Spider-Mentsh
Detroit native Sam Raimi helms "Spider-Man."
MICHAEL AUSHENKER
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
D
id you know that Peter Parker is
Jewish?" asked director Sam Raimi,
referring to Spider-Man's teenage alter
ego.
Raimi is joking, of course, but the 42-year-old
director behind Columbia's Spider Man motion
picture, opening today and starring Tobey
Maguire, Willem Dafoe and Kirsten Dunst, may
be onto something.
After all, it can be argued that the New York-.
based Marvel Comics superhero represents facets
of your Jewish male stereotype.
As Parker, he is angst-ridden, perpetually strug-
gling with moral dilemmas. As the "Amazing
Spider-Man," Parker veils his personal pain
behind a wisecracking demeanor — even as he
battles deadly super-villains.
"Spider-Man is a character that spends his life
trying to pay down his guilt," Raimi said. "The
only difference is that it's caused by his uncle, not
his mother. That's a real classically Jewish quality
— to be very aware of your sins in this life and
try and make amends for them in this life."
Raimi's journey from cult favorite to the man
helming a $100 million-plus endeavor hasn't
changed his priorities — a fidelity to family and
friends instilled in him during his Jewish .
upbringing in the Detroit suburb of Franklin.
But much is riding on the movie debut of
Marvel's flagship character. For Columbia and
parent company Sony Pictures, the would-be
blockbuster — one of the studio's costliest — is
designed to lock horns with the next Star Wars
installment. For comic book publisher Marvel
Entertainment — which unlike the Time-Warner-
owned DC Comics has struggled to bring its
plethora of superhero riches to the multiplex —
Spider Man can further the promise of Marvel-
inspired franchises Blade and X Men.
For Raimi, the stakes are, high, too. He must
not only carry the corporate concerns but deliver
a movie that will satisfy comic book fans —
prickly purists who have already criticized every-
thing from Raimi's liberal interpretation of super-
villain Green Goblin to Spider-Man's "organic
web shooters" (in the comic, Parker invents
mechanical web-spinning devices).
Spider Man will also give Raimi the chance to
reconnect with his core following — smitten with
the kinetic, high-velocity style of his early work
— and to score his first blockbuster. .
While Raimi co-created the wildly successful
Hercules and Xena: Princess Warrior syndicated TV
programs, even his best feature work
pulpy
freakfests Darkman (1990) and Army of Darkness
(1993)
found their audience on video after
-
-
-
-
—
—
inauspicious theatrical runs.
Subsequent fare, such as A Simple Plan (1998),
brought critical acclaim but did not exactly burn
up the box office.
If such pressures. concern Raimi, they do not
penetrate his affable demeanor. Even in the eye of
the hurricane called Spider Man, Raimi appears
relaxed.
Maybe it's because he grew up in a world away
from Tinseltown's tribulations, in a Conservative
Jewish home that included older brother Ivan,
now a screenwriter and physician, younger broth-
er Ted, an actor, and older sister Andrea.
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SPIDER-MENTSH on page 83
Director
Sam Raimi:
Going back
to his roots.
Interfaith Understanding
In Project Greenlight's "Stolen Summer," a parochial schoolboy tries
to get his dying Jewish friend, the son of a rabbi, into heaven.
NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
IV
hen comic Kevin
Pollak did standup
at his bar mitzvah,
the rabbi was his
staight man.
So he laid on the shtick to play
Rabbi Jacobsen in Pete Jones'
melodramatic film, Stolen
Summer, which opens today in
Detroit.
The comedy-drama follows a
Catholic kid bent on converting
the rabbi's son, who has
leukemia, so he can get him into
heaven.
Pollak didn't need to study
Torah to prepare for his role.
"I'm an old pro," he quips.
"My first act was lip-synching
Bill Cosby's 'Noah and the Lord'
bit when I was 10."
By age 18, Pollak was per-
forming hilarious Columbo
impressions while moving just
one eye. Fifteen years later, he
broke into movies after Barry
Levinson cast him as Izzy the
appliance dealer in his semi-
autobiographical 1990 film,
Avalon.
father to cancer. "I
wasn't sure I could do
the movie," confides
the actor, who had to
take breaks while film-
ing the most heart-
breaking scenes.
"But then I felt the
connection was monu-
mental because I'd
gone through what the
character needed to go
through, which helped
Mike Weinberg plays Danny Jacobsen, the son
me to grieve and to
of a rabbi (Kevin Pollak), in "Stolen Summer." bring a deeper reso-
nance to the role."
Pollak, too, found the movie
Off camera, the comedian in
semi-autobiographical because
Pollak emerged as he dodged
he also had a Russian immigrant crew members from HBO's
grandfather and an appliance
Project Greenlight, a series about
salesman dad who moved the
the making of Summer.
family to the 'burbs.
"They were like the CIA," he
The 44-year-old actor went on says. "The only place we could
to play the lieutenant dissed by
get a little privacy was the bath-
an anti-Semitic Jack Nicholson
room, which is why there's a
in A Few Good Men and a Jewish segment of the documentary
president of the United States in
where all you hear are toilets
1999's Deterrence.
flushing." ❑
His toughest Jewish role to
date: Rabbi Jacobsen in Stolen
Summer.
Stolen Summer, rated PG,
Six weeks before the spring
opens today.
2001 shoot, Pollak lost his
5/3
2002
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