While Mel Gibson blamed his anti-Semitic rant a few months ago (most would say unsuccessfully) on a drunken lapse of judgment, Michael “Cosmo Kramer” Richards’ only excuse for his racial epithets directed toward two African-American men is that he was angry because he was being heckled in the middle of a performance. The entertainment website…

In the beginning, there was TLC’s Shalom in the Home, starring well-known rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Now, prepare for television to bring another rabbi into your home–in this case, Rabbi Irwin Kula, whose new national public television special, “The Hidden Wisdom of Our Yearnings with Irwin Kula,” represents an attempt to help people use Jewish wisdom…

We’ve always been made to understand that Sacha Baron Cohen, a.k.a. Borat, is a satirist, not a simple comedian. Otherwise, his anti-Semitic jokes and poo-poo gags would be, well, just that. But this week, Cohen found out the cost of making a serious point. Residents of the Romanian town of Glod, a stand-in for Borat’s…

Hollywood lost a cinematic legacy yesterday when the director of the such critically acclaimed movies as “M*A*S*H” and “Nashville,” Robert Altman, passed away at the age of 81. For decades, Altman set himself apart from other directors by developing a non-linear form of storytelling and by often using long sequences of overlapping dialogue among his…

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