Friday, 17 May 2013


Thursday, May 16, 2013


Pollywood Author's New Play Focuses on the Tumultuous Life and Times of Legendary Hollywood Movie Mogul Louis B. Mayer





A decidedly declassified dispatch … The world must know about this! Stop the digital press! … from our man in Manhattan, André Pachter.

Read on. 


NEW YORK, May 16 --- Broadway was shaken … not stirred … last Friday night by a theatrical event that demands attention. The positively brilliant, unbelievably multitalented … he always seems to be writing, producing, directing … something … somewhere … Polish-American filmmaker, author and all-around creative genius Andrzej Krakowski unveiled a new play that promises, practically guarantees, to be a hit on every stage … here, there, everywhere … wherever people are endlessly fascinated by America's greatest commercial gift to the world … the motion picture industry …  commonly called Hollywood. Which is to say, at the very least, audiences across all of North America and Europe. 

Simply put, Krakowski's new play, which came to us, humbly, as a stage reading at the Directors Company Theater, with the intriguing working title of Mayer & Co., is a masterpiece that cries out for immediate production … and adaptation. Really. Mayer & Co.,  which Krakowski directed and co-authored with Michal Komar,  is clearly the stuff … a tour de force dramedy ... from which great movies … the kind that Krakowski has long been associated with … are made. Great movies and Broadway musicals. One can almost hear the songs before they are written.

A triumph of the spirit--Krakowski fans will appreciate the phrase--Mayer & Co. tells the story of the men who came from nowhere to build an industry from nothing. It could even be said that for the most part they came from less than nothing. So poor were they, this impossibly hard-working, smart … and lucky … band of immigrants who built chains of palaces and entire factories … from scratch … studios, they named these massive complexes in sunny California … for the exhibition and production of … dreams … celluloid depictions of fantasy and reality that entertained, inspired, and encouraged generations of movie-goers … lifting the spirits of newcomers and natives alike, uniting them, enlightening them, educating them, teaching them, especially, after the advent of sound, how to talk, dress, eat, dance, drive a car, smoke a cigarette, mix a martini, look cool, throw a punch, be sexy, stand up for what's good and right and decent … while … always … and this is key to understanding these dream merchants …  appreciating the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Ten Commandments, the whole way of life that in their eyes was only possible for their kind and others like them in The Golden Land … America! 

Fact is, there probably would have been no melting pot without the men who made Hollywood.

Interestingly, they were all Jewish; even more interestingly, they nearly all came from one corner of the Jewish world, Poland when it was part of the Russian Empire. One of these men, the subject of Krakowski's play, was Louis B. Mayer, born Lazar Meir (maybe) … the man from Minsk (maybe) … the Mayer in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (certainly, even though, contrary to popular perceptions, he never owned a single share of stock in the firm) … who, like the other pioneering moguls and producers, was a master of reinvention, a worshipper of the American Dream, above all, an immigrant who made it big … really big … in a big, rough-and-tumble country that celebrated wealth and success, regardless of who made it and how it was made, to an extent that was unimaginable in The Old Country.


Krakowski has mined this material before. Pollywood,his nonfiction take on the Jews who built Hollywood, is a critically acclaimed bestseller in his native Poland. In Mayer & Co. the focus is on Louis B. Mayer … everyone always called him Louis B. Mayer, or, simply, LB … and the premise is an imagined behind-the-scenes look at production of a newsreel tribute to the man … he died of leukemia in 1957 …. featuring recollections by Samuel Goldwyn and Jack Warner.

More than that should not/need not be disclosed at this time. Suffice it to say, the dialogue is pure Krakowski … rapid-fire exchanges akin to Mamet Speak … words that translate into action … an emotional roller coaster that will make you laugh, think, marvel and maybe, even, cry a little. Krakowski has the uncanny ability to pull you into the world he creates without ever breaking the fourth wall illusion. He entertains … and elevates … and, in the process, engages the observer in ways that defy description, at least, to this reporter, an unabashed fan.

Lubitsch had his world famous touch, that delightful device, or special nuance, that said so much with seemingly so little effort. Krakowski, too, has a touch, one that he has most assuredly applied to Mayer & Co.

CREDITS: Mayer & Co. by Andrzej Krakowski & Michał Komar.

      (Based on the book Pollywood by Andrzej Krakowski)

   The Cast:
       Samuel Goldwyn – David Little
       Jack Warner – David Deblinger
       Editor – Arturo Castro
       Producer – Marie Guinier
       Narrator – Dale Spencer Weeks

                                       Directed by Andrzej Krakowski
               Casting: Ellyn Marshall-Long & Maria E. Nelson/Orpheus Group
                                       Produced by: Majka Elczewska




Again, a Star is Born in Cannes: Marine Vacth

Young and Beautiful Model-Actress Captures the Spotlight 


An enigmatic character study, a riveting performance by 23-year-old model-actress Marine Vacth.



Life (You Call this Living?) in Austerity-Ravaged Greece


Drinking from a bitter cup, to put matters mildly. 

The medicine is poison, but the people tolerate it … for the time being.

Read more.


US-Saudi-Turkish-Backed Genocide Looms in Syria

Sunni Islamist Cannibal Identified


Shocking but true … the U.S.-backed cannibal in the Syrian atrocity video.


The story is too sickening for comment, except to note that this is the garbage, the human filth, that the administration is backing under cover of humanitarian intervention and democracy promotion, the sort of monstrous maniac that idiots like John McCain refer to as a "freedom fighter" in line with decades of U.S. support for radical/rightwing political Islam and Islamic extremism.

Related: 8th Century Civilizational Values: Saudi Islamic Justification for Mutilating Victims


Earthquakes Could Kill Iran's Clerical Fascist Regime


Missiles and secret nuclear installations are no match for Mother Nature. 

Read more.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013


Stormy, Star-Studded Cannes

'Gatsby' Dazzles


The incomparable, annual film festival--dazzling despite awful weather. 

Read more.






Israel Poverty Rate Tops 20%

Formerly Egalitarian State Now Poorest Developed Country 


The rich-poor gap in Israel has widened dramatically.

The architects and founding leaders of the Jewish State would be proud of its remarkable achievements in high-technology industries and other fields … but deeply disappointed by today's economic news. Social democratic ideals have been battered; from the socialist Labor Zionist pioneers to the anti-socialist (Revisionist Zionist) Rosh Betar, the brilliant and charismatic rebel and statesman, Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky, whose economic ideology was basically that of a welfare state, in the classic, European sense, practically all leaders, parties and factions believed strongly in social justice.


Eurozone in Longest-Ever Recession

Austerity Deepens Economic Misery for Millions


Germany can't pull the Eurozone out of recession.