Archive | October, 2025

You Saw Me Standing Alone

27 Oct
Andrew Scott and Ethan Hawke star as Rodgers and Hart in Blue Moon

It’s March 31, 1943. Opening night for Oklahoma!, the first musical written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, at the St. James Theatre on Broadway. Suffice it to say, everyone loves it.

Everyone, that is, except Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke), Rodgers’ former songwriting partner, who leaves the show during its title number and heads down the block to Sardi’s, where he proceeds to lambaste everything about the production, from its corny lyrics (pun intended) to the exclamation point in the show’s title.

It’s clear from the start that Hart is not just being catty; he’s also jealous of Rodgers and contemptuous of the show’s success. He knows it’s a lesser work. He still wishes he’d written it. “Am I bitter?” he asks the bartender (Bobby Cannavale). “Fuck yes!”

That’s the setup for Richard Linklater’s excellent new film, Blue Moon, which resists the usual biopic sweep, and focuses not on the stories behind Rodgers and Hart musicals like Pal Joey, On Your Toes, and Babes In Arms, or songs like “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and the film’s title song, but rather, on the moment when Hart watches Rodgers leave him behind and move on to even greater success with Hammerstein. (The duo would go on to become the most successful songwriting team in American musical theater history, writing such enduring Broadway classics as Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific, and The Sound of Music.)

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We Believe in Bruce Springsteen

26 Oct
Jeremy Allen White plays Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me from Nowhere

Eschewing the conventional rock biopic format — in which a significant portion of a performer’s life is covered in flashback, usually from the moment of a pivotal career milestone (see Walk the Line or, for a less serious take, Walk Hard) — Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere defies expectation.

It zeroes in on a specific year, starting in 1981 on the final night of Bruce Springsteen’s The River tour, during which he achieved his greatest success to date. Not surprisingly, his record label wanted to strike while the iron was hot, but 32-year-old Bruce (The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White) was uncomfortable with all that fame and still grappling with some heavy, unresolved issues involving his father. So, he decided to retreat to a house in Colts Neck, N.J., to chill out for a bit. As he tells his longtime friend and manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong, Succession) early on here, “I just need to get home and slow things down a little.”

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Every Story Matters: Remembering the Horror and Heroism of October 7

6 Oct
Israel flags

“Every story matters.” That’s something Guy, our excellent tour guide, said on the first day of my trip to Israel in June 2024. It’s a quote that’s stayed with me all these months since I first heard it.

I was visiting Israel as part of a Jewish National Fund (JNF) volunteer mission, and indeed, over the course of my time there, I heard many stories about what happened on or because of October 7 — stories of horror, cruelty, and sadness, but also stories of heroism, resilience, and hope. Every single one of them was significant.

This week marks two years, 24 months, 104 weeks, 732 days, since October 7. As the war in Gaza has dragged on and propaganda has altered the narrative for people around the world, the events that started it all, the reason Israel went into Gaza in the first place, have unfortunately receded into the distant memory of too many. Some deny what happened, and others would like to brush aside the attack entirely, but we cannot allow that day to be forgotten. We must remember it. Bearing witness and sharing stories are the best ways to make sure nobody ever forgets what happened.

Thankfully, to commemorate the anniversary, there are lots of stories being shared. For example, HBO Max and Paramount Plus each have series that dramatize the events of October 7, Amazon Prime Video has a new documentary, Eli Sharabi’s book Hostage shares the ordeal of his 491 days in Hamas captivity, and the award-winning film The Road Between Us is now in theaters. (Yes, there’s also cautious optimism that we may be close to a deal to end the war and finally bring home the remaining 48 hostages, living and deceased. But that’s another story altogether.)

I did my best to write down or somehow capture as many of the stories I heard or experienced on my trip. Of course, it was difficult to remember everything and every detail. There were so many.

Nevertheless, here, in abbreviated versions, are some of the notable ones. To protect people’s identities, I’ve removed most of the last names.

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