Nate Bloom blogs on this week's Jews in the News.

Black Comedy, Revived Dinosaurs, Two Scandals, an Aussie Jewish Actor

“Honey Don’t” is a dark comedy about Honey O'Donahue (Margaret Qually), a small-town private investigator, who delves into a series of strange deaths tied to a mysterious church. It opens in theaters on August 22.

Chris Evans and Aubrey Plaza co-star. The supporting cast includes comic actor BILLY EICHNER, 46.

ETHAN COEN, 67, co-wrote the film and he directed it. The bad news is that the film played the recent Cannes Film Festival and the reviews were mostly “so/so” or “not so good.”

“Primitive War” is an Australian science fiction film. JEREMY PIVEN, 60, is one of the film’s four leads.

Here’s the premise: During the Vietnam War in 1968, a unit known as Vulture Squad is sent to an isolated jungle valley to rescue a missing Green Beret platoon. They soon discover that “de-extincted” dinosaurs inhabit the jungle: the result of a Soviet experiment gone wrong. (“De-extincted” refers to “bringing back” extinct animals through modern genetic science).

Piven’s late parents were actors and Chicago-area drama teachers. His sister, SHIRA PIVEN, 63, is a drama school teacher, too. She’s also the director of two movies, and she has directed many TV episodes. Her husband is top comedy film director Adam McKay (several hit Will Ferrell movies; among other hits). Their children were raised Jewish.

Early in his career (1980s), Jeremy Piven played a buddy of lead actor John Cusack in three movies Cusack starred-in.  Cusack was a student at Piven’s parents’ acting school.

Piven worked steadily in the ‘90s, but not in lead roles. In 2004, he got his best role: as Ari Gold, a (Jewish) talent agent for a young, hot actor in “Entourage”, an HBO series.

Piven (as Ari Gold) was Emmy-nominated four times for best supporting actor (2005-2008) and he won three times.

His career was pretty good until 2017 when several women said that he had sexually assaulted them (touched them without permission).

I didn’t know about these allegations until I wrote this item. It’s both infuriating and sad.

In 2017, CBS decided to cancel “Wisdom of the Crowd”, after only 13 episodes were aired. Piven starred as a tech genius. Yes, the series got weak ratings. But some sources say that the allegations against Piven probably were the reason CBS “axed” “Wisdom”  so quickly.

Since 2017, Piven has worked less and has mostly worked in less-prestigious films.

And—for other scandals—there’s “The Truth About Jussie Smolett”. It is a documentary that premieres on August 22 on Netflix. Netflix publicity says, “The 90-minute documentary tells the shocking true story of an allegedly fake story that some now say might just be a true story”.

JUSSIE SMOLLETT, now 43, has three brothers and two sisters. All are actors, but only Jussie, and his sister, JURNEE SMOLETT, 38, have had much of an acting career. Jussie is best known for his star role on the Fox music drama “Empire” (2015-19).

The father of the Smollett children is Jewish. Their mother is a (not Jewish) African-American. I gather that the Smollett siblings were somewhat exposed to Judaism, but they really weren’t raised in any religion.

In 2019, Smollett reported himself as the victim of a violent crime in Chicago. He claimed that two men hurled racial slurs at him, poured some chemical on him, and wrapped a rope around his neck. A police investigation said he made up the story and he eventually pled guilty to one charge, paid a fine, and did some community work.

Some thought this was too “easy” and a special prosecutor was installed to look at the case again. He determined that Smollett made up the attack story and he got Smollett indicted on felony charges.

Smollett was convicted, but the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the jury verdicts on the grounds that the second indictment was “double jeopardy.” By the way,  Smollett only spent a very short time in jail.

The documentary interviews police, lawyers, journalists, and investigators who, Netflix says, claim to have “new evidence about the case.”

While I looked-up “Primitive War”, an Australian movie, I stumbled on “Apple Cider Vinegar”,  an Australian six-episode series that first streamed last February on Netflix and it’s still available. “Apple” got pretty good reviews.

I looked at the cast and one leading cast member had a quite Jewish name: ASHLEY ZUCKERMAN. Well, Aussie Jewish actors are pretty rare, and I missed him. He grew-up in Melbourne. His Jewish parents sometime speak Hebrew at home and Zuckerman, 33, also speaks Hebrew.

“Apple” is based on a real Aussie woman who faked having a terminal illness. Zuckerman played her husband.