“It’s a cultural travesty that the women of early jazz…have become a neglected footnote in music history, but Judy Chaikin’s wellresearched, buoyantly entertaining documentary portrait could be the corrective.” Aaron Hillis, The Village Voice
in Yiddish as treif — that was well disguised by being chopped up and mixed with other ingredients. Shellfish is treif, but Karp’s father’s favorite Chinese dish was shrimp and lobster sauce. “Double treif,” she recalled. Today, in some large cities, there are certified kosher Chinese restaurants where Jews can eat guilt-free. Karp’s favorite Chinese dish was dumplings, which have been likened historically to kreplach, which are Jewish-style dumplings, thus cementing the connection between Jews and Chinese food. “In my family, the biggest difference between Chinese dumplings and kreplach is that my grandmother, who was the meanest woman alive, made the kreplach, and in every single one there was always a piece of gristle or a bit of chicken bone,” Karp said. “My mother said she couldn’t see very well, but I don’t know about that.” Karp described her feelings for Mel Brooks, the writer and director of such classics as History of the World: Part I and High Anxiety, as worshipful. “He’s one of those people who exemplifies comedy from my perspective — and that is that you have to be able to make enough fun of yourself, that you beat all of the other people to the punch. Self-deprecation has to be part of the Jewish identity. It’s how I grew up. If you grow up a child of immigrants, you’re always starting behind the eight ball. You lack the connections, you lack the history, and you have to make up for it somehow. So you make fun.”
“Everything a worthwhile documentary should be, and then some: engaging, informative, thorough and brimming with delightful characters.” Critics’ Pick New York Times
The running line in my family is that if the Jewish calendar is now at 5774 and the Chinese calendar is at 4712, what did the Jews eat on Christmas for the first thousand years? — Diane Karp Neal Rosendorf grew up in New York and moved to Santa Fe five years ago. When he was a boy, his family went to Chinatown every year on Christmas day, to the Hong Fat Noodle Company, where his favorite dish was moo goo gai pan — although as an adult he has found another option for his Christmas meal: Indian food. He said that though he appreciates the selections made by the Santa Fe Jewish Film Festival, his personal favorite Mel Brooks film is The Producers, with an honorable mention for The Twelve Chairs. (For those crying foul, the film festival wants you to know that The Producers came in a close third place in the voting.) Rick Ferber’s favorite Mel Brooks film is Silent Movie. Ferber grew up in San Diego and has lived in Santa Fe for almost 40 years. Not only did his family eat Chinese food on Christmas day, but they ate it “on a lot of Sundays and all Christian holidays. We used to go to this place that’s now gone I guess, called Jimmy Wong’s — my aunt and uncle and me and my parents. And I’ll tell you this: the very worst Chinese food I ever had in my life was in Jerusalem.” Ferber’s son, Ambrose — whose favorite Mel Brooks films are Blazing Saddles and Spaceballs — grew up in Santa Fe but lived in Fort Collins, Colorado, during college. The first year he and his wife stayed there for the holiday break instead of coming back to Santa Fe, they had a small Hanukkah celebration and then planned to get Chinese food on Christmas day. “It seemed like this fun, sort of traditional thing to do. But we could not find any Chinese restaurants open. All the people who own Chinese restaurants in Fort Collins celebrate Christmas I guess, and they were all closed. It’s not like there are a lot to choose from, like in New York. So the next year we bought Chinese food on Christmas Eve, a whole mess of it, and didn’t eat any of it that night. We stuck it in the refrigerator and reheated it the next day so we could have the Christmas-day Chinese-food experience. Some people would argue that it’s even better that way.” ◀
Fri and Sat at 12:00, 2:00 and 6:15 Sun at 2:00 • Mon, Wed and Thurs at 12:00, 2:00 and 6:15
“There are some films that make you cry... laugh, and...change you forever after you see them; and this is one of them.” – Darren Aronofsky, filmmaker and 2011 Venice Film Festival Jury President
Fri through Mon at 4:00 Wed and Thurs at 4:00
Fri and Sat at 8:00 • Sun at 6:30 Mon, Wed and Thurs at 8:00
details ▼ Flix & Chopstix: Mel Brooks films Blazing Saddles & Young Frankenstein followed by Chinese food from Yummy Café, presented by the Santa Fe Jewish Film Festival ▼ 2 p.m. & 2:15 p.m. Blazing Saddles & 4 p.m. & 4:15 p.m. Young Frankenstein, Wednesday, Dec. 25 ▼ Center for Contemporary Arts, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, 505-982-1338 ▼ $8.50-$36; advance tickets at www.santafejff.org/tickets
Bizet’s CARMEN at Sydney Harbor Sunday at 11:00am Santa Fe’s #1 Movie theater, showcasing the best DOLBY in World Cinema. ®
D I G I T A L
S U R R O U N D •E X
SANTA FE University of Art and Design 1600 St. Michael’s Dr. information: 473-6494 www.thescreensf.com
Bargain Matinees Monday through Friday (First Show ONLY) All Seats $8.00 PASATIEMPOMAGAZINE.COM
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