Cupcakes

Another offering from Israel's Eytan Fox [Walk on Water, Yossi and Jagger], Cupcakes takes it cue from the likes of Mama Mia and Strictly Ballroom.  Six residents of an apartment complex playfully record a song they made up to cheer up the recently abandoned baker of the bunch.  It is secretly submitted to a Euro-song competition and takes the country by storm.  The up-beat pop soundtrack, six personal melodramas, crazy music industry manipulators and socio-political mores liven the mix. The cast includes many of Israel's biggest stars including gorgeous, Efrat Dor and Israel's answer to Sean Connery, the ever sexy Lior Ashkenazi This crowd pleaser with definitely make it to "Best of the Fest" and I hope it makes it to local theatres.

Everyone is in Love with Bill Cunningham

OK, three good ones. “The Sound of Noise” is a Swedish comedy about a tone-deaf police detective who hates music and a sextet of musical anarchists attempting to perform a four-part piece of guerilla theatre. The premise is absurd but it is done with such a playful touch that you are carried along rooting for both sides. “Goethe” is a period piece and costume drama covering a romanticized incident in the development of Johann Goethe’s genius. Sumptuous cinematography, attractive performers and wonderful music illustrate the The Sorrows of Young Werther, which according to the film launched a thousand broken-hearted suicides. Lastly we have “Bill Cunningham New York,” a documentary so authentically affectionate one leaves the theatre in love with the subject. If you read the [whole] New York Times you will know who this charming and unassuming man is. If you live in Manhattan you will have seen him riding his bicycle at all hours of the day and night snapping away at any and all who dare to show originality in their attire. If you are associated with style or fashion or simply follow it you will understand why when having his credentials checked at a Paris Fashion Week event another staff member rescues him telling the novice “HE IS ONLY THE MOST IMPORTANT MAN ON EARTH.”