the director’s last name. The Festival’s explanation for why it’s here, "certain films when placed in a Jewish context inspire truly Jewish conversation," doesn’t convince me.

Despite that problem, The Trials of Muhammad Ali will screen four times: At the Castro on Sunday, July 28, at 7:15; the New Parkway on Friday, August 2, at 7:00; the Rafael on Saturday, August 10, at 6:00, and at the Grand Lake on Sunday, August 11, at 4:35.

Kenny Hotz’s Triumph of the Will
I’ve only seen one episode of this Canadian docu-comedy series–I believe the festival will screen three. Not to be confused with Leni Riefenstahl’s pro-Nazi original, this show follows Hotz as he attempts in each episode to do something decent and good. In the one I saw, he tried to get his 75-year-old mother–a widow for two decades–to rekindle her sex life. A couple of scenes were howlingly funny–especially the one where Annie Sprinkle shows her a variety of vibrators–and most of it at least generated a smile. Since I’ve only seen a third of what will be presented, I’m not giving this show a grade.

Kenny Hotz’s Triumph of the Will will only screen once at the festival, at the JCCSF, on Saturday, August 3, at 8:45.

C+ The Zigzag Kid
This year’s festival opens not with a bang, but with a modestly entertaining, family-friendly fizzle. Days before his bar mitzvah, the son of a great detective and a long-dead mother finds himself on a journey of adventure and personal discovery. His main companion just might be a master criminal. The story is not quite rousing enough to be fine escapist entertainment, and only rarely thoughtful enough to be anything else. A few clever plot twists keep it from being entirely predictable. Innocuous and mildly charming, The Zigzag Kid is safe for any child old enough to read subtitles.

The Zigzag Kid opens this year’s Festival at the Castro, Thursday, July 25, at 6:30. It also plays at the Cinearts at Palo Alto Square on Sunday, August 4 at 1:50, Berkeley’s California Theatre on Tuesday, August 6, at 6:15, and the Rafael on Monday, August 12, at 6:10.