Rebecca Schull in “The Last.” Rebecca Schull and Jeff Lipsky Saving the Best for The Last by Jay S. Jacobs What would you do? That is the main question in the new independent film The Last, a movie that has a shocking and inflammatory subject matter but looks at it from a smart and philosophical viewpoint. What would you do if you have grown up in a loving and diverse Jewish family if your beloved grandmother confesses when she learns that she is dying that she is not a Jewis

Sam de Jong Sam de Jong Dutch Film Director Crowns a Prince by Brad Balfour English-language movies documenting society’s underbelly include such classics as the hard-nosed Last Exit To Brooklyn or the comparatively benign West Side Story. There’s a body of work that’s emerged out of England’s rock subcultures from the ’50s on up. But fewer films detail Europe’s gritty youth subcultures, though that’s been changing — witness a French film like La Haine (Hate). Now a youthful

Two-Bit Waltz TWO-BIT WALTZ (2014) Starring Clara Mamet, Rebecca Pidgeon, William H. Macy, Jared Gilman, David Paymer, Matt O’Leary, Ella Dershowitz and John Pirruccello. Screenplay by Clara Mamet. Directed by Clara Mamet. Distributed by Monterey Media.  79 minutes.  Not Rated. Sometimes a film can be rather shocking, when you consider the highs of the highs compared to the lows of the lows. Two-Bit Waltz is the first film written and directed by 20-year-old Clara Mamet, the

Jonatha Brooke stars in the one-woman play “My Mother Has Four Noses” playing at the Duke on 42nd Street in New York City. Jonatha Brooke How We Met Her Mother by Jay S. Jacobs A few years ago, acclaimed singer/songwriter Jonatha Brooke had to put her career and life on hold when her mother was afflicted with Alzheimer’s and dementia.  For two years, Brooke, her husband and a cousin took on the full-time positions of caretaker and watched as her mother Darren Stone Nelson, a

About Time ABOUT TIME (2013) Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson, Lindsay Duncan, Tom Hollander, Will Merrick, Richard Cordery, Joshua McGuire, Margot Robbie, Tom Hughes, Clemmie Dugdale, Harry Hadden-Paton. Vanessa Kirby, Mark Healy, Mitchell Mullen and Lisa Eichhorn. Screenplay by Richard Curtis. Directed by Richard Curtis. Distributed by Universal Pictures. 123 minutes. Rated R. About Time is literally about time: time travel, to be exact. B

Richard Price RICHARD PRICE BETTER THAN FICTION BY RONALD SKLAR If Richard Price’s life story were made into a movie, you would accuse the joint of being too far-fetched.  But, as the old cliché goes, truth is stranger than fiction. Price came up in a Bronx housing project, but his gift for writing gained him entrance into the some of the nation’s top colleges.  He thrived at Cornell, Columbia and Stanford, despite his feeling like a fish out of water.  His first novel, The W

Joshua Malina in “The West Wing.” Joshua Malina Hail to the Chief by Jay S. Jacobs There are lots of ways that people go about trying to get their first big break in acting.  Some people kill themselves working a minimum wage job while floating from audition to audition.  Some try other arts, like music or modeling, as an entrance. Some people sit on a stool in a Hollywood soda fountain and wait to get discovered.  Some eat something gross on national television. Joshua Malin