The Boiling Point

LIVE BLOG: The Oscars with Sadie Toczek and Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks

By Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks and Sadie Toczek
March 4, 2018

This page is being updated throughout the Oscars awards ceremony by BP Lifestyles Editor Sadie Toczek and Features Editor...

THE NINE: Short reviews of the 2018 Best Picture nominees

By Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Aidel Townsley, and Jacob Feitelberg
March 2, 2018

Below are short reviews of all nine movies nominated in the Best Picture category of this year's Academy Awards...

REVIEW: In ‘Ladybird,’ a teenager finds clarity in an old genre made new

By Aidel Townsley, Opinion Editor
February 26, 2018

imdb.com The classic coming-of-age story, known as abildungsroman, has been written and rewritten throughout history, its name...

At the Skirball, a writer’s tale is told in art

By Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Arts and Culture Editor
November 1, 2017

Walls of the Skirball Cultural Center are lined with works by 35 of the most important and famous artists in post-revolutionary...

REVIEW: Sliding doors, sliding stereotypes in Season 4 premiere of ‘Broad City’

By Hannah Jannol, Editor-in-Chief
September 18, 2017

It’s nothing new in Hollywood for Jews or Jewish culture to be the object of comedy, as in bar mitzvahs or men wearing peyot...

Strands of Jewish culture wind together at The Braid

April 25, 2017

By Tobey Lee, Staff Writer Located in a small business park in Santa Monica, the Braid is an art gallery that contains just eight...

In ‘I Am Not Your Negro,’ words of James Baldwin describe the past to illuminate the present

By Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Arts and Culture Editor
April 13, 2017

I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary film focusing on the views of acclaimed writer James Baldwin, 1924 - 1987, using his treatise, unfinished at his death, titled Remember This House. The book was aimed at explaining the struggles of black Americans using the lives of three of his friends, Martin Luther King, Malcom X and Medgar Evers, three major civil rights activist who were assassinated.

‘Edge of 17’ breaks ground but is not groundbreaking

By Hannah Jannol, Community Editor
December 5, 2016

The New York Times said it took teenage movies to a “higher place.” Time Magazine applauded how perceptively it “dealt with teenage sex, and maybe even with sex in general.” And the Atlantic called it an “instant teen classic.”

‘Denial’ maps a journey through lies on the road to truth

By Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Staff Writer
November 28, 2016

“No holes, no Holocaust,” shout newspaper headlines that historian Deborah Lipstadt reads as she jogs through the streets of London. Reading the specious phrase, she stumbles. It is clear that she grasps how easily a well-phrased opinion can replace history.

John Lennon was here: Choir records new CD in famous studio in Hollywood

By Lucy Fried, Arts & Culture Editor
November 2, 2016

In a Hollywood studio that has hosted a multitude of celebrity musicians, the Choirhawks recently recorded several of their songs...

At neighborhood shops, thrift with a Jewish twist

By Eva Suissa, Staff Writer
June 21, 2016

Walk into the Council Thrift Shop on Fairfax Avenue and you’ll see studded belts, colorful coats and blue jeans. But unlike the average thrift store, you’ll also see menorahs and dreidels.

In Israeli TV hit ‘Shtisel,’ black-hatted world of Mea Shearim is full of individuals, some familiar

By Lucy Fried, Staff Writer
May 31, 2016

A hand flips through the pages of a Talmud that looks similar to the Lahav Gemara readers used at Shalhevet. As large fingers turn through the book, pencil sketches of a pig and a boy become visible at the bottom corners of the pages. These drawings, done by a child perhaps 8 years old, in most worlds would draw a chuckle or some praise.