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. - 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 81