Idol Chatter

I went 0-for-2 at the box office this week, first sitting through the dreadful “Cheaper by the Dozen 2” and then catching the star-filled, meant-to-be-extremely-clever romantic comedy “Rumor Has It.” This movie is about a 30-something career woman, Sarah Huttinger ( Jennifer Aniston), who returns home with a potential fiancé, Jeff (Mark Ruffalo), to attend…

Movies are most powerful when they jump off the screen and into our lives. Kris recently recommended several good DVDs for this holiday season, and I’d like to offer my own suggestions. These are a few DVDs that have jumped into the Howe family’s life, sparked real discussions with our kids, and are worthy of…

I’ve been waiting for an excuse to blog about “The Office,” some religion angle to rear its satiric head in the NBC sitcom that, like its British namesake, skewers the absurdities of the typical desk job. But aside from a passing mention of one character’s Christianity, the show has steered clear of explicit faith-focused storylines.…

I recently watched the 30th anniversary DVD edition of the film “The Message,” which is Moustapha Akkad’s groundbreaking Hollywood production of the story of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). In addition to including both the English and Arabic versions of the film, the new DVD edition also has English and Arabic audio commentary from Akkad, as…

Joining a long line of less-than-memorable sequels based on movies that shouldn’t have made as much money as they did the first time around, “Cheaper by the Dozen 2” opened last weekend just in time to entice kiddies on Christmas break. Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt return to slapstick their way through parenting 12 kids,…

If you’re burned out on all the classic Christmas movies on the tube and you’ve seen everything worth seeing at the box office, here are a few personal picks for some overlooked but spiritually thought-provoking episodes of TV shows that you can now enjoy on DVD no matter what holiday you are celebrating. My So-Called…

So of course these days it’s all about Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and Solstice and any other holiday I’ve forgotten to include. And if you watch the seasonal wishes on TV, you’ll see that they make a mention of all relevant holidays… except for the Muslim ones. Surf through the myriad of channels on…

As if I even need to remind you…. today is Festivus! The fictional holiday made famous by Jerry Stiller’s character Frank Costanza in a 1997 episode of “Seinfeld” is–yes is–observed nationwide by many who crave “a Festivus for the rest of us.” Fed up with the commercialism of Christmas–and the toy store battles he found…

We Jews often whine about the supposed lack of good Hanukkah music. The Hanukkah songs most Jews learned as kids don’t hold a candle (so to speak) to such memorable tunes as “Little Drummer Boy” or “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” Nor do you see Jewish celebrities lining up to make Hanukkah albums, a…

Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, told Barbara Walters on her “Heaven” show that in heaven we’ll be able to eat every kind of food in any quantity without getting fat. Was this a plug for his new book? “The Jerusalem Diet,” a regimen for losing weight that has to do with…

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