Latest news with #BadShabbos
UPI
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
Kyra Sedgwick: 'Bad Shabbos' reminds families of 'what's important'
LOS ANGELES, June 6 (UPI) -- Kyra Sedgwick says her comedy Bad Shabbos, in theaters now, holds a relevant message about making time for family. She plays Ellen, a mother hosting a Friday night Shabbat dinner for her family and future in-laws, in the new film. The dinner goes comically awry, but Sedgwick said families should prioritize making time for each other. In a recent phone interview with UPI, the actress, 59, said her family does not allow phones during meals. "That's a really good habit to get into with your family and your kids," the star said. "It's the time to really download about the day and let people be reminded about what's important but also to be like, 'You're a priority for me. I'm going to hold space for this and hold space for you.'" The family in Bad Shabbos follows Jewish traditions, such not driving on the sabbath and not using modern technology like cell phones. Sedgwick, who is married to actor Kevin Bacon and mother to Sosie and Travis Bacon, said taking a break from phones is a good idea regardless of religion. "I just don't think that our nervous system is set up for it and I think we're really hurting our bodies with the amount of connection to moment-by-moment news," she said. "Remember that family comes first, that we have our priorities but connection and being a human being is better than being a human doing." Sedgwick has been acting since she was a teenager herself on the soap opera Another World. She sees her early roles still impact audiences despite preceding modern technology. For example, 1992's Singles, Cameron Crowe's second movie as director, is about men and women in their 20s living in a Seattle apartment complex looking for love. "Twentysomethings come up to me now and say, 'I just saw Singles and it's exactly like my life,'" she said. "Even without the social media piece, [Crowe] still was able to tap into some core feelings of what it is to be in your 20s, looking for love and connection." Now that Sedgwick has a family of her own, other aspects of Bad Shabbos became relevant too. Ellen's daughter, Abby (Milana Vayntrub), accuses Ellen of making a face when Abby shares news of her life. "My daughter is constantly thinking I'm making faces so she's probably right," Sedgwick said. "I think that we think we're better actors than we are with our kids and I think they see right through it." The way Ellen treats her three children also demonstrates the different relationships between family members. Ellen struggles to be polite to her David's (Jon Bass) non-Jewish fiance, Meg (Meghan Leathers), while she gushes over her other son, Adam (Theo Taplitz), a loner who dreams of joining the Israel Defense Forces. The family lives in New York. "Everyone plays a role in a family," Sedgwick said. "Someone needs a little bit more of the gentle mom and someone else needs to be pushed a little bit more. Someone else needs to be given the benefit of the doubt. Some people don't." Sedgwick's own mother, Patricia Rosenwald, was Jewish and married art dealer Ben Heller. Sedgwick said her stepfather introduced Passover seders into their family, but they still celebrated Christmas instead of Hanukkah. "My connection with Judaism is really my ethics, my ethical culture," she said. "I really don't know very much about the religion at all but I do know you're allowed to question things. It's not just because God says so. The Torah is all about asking questions and having conversation. I think that it felt like a spiritual connection for me in that way." Another one of Sedgwick's earlier movies speaks to spiritual healing. In Heart and Souls, she plays a ghost who died before accepting her fiance's proposal. Through a living man (Robert Downey, Jr.), she and three other ghosts are able to correct their mistakes. "I think the idea of being able to make amends and go back and fix things feels really good to me, and is a universal thing that we can all be aspirational about," she said. Sedgwick is currently in production on a movie with her own family. Family Movie stars Kevin, Kyra, Sosie and Travis as a family of filmmakers, though they are not playing the Bacons. "We're definitely playing characters, but they may or may not have a certain meta aspect to them," she said. Kevin and Sedgwick initiated the idea of making a movie as a family. The couple took four pitches and Dan Beers was hired to write the script. Sedgwick said the inspiration for a project with the entire family came from making the short film Until at home during COVID-19 lockdowns. Released in 2022, Kevin and Sedgwick directed Until and Travis composed the music for it. "We're definitely both workaholics and we wanted to keep creating," she said. "We thought maybe we could do something together with the whole family."
