2008 Woodie Awards
YU's annual Battle of the Bands opened on November 20th with lots of pounding lights, the vaguely Israeli-sounding folk-rock of the already established Yaakov Chesed Band, and two very bored-looking security guards stationed at opposite corners of the stage.
Comedian Bill Maher and Director Larry Charles (of "Borat" fame) have ventured into uncharted territory with their new documentary, "Religulous." The film is exactly what the title connotes: Maher's attempt to prove just how ridiculous religion truly is. With elements of Michael Moore's combative style and Borat's sheer outlandishness, "Religulous" finds itself in an uncertain category.
"Hello, we've got a ten minute show to prepare!" bellows Lela Harbinger, searching among over 40 students for her radio co-host of Kosher Fairy Tales and Decent Exposures on the third floor of the Schottenstein building on Yeshiva University's Wilf Campus.
If "High School Musical" were converted for the stage, then designated as the setting for a new city-slicker kid, and then had its dialogue tuned to the actual thought-process that would be going through an adolescent's head, it would come pretty close to Broadway's latest endeavor, "13.
In the fine tradition of Plum Sykes and Candace Bushnell, "The Shiksa Syndrome" is Laurie Graff's Jewish riff on the ubiquitous chick-lit novel. Graff uses well-worn conventions to tell the story of Aimee Albert, a Jewish publicist who disguises herself as a non-Jewish woman in order to catch the Jewish lawyer-entrepreneur of her dreams, Josh Hirsch.
The Neue Galerie, located on the Upper East Side's Museum Mile, exhibits German and Austrian art and design of the early 20th centuries. The museum currently features Alfred Kubin: Drawings, 1897 - 1909. Kubin (1877-1959), an Austrian author, illustrator, and Expressionist painter, created works with deep and dark themes that include titles such as Suicide, Fright, and The Vampire.