ARTS&LIFE CELEBRITY NEWS
NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST
THE REAL OPERATION MINCEMEAT
Bosch a series about Harry Bosch, an LAPD detective, streamed on Amazon Prime from 2014-2021. A spin-off, titled Bosch: Legacy, began streaming on May 6 on the newish IMDB streaming service (free, with ads). In Legacy, Bosch is retired from the LAPD and is working as an investigator for Honey Chandler, a defense attorney. Mimi Rogers, 66, co-stars as Chandler. Born Miriam Spickler, Rogers is the daughter of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. She was raised a Scientologist. She broke with them about 15 years ago. By the way, it was Rogers who introduced Tom Cruise to Scientology while they were married (1987-89). She left; he never did. Mean Baby, a memoir by Detroit-area native Selma Blair, has got a lot of media coverage. But do read, online, a May 15 interview with the NY Times Book Review. The actress talks about what it meant to her to record The Diary of Anne Frank. The well-read Blair mentions a lot of other “tribe members” in the same interview: Primo Levi, Todd Soldonz, A.O. Scott, Melissa and Joan Rivers, and Carrie Fisher.
Operation Mincemeat is an original Netflix film that is now streaming. It’s about a (real) British intelligence operation during WWII that saved thousands of lives. Colin Firth plays Ewen Montagu (1901-1985), a naval intelligence officer who played a central role in Operation Mincemeat. Montagu belonged to one of the most famous British Jewish families and was very active in the Jewish community. Montagu was a top barrister before joining British Naval Intelligence in 1938. I didn’t write about Mincemeat before I saw it because some advance reviews referred to Montagu’s wife as Jewish. I thought perhaps the film had erased Montagu’s own Jewish identity. Not quite so. In an early scene, Montagu is sending his wife and kids to Canada. He says he is doing so because of the potential Nazi danger to “a Jewish family.” It’s a bit unclear, but viewers probably “get it” that Montagu is Jewish, too. This scene is the only Jewish reference in the
Selma Blair
JOELLA MARANO
Jennifer Connelly
KARON LIU
TOP GUN, AGAIN; A MYSTERY, A MEMOIR AND MINCEMEAT FICTIONS Top Gun: Maverick opens in theaters on May 27. It is a sequel to Top Gun (1986), a huge box-office hit that starred Tom Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a student at the Navy’s fighter pilot school. The sequel finds Maverick (Cruise) leading a group of recent pilot school graduates on a secret, very dangerous mission. Jennifer Connelly, 51, plays Penny, Maverick’s love interest. Penny’s a single mother, bar owner and the daughter of a former admiral. Connelly, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for A Beautiful Mind (2001), is the daughter of a Jewish mother and not-Jewish father. She’s always been secular. Tom Cruise is 59 but looks about 50. Still, I am sure that everyone connected with the film realized that even a 50-year-old fighter pilot is improbable. Also, the Maverick character was originally written as a full-ofhimself, “cheeky bad boy” who wooed the strait-laced (female) flight instructor at the flight school. Can Cruise be that guy again? Connelly was a good casting choice. She’s a strikingly attractive woman at 51. Penny and Maverick’s relationship is age-appropriate, but still potentially “hot.” You have to figure that Penny, the daughter of an admiral, and a bar owner, is prepared to banter with the “still-cheeky” Maverick as they “do the dance” of a movie romance. Just being in such a romance makes Cruise seem younger and “cheekier.”
film. The “real” Operation Mincemeat was a highly dramatic operation. It had the built-in drama of a prominent Jew leading an anti-Nazi operation. But that wasn’t enough for the screenwriters. Below are the biggest inaccuracies in the film. Don’t read them if you want to watch the film first. But do watch the film, in any event. Here are the top four made-up things, as compiled by the Deadline website: 1) Admiral Godfrey (played by Jason Isaacs, 58), is Montagu’s superior officer. He’s against Mincemeat until it succeeds. Truth: Godfrey wasn’t against Mincemeat and left for other duties months before Mincemeat concluded. 2) Montagu’s closest colleague, Chas. Cholmondeley, spies on Montagu for British intelligence. In return, higher-ups bring back his soldier brother’s body from Burma, where he served. Truth: Cholmondeley didn’t spy on Montagu and his brother was killed after Mincemeat. 3.) Joan Leslie is an essential member of the Mincemeat team. She and Montagu were at the edge of having an affair. Truth: Leslie had only a peripheral role in Mincemeat. Montagu did not hide his friendship with Leslie. He told his wife, via letters, about it. 4) Montagu’s brother, Ivor, is suspected of being a Communist. He lives in Ewan’s house. Truth: Ivor was an open Communist, not shocking in the UK in 1943. Ivor lived with his wife, in their own home.
MAY 26 • 2022
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