New York Times
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Kyra Sedgwick Wants More Middle-Aged Sex Onscreen
Kyra Sedgwick can relate to the Upper West Side matriarch she portrays in her latest film, 'Bad Shabbos.' 'I very much have all the trope attributes of Jewish motherhood,' she said. 'I really want to know that you've eaten, and if you're hungry I'll make you something. I want to make sure you're not too cold or too hot. I want to know what you had for breakfast.' 'Bad Shabbos' centers on a Shabbat dinner that goes spectacularly off the rails, but Sedgwick finds the sentiments it evokes to be universal. 'Like them or not, they're your family,' she said in a video call from Austin, Texas, where she and her husband, Kevin Bacon, and their children, Travis and Sosie, are making a comedy-horror movie about a family of filmmakers. 'It is not us, but it is inspired by us,' she said before elaborating on why '90s rock, 'All Fours' by Miranda July and the meditation teacher Tara Brach are among her must-haves. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Bess Wohl is extraordinary. Basically it's about this woman who's now in her 30s trying to figure out who her mother was in the genesis of women's lib. And she's imagining what that was like and asking, 'What did we get wrong?' I think the message of the play is: We didn't get it wrong. The world got it wrong. I'm just heartbroken because they stopped making it. I'm not a big perfume person, but I've been wearing it for 20, 25 years, and all of a sudden they're putting it in the vault. And there's really not much to say except that I just loved it. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Bad Shabbos' Review: Guess Who's Kvetching About Dinner?
Those who have attended a Shabbat dinner — which occurs on Friday and kicks off the Jewish Sabbath — know that the traditional greeting is 'good Shabbos.' The ensemble comedy 'Bad Shabbos' telegraphs its silliness right from the title. Directed by Daniel Robbins, the movie takes place over a disastrous dinner on the Upper West Side, where David (Jon Bass) and Meg (Meghan Leathers) — a newly engaged Jew and gentile — plan to introduce their parents for the first time. But before they can start, a disturbing prank by David's brother, Adam (Theo Taplitz), goes awry, causing an emergency that the family must hide from the Midwestern in-laws. The crisis involves a body and a ticking clock, as well as a zany, meddlesome doorman (Method Man, always welcome) added for good measure. 'Bad Shabbos' overflows with the kvetching, nagging and nit-picking endemic to the Jewish movie canon. It also contains an overused trope: the domineering Jewish mother harboring animus toward her son's shiksa fiancée. Despite Meg's efforts to connect, Ellen (Kyra Sedgwick) repeatedly slights her future daughter-in-law. Ellen's flat sitcom character finds a match in some of the movie's aesthetic choices, like the framing and the pizzicato strings making up its score. These style elements can feel grating. But as the jokes continue to land and the wine continues to flow, you grow used to the tone. This is, after all, a situational comedy, in which the laughs spring from reaction shots and line deliveries. Luckily, the actors prove up to the task.
Forbes
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Good Shabbos, Bad Shabbos: A Dark Comedy Movie
Gut Shabbos is the universal greeting of the Ashkenazi Jews wishing a good day of rest for the sabbath, kind of like saying, 'have a good weekend' or used as a greeting on the actual Jewish Sabbath of Friday evening or Saturday day. Over the years American Jews of all stripes have adopted the saying as Good Shabbos. Bad Shabbos, is the name of a new film, a dark comedy, currently showing at your local movie theater. It has laugh-out-loud moments, and if seen with a sympathetic audience (alright, let's call it a haimish group), the laughs are sure to be infectious. Directed by Daniel Robbins and written by Robbins and Zack Wiener, the film raises the stakes on what could possibly go wrong at a Sabbath dinner where the male lead (Jon Bass) brings his studying-to-convert fiancée (Morgan Leathers) to his parents' home for a dinner to meet her Wisconsin church-going parents who are not happy about their daughter abandoning their religion to become Jewish. What could go wrong? What if the lead's Klonopin popping younger brother (Theo Taplitz) plays a prank which results in his sister's boyfriend's death? How about the Black doorman (played by Method Man who steals the movie) saving the day. The supporting cast are experienced pros, including the Jewish parents, played by David Paymer and Kyra Sedgwick (who doesn't get to play Jewish as often as her Jewish heritage might allow). Milana Vayntrub. who is world famous as the face of AT&T Cellular's commercials, plays the sister; Josh Mostel has a cameo, as does Gary Greengrass, scion of the Upper West Side deli mecca Barney Greengrass. Does the movie indulge in Jewish stereotypes? Of course. Is some of the comedy forced? Naturlicht. But here's the thing: These are tough times. Whether you are worried about your 201K or the state of the world, country by country, a laugh is hard to come by. You don't have to love a Bad Shabbos, you just should go and laugh.
