Movie maven Jordan Hoffman with a Leonard Bernstein double feature
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to The Reel Schmooze with ToI film reviewer Jordan Hoffman and host Amanda Borschel-Dan, where we bring you all the entertainment news and film reviews a Jew can use.
This week, we dive straight into our two films for this week, the 2021 documentary "Bernstein's Wall" and Bradley Cooper's 2023 "Maestro."
Our two classical music fans begin with the documentary, highlighting the parts of conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein's life that were previously unknown to them. We hear how the movie employs Bernstein himself as its narrator by weaving together clips from dozens of revealing interviews the celebrity gave over his life.
Shifting over to the Hollywood treatment, we zero in on the Maestro's relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. We learn where Cooper stayed true to the contours of the musician's life -- and where he missed the mark.
Stick around to see if "Bernstein's Wall" and "Maestro" got an "oy," "meh" or "not bad" in this week's The Reel Schmooze.
The Reel Schmooze is produced by Ari Schlacht and can be found wherever you get your podcasts.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Times of Israel's The Real Shmuse, bringing you all the Jewish entertainment news and movie reviews a Jew can use. |
| 0:13.6 | Jordan Hoffman is joining me, our movie maven, and I am Amanda Borschelle Dan here in Jerusalem. |
| 0:19.8 | Jordan, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. And welcome to all the listeners. And it's funny, I want to make all the listeners jealous. You know, most people listen to Amanda for her daily podcast. What the heck is your daily podcast called? What the heck is that thing? Anyway, the daily briefing. |
| 0:37.9 | The daily briefing, that's right, the daily briefing. |
| 0:39.7 | But what's funny is, you know, I, because of the time difference here between the East Coast of America and Jerusalem, I literally just got up five minutes ago. |
| 0:51.1 | Here I've got my cup of coffee undrunken, undrank right to my left. And I got to have a private daily briefing. I said, hey, man, how are you this morning? She's like, I'm okay. I'm like, well, what's going on in the world? Can you tell me what, is today a mellow day in the Middle East or is it a bad day? And she's like, well, I just recorded a daily briefing, so let me tell you. And so I got |
| 1:12.3 | the scoop ahead of all my, all my fellow countrymen here in the U.S. So, so there you go. |
| 1:19.0 | And I have to tell you, Jordan, that since I recorded the daily briefing and released it, |
| 1:23.5 | so much has happened. So you have even fresh or fresh news. Oh, my God. |
| 1:29.3 | I was like, is it a mellow day? |
| 1:31.2 | And I got a look up like, it's never a mellow day. |
| 1:33.3 | What are you talking about? |
| 1:34.9 | I think I said, oh, no. |
| 1:36.9 | Yeah. |
| 1:38.3 | Well, anyhow, the good news is, it's another episode of the daily, of the daily schmooze, |
| 1:44.7 | of the weekly schmooze, of the, of the real schmooze and, um, where we talk about, uh, |
| 1:50.0 | movies. |
| 1:50.4 | Real news. |
| 1:51.4 | And, and, and, uh, this week's, uh, you know, more of a sort of a, erudite, refined week. |
| 2:00.4 | We're going to talk about Leonard Bernstein and classical |
| 2:03.5 | music. Wait, Jordan, I thought we were talking about Leonard Bernstein. That's true. This is a big |
| 2:11.2 | thing. He pronounced it Stein. That was a big thing for him, and he don't pronounce it Bernstein. |
... |
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