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‘A Serious Man,’ ‘Basterds,’ and ‘Ajami’ Nominated

Congrats to Tablet contributing editor David Rakoff

by
Marc Tracy
February 02, 2010
The Coen Brothers’ ‘A Serious Man’(Courtesy Focus Features)
The Coen Brothers’ ‘A Serious Man’(Courtesy Focus Features)

And the Oscar nominations go to … two very prominently Jewish-themed films, among others. Both Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (about Nazi-killing Jews) and the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man (which is almost exclusively about Jews, and which is, for my money, the most profoundly Jewish American movie in years) are up for the big award: Best Picture. Additionally, Tarantino got Best Director and Original Screenplay nominations; Christoph Waltz, who plays the main SS guy in his film, is up for Best Supporting Actor. The Coens also are nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

This being Hollywood, several Jews were recognized for work that was not explicitly Jewish, including Up in the Air director and co-writer Jason Reitman, and David Rakoff, who had a hand in the writing of The New Tenants, a nominee for Best Short Film (Live Action). Did we mention that Rakoff is a Tablet Magazine contributing editor? Well, he is.

Finally, Ajami, Israel’s first-ever Arabic-language submission to the Academy, became the third consecutive Israeli offering to score one of the five Best Foreign Language Film nominations. Will it be the first to win? The Oscars are Sunday, March 7th, so we’ll find out soon enough.

Do read Tablet Magazine’s resident film buff Liel Leibovitz on A Serious Man (loved) and Basterds (hated). Plus—spoiler alert!—you will be able to read his thoughts on Ajami soon enough.

Related: Taking It Seriously [Tablet Magazine]
Inglorious Indeed [Tablet Magazine]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.