Boulder Aish Kodesh

These movies are recommended by Rabbi Henoch Dov Hoffman :

Synopses follow the movie titles, many taken from the Rabbi’s discussions. Click on the titles for details. Extracted from Rabbi Hoffman’s website which was last updated 7/13/04.

• American Beauty dessication & emptiness of suburban life
• As Good as it Gets truth, acceptance, and forgiving
• A Thousand Clowns
• A Walk to Remember Amalek – adolescent issues
• Beautiful Mind ezer k’negdo – the help meet – here saving a genius [true story]
• Billy Budd
• Billy Elliot
• Changing Lanes feuding and rage, forgiving and transformation
• Dead Man Walking comfort for the condemned
• Defending Your Life
• Far From Heaven relationships that challenge convention
• Fiddler on the Roof Jewish identity, history
• Good Will Hunting genius in the rough
• Groundhog Day refining the approach through repetition
• Heartbreak Kid Jewish identity
• Hurricane Joseph’s path of teshuvah
• Instinct illusions of control
• Jerry McGuire
• K-PAX inter-dimensional comfort for a broken heart
• Liberty Heights a pastiche of Jewish life from the ’50s
• Magnolia plague of frogs / breakdown of parent-child relationship
• Mr. Saturday Night
• Rabbit Proof Fence farmers vs. shepards; mother daughter issues
• Radio Days Woody Allen’s look at Jewish life in the ’30s & ’40s
• Razor’s Edge helping or hindering / examining motives
• Shine
• Straight from the Heart
• Sunshine
• The Apostle the journey of Teshuvah
• The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Jewish identity
• The Believer self-loathing engenders a Jewish Neo-Nazi [true story]
• The Chosen father / son issues – clash between Zionists & Hasidim
• The Fixer Soviet injustice | Dalton Trumbo script
• The Front Woody Allen [seriously!] and the Blacklist/McCarthyism
• The Giraffe (aka Meshugge) Jewish identity buffeted by Nazism
• The Matrix Abraham differentiating from Lot; being Jewish in a world of artifice [It's the question that drives us]
• The Passover Plot alternate story of the birth of Christianity
• The Pledge trust vs. betrayal / Joseph setting out to connect with his brothers
• The Power of One overcoming the tyranny of habit
• The Straight Story
• Trembling Before G-d gay and lesbian Orthodox and Hasidic Jews
• Unfaithful dessication & emptiness of suburban life
• What Dreams May Come dreams and the afterlife
• Zelig Jewish identity, or lack of it

Other people’s recommendations:

• Baraka a reverent meditation on the world’s sacred spots
• Dreams Kurosawa’s breathtaking series of vignettes
• Latcho Drom intimate portrait of the Gypsies, told with music
• Lathe of Heaven A guy who’s dreams influence reality
• The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser true story of a man raised in isolation
• The Loved One witty, hilarious sendup of the American funeral industry
• The Ruling Class black comedy about Christianity and British attitude
• The Truman Show unreliability of perceptions
• Prospero’ Books beautiful adaptation of Shakespeare’s Tempest
• Richard III definitive version of the Shakespeare play
• True Stories scathing portrait of Generica
• My Dinner with Andre looks at the variety of ways people live

Thanks to Internet Movie Database for the taglines.

Suggested Reading:

• The Painted Bird / Jerzy Kosinski
• East of Eden / John Steinbeck
• Escape From Freedom / Erich Fromm
• Flatland / Edwin Abbott
• The Invisible Man / Ralph Ellison
• Joseph and His Brothers / Thomas Mann
• Man’s Search for Meaning / Viktor E. Frankl
• Operation Shylock / Philip Roth
• Soul on Ice / Eldridge Cleaver
• The Slave / The Dibbuk / The Penitent / Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Enemies – A Love Story / Isaac Bashevis Singer
• The Hebrew Letters – Channels of Creative Consciousness / Rabbi Yitzach Ginsburg
• What Makes Sammy Run / Budd Schulberg
• Shivitti: A Vision by Ka-Tzentnik 135633 [ISBN 0062508709] Auschwitz and LSD

Halacha/Jewish Philosophy:

• The 39 Avot – Melacha of Shabbat / Rabbi Baruch Chait
• Shemirath Shabbat / Yeshua Y. Newirth
• Code of Jewish Law / Ganzfried Goldin [Shulchan Aruch]
• The Secret of Jewish Femininity / Tehilla Abramov
• The Laws of Kashrus / Rabbi Benjamin Forst
• Sacred Fire / Aish Kodesh
• The Holy Fire / Pizetzer Rabbi
• The Way of G-D / Moses Chaim Luzzatt

For an up to date listing of Rabbi Henochdov’s recommendations Click here

Morah Yehudis Fishman:

• Antoine Fisher
• Apollo 13
• Buckaroo Bonzai
• Defending Your Life
• Fastlane
• Flatliners
• Ghost
• Groundhog Day
• Heaven Can Wait
• Hook
• House of Spirits
• Legally Blonde, Red, White & Blonde
• Matrix
• Medicine Man
• Mr. Holland’s Opus
• Pay it Forward
• Peaceful Warrior
• Princess Bride
• Razor’s Edge (old & new versions, old is better)
• Remember the Titans
• Shallow Hal
• Shawshank Redemption
• Spiderman
• Starwars
• The Chosen
• The Dybuk
• The Last Wave
• The Mask
• The Secret of Roan Inish
• The Shadow
• What The Bleep do We Know
• With Honors
• Wizard of Oz