A Review of the Jazz Singer, or Kevin Smith and Geoffrey Rush are Time Travelers

This was going to be a review of the first successful sound film, The Jazz Singer. I was going to talk about how it's enjoyable, especially if you love old jazz songs, but not quiet as enjoyable as the best silent films of the time. Still, it is a cultural milestone that set off a sea change in film making and is worth watching if only so that you'll get the next "get down on my knees and sing Mamie" reference that someone will no doubt drop in your everyday conversation. That was the plan, but it all got blown out of the water when I realized that two of the films co-stars are Kevin Smith and Geoffrey Rush. Allow me to explain.

The Jazz Singer is the story of a young Jewish kid who runs away from his family to try his luck at being a jazz singer. His father is the local Cantor, the singer of the holy songs on the holy days, and can't bear the thought of his song throwing away his voice on jazz music. Early on, the boy, Jakie (or Jack, as he goes by), is discovered singing in a jazz hall when Jack's father's friend, Moisha Yudelson, sees him on stage. This is Moisha Yudelson:

If you're thinking "Wait a minute, haven't I seen that guy before in multiple Oscar-nominated roles?" you're correct. Here's another shot of him:

Okay, so the second picture is from Shakespeare in Love, not The Jazz Singer. Whatever. Put a fedora on him and it's the same guy.

But wait, how can Geoffrey Rush be in a movie that came out twenty-four years before he was born? Is he a vampire along with Nicolas Cage, or an immortal along with Keanu Reeves? No, of course not. That's silly. He's a time traveler.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that time travelers have to operate in pairs; how else to maintain their sanity? So Rush must have had a partner. What did Jake's father look like again?

That's weird. Now, where have I seen that face before...

And who is that guy?

So, you should see The Jazz Singer because it is both a cultural milestone AND incontrovertible proof that Kevin Smith and Geoffrey Rush are time travelling partners who--and here I venture away from fact into conjecture--occasionally get bored with their careers and crank the clock back to early sound films when the cinema status quo was in such a state of upheaval that any actor with a pulse and a decent voice could walk into a studio and find work, regardless of whether or not they were from the future.