Jaunted

The thoroughly silly looking film about a former Mossad agent who fakes his own death to become a New York City hairstylist, cowritten by Judd Apatow, made almost $400,000 in its first weekend out, four percent of the average yearly box office haul in Israel.

The Independent credits the film (which hasn't opened in the UK yet) for addressing Israeli-Palestinian politics directly, but most moviegoers are just glad to see Israeli actors getting work. Somehow they aren't offended by Sandler's take on their national security.

Then again, maybe they like it because the actor, who is Jewish, represents a new muscular ideation of Israeli foreign policy in opposition to the current prime minister, whose approval rating recently hit single digits. Whoops, did we just ascribe political motives to a summer blockbuster? Clearly we've been out in the sun too long.

Related Stories
· Hollywood Playing Politics: Tinseltown's New Taboo-Busters [Independent]
· Israelis Flattered by "The Zohan" movie [AP, via Yahoo]
· Movie Set Travel: You Don't Mess With the Zohan [Jaunted]

[Photo: movies.yahoo.com]