#phoenix cinema

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by Brendan O'Neill

Every now and then you see an event and you think to yourself: ‘This will go down in history.’ Last night’s revolt of the Jews of London against a ‘pro-Palestine’ mob is one such event.

Jews and their allies gathered at the Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley to defend its showing of a film about Hamas’s fascistic massacre at the Nova music festival on 7 October. Unbelievably – or not, perhaps – the ‘Palestine solidarity’ set wanted the screening to be cancelled. No way, said the Jewish rebels, loudly and proudly, many of them draped in the Israeli flag. It was truly stirring stuff, a bold act of people’s defiance against cancel culture and the slow, lethal creep of a new anti-Semitism.

Let’s call it The Battle of Phoenix Cinema. On one side there was a motley crew of Palestine flag-wavers, curiously irate that a cinema was showing a film about the evils of Hamas. And on the other side a boisterous gathering of Jews and their supporters. Two thousand of them. ‘I’m still standing’ by Elton John blasted from a loudspeaker. Many young Jews were there, some clearly angry, pushed to their limit by the ceaseless demonisation of the Jewish State and the left’s shameful lack of solidarity with the Jewish community as it has come under attack these past seven months. These people really have had enough.

Some of the younger Jews chanted ‘Terrorists supporters off our streets’. It felt like a brilliant modern twist on the slogan of The Battle of Cable Street in 1936 – ‘They shall not pass’. Back then, Jews and their working-class allies gathered in East London to see off Oswald Mosley’s fascists. Yesterday they gathered to see off that mob that obsessively hates Israel and which seems hell-bent on hiding the truth about Hamas’s fascist-like crimes. You shall not pass, the protesters were essentially saying, as they protected a cinema from the McCarthyite rage of the Israelophobes.

The Phoenix Cinema’s ‘crime’ is that it agreed to host the Seret film festival, a festival of Israeli cinema that is supported by Israel’s culture ministry. This is a mortal sin in the eyes of anti-Israel activists who boycott everything that emanates from Israel; who seem to believe that moral cleanliness entails exorcising every Israeli film, foodstuff, product and even person from your life and your community.

Ken Loach and Mike Leigh resigned in a huff as patrons of the Phoenix in response to its hosting of Seret. Loach, of course, gets funding for his films from the British Film Institute, which itself is government-funded and distributes lottery cash. So he’s happy to get cash from an organisation backed by a government that waged catastrophic wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya but he’ll run a mile from a cinema showing films backed by the Israeli government? Make it make sense, Ken.

[thinkingimages]

[theomenmedia]

Cillian Murphy & Yvonne McGuinness All Set To Revive Ireland-Based The Phoenix Cinema!

A new dawn for Dingle's cinematic gem! Cillian Murphy & Yvonne McGuinness are set to revive The Phoenix Cinema, blending tradition with innovation. Stay tuned for the magic of movies to return!

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The Substance (2024) Carolie Fargeat Designed by Aleks Phoenix

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I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. Gladiator (2000) Dir. Ridley Scott

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"Am I not Merciful?" - Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus (Gladiator, 2000)

Pt. 1, Pt. 2

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To Die For (1995) dir. Gus Van Sant

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Emma Stone as Bella Baxter in Poor Things (2023)

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On the set of Gladiator (1999)

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stand by me (1986)

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Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus Gladiator (2000)

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A happiest heavenly birthday to River Phoenix, who would have turned 54 today. A wonderful actor, and human. Who i have adored since I was 13. I hope he found happiness.

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"Couldn't we just..."

DOGFIGHT (1991) | dir. Nancy Savoca

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Gladiator (2000), Ridley Scott Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix

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River Phoenix & Keanu Reeves in "My private Idaho" (1991)