Movie premieres

“The Last Kiss” and “The Black Dahlia” open in theaters on Friday, Sept. 15. “Kiss” stars Zach Braff as a guy who refuses to commit when his girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) becomes pregnant. Instead, he starts flirting with a sexy, younger college student, played by Rachel Bilson (Bilson, the co-star of TV’s “The OC,” is Jewish on her father’s side).

“Black Dahlia” is based on a real case that riveted Los Angeles in the 1940s and has never been solved — the murder of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short.

Actress Mia Kershner (“The L Word”) has a supporting role as Short and Scarlett Johansson, whose mother is Jewish, stars as a “very steamy” woman who’s in a romantic triangle with the two detectives investigating Short’s murder.

Scarlett and Bob

Johansson, 21, is not only a beautiful actress, she impresses everyone she meets with her wit and charm. So it’s no surprise that Bob Dylan recently recruited her to star in the music video of his song “When the Deal Goes Down” from his new CD, “The Modern Age.”

You can see the “Deal” video on AOL, along with other Dylan videos. All of AOL, including the Dylan music/video archive, is now free to anyone, AOL member or not. Plus, Dylan’s weekly radio show, on XM subscription radio, is now being carried for free by AOL. (Go to AOL.com, hit “music” above the search box, and enter “Dylan”).

TV premieres

“Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” created by Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing”), is NBC’s highest touted new show of the fall season and advance reviews are very good. (It airs on Monday, Sept. 18 at 10 p.m.)

“Studio 60” concerns the backstage scenes at the fictional “NBS” network’s top-rated TV program, a “Saturday Night Live” type comedy show. In the premiere episode, the show’s producer, played by Judd Hirsch, has a “meltdown” during a live broadcast. NBS’ new president, played by Amanda Peet, tries to cure the public fall-out by hiring back two former key “Studio” employees (Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford). They had left “Studio 60” after disagreements with NBS’ chairman, played by Jewish actor Steven Weber (“Wings”).

Hirsch, who currently co-stars in CBS’ “Numb3rs,” will only appear in the “Studio 60” premiere. Peet, whose mother is Jewish, is a series regular, as is Weber.

The new CBS series, “The Class,” is a comedy about a group of 20-somethings bound together by having been in the same third-grade class. (Starts Monday, Sept. 18 at 8 p.m.)

In the first episode, eight of the former third-graders, including one played by actress Lizzy Caplan, have a reunion.

Caplan, 25, co-starred in the short-lived 2004 TV series “Related.” Back in 2004, Caplan told a reporter that she grew up in a Reform Jewish home, went to Jewish summer camp, and had a bat mitzvah. (As my mother would say: “This is all very nice.”)

The ABC series, “Brothers and Sisters,” is a complex family drama with a stellar cast that includes Sally Field as the family matriarch; Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths as Field’s daughters; and Ron Rifkin (“Alias”) as Field’s brother. (Starts Sunday, Sept. 24 at 10 p.m.)

The show’s creator is playwright Jon Robin Baitz, whose works include “The Substance of Fire,” a story about a Jewish family that was made into a film starring Rifkin.

Columnist Nate Bloom, an Oaklander, can be reached at [email protected].