FIFTH LOS ANGELES JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL"We don't select -- we Choose!" by Alex DeleonThe fifth edition of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival opened a six day run on Saturday, May 8, at the classy Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills with a very off-beat film from Israel, "A Matter of Size", about Hebrew speaking Sumo wrestlers (!) and an hour long Gala stars-of-yesteryear studded reception in the lobby preceding the screening. The film was exceptional and the array of celebrities at the recep...

"NOIR CITY SEATTLE" OPENS WITH RARITIES FROM THE DARK SIDE OF HOLLYWOOD by Alex DeleonThe traveling all-Film-Noir festival known as "Noir City", introduced personally by the San Francisco based "Czar of Noir", Eddie Muller, opened here at the SIFF theater in the Space Needle dominated Seattle Center on Friday, July 6, with a pair of seldom seen and hard-to-find dark films of the late forties, "Thieves' Highway" (FOX, 1949, 94 minutes) and "Deadline at Dawn" (RKO, 1946, 77 minutes). Both films w...

With a couple of hours still left to go until the official kick-off of this "Mother of all Film Festivals" activity is feverish along the short stretch of the Lido known as Viale Marconi, the actual location of this oldest of all world film festivals --Now that was rather a mouthful, calling for a bit of elucidation. The first Venice film festival took place way back in 1932 when the Fascist government under Benito Mussolini, taking a page from Lenin, realized that film was a powerful propaganda...