On The Tube
Merchant was the commentator, although calmer
heads eventually prevailed.
Most fighters, Merchant says, are pussycats off
stage. "Fighters are among the most decent athletes.
They come from rough backgrounds, many of them.
And not a few have had run-ins with the law when
they were young, and got steered somehow into
boxing because they were strong or needed some
kind of self-discipline.
Larry Holmes at one point refused to be inter-
atch boxing on HBO and it often seems
"Because they are really alone as athletes, they
viewed by Merchant, though the heavyweight
that commentator Larry Merchant is the
often
are more interesting than athletes in team
toughest guy in the room. He hits his tar- champ subsequently sent a letter of apology to the
sports. They may not be as glib, but they are more
broadcaster.
gets more often than the pugs who pass for con-
introspective."
At one point, controversial heavyweight champ
tenders these days.
Merchant has had more trouble with "managers or
Mike
Tyson
refused
to
sign
with
HBO
if
Larry
"I've been doing that all my life," he said in a tele-
promoters in the ring who were trying to stage-whis-
phone interview from his home in Santa
per answers to their fighters. I tell
Monica, Calif "It's what journalists are sup-
them, 'If you don't stop that, I'll have
posed to do. When I was a newspaper man, I
to stop the interview.'"
would have had more time to be more circum-
),
Merchant, 73, grew up in
spect and diplomatic about asking questions.
Manhattan and the Bronx, and even-
There was the time there were some ugly
tually went to Lafayette High School
moments in a fight that involved featherweight '
in Bensonhurst. He was a couple of
champ Prince Nassem Hamed. When
years ahead of Sandy Koufax, and
Merchant asked him about it, Hamed told
knew him through Merchant's
him it was all part of God's plan. Merchant's
younger brother, Richard.
reply: "But God isn't here right now, so I have
"I have fond memories as a kid of
to ask you about it."
.
my grandparents, who were
Bernard Hopkins took umbrage when
Orthodox" and immigrants from
Merchant asked the middleweight champion
Russia, said Merchant. The commen-
why he fought a series of bums. "He went off
tator studied with a rebbe — who
and called me ignorant," Merchant recalls. "A
had a tiny little school — and
lot of people thought he'd never communicate
became a bar mitzvah, but he
with me again.
describes himself today as a High
"But before his next fight, he came over to
Holiday Jew.
me and said, 'I'm an independent guy and
In conversation about two upcom-
expect to be heard, and you're an independent
HBO's World Championship Boxing broadcast team: Larry Merchant,
ing HBO pay-per-view events, Sept.
guy and you should be heard, too.
Jim Lampley and Roy Jones Jr.
18 and Sept. 25, following the sec-
Ring Leader
HBO boxing commentator Larry Merchant never pulls his punches.
W
))
Lilith As Superhero
Filmmaker merges Judaism with sci-fi.
NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
W
hen Bill Platt pitched his action-orient-
ed Darklight TV movie two years ago,
he hoped to create a new genre: "Chai-
Fi."
The 32-year-old filmmaker intended the project
— inspired by the Jewish demoness Lilith — to
merge his heritage with his sci-fi obsession. "I
wondered if I could make Jewish legend fun for
audiences who liked The Matrix," he said. "And I
wanted to see if I could create my own Jewish
superhero."
He wasn't imagining a comedic MOT superhero
like Jonathan Kesselman's the "Hebrew Hammer"
or Alan Oirich's "Menorah Man." Platt rather set
J14
9/17
2004
68
his sights on Lilith, the talmudic demon-queen
turned feminist icon (think Lilith magazine).
The film — typical Sci-Fi Channel fare — is
more for Battleship Galactica fans than Lilith afi-
cionados. Yet Platt did meticulous homework on
the demoness at the University of Judaism's
library in L.A. Traditional sources describe her as
Adam's surly first wife, who considered herself his
equal; declining to be dominated, she ultimately
fled the Garden of Eden and morphed into a
murderous incubus.
Darklight re-imagines Adam's ex as an immortal
suffering amnesia who eventually uses her powers
to thwart a plague. It's the kind of debut feature
one might expect of the enthusiastic Platt, who's
always been a bit "chai-fi."
Growing up in Reston, Va., he immersed him-
self in his Conservative Hebrew school as well as
in comics and the Star Wars movies. At NYU's
graduate film program, he honored his Jewish
grandparents —who had supported his superhero
fixation — with a short starring Yiddish theater
star Mina Bern.
His futuristic police thriller, Bleach, won the
1998 Student Academy Award and jump-started
his career as a producer of the Sci-Fi Channel's
Exposure Studios; when he suggested Darklight to
that network in 2002, he brought genre elements
to the Jewish-inspired character.
Like any self-respecting superhero, Lilith has an
arch-nemesis, a mad scientist, and a superhuman
task, saving mankind.
"It's amped-up tikkun olam," Platt said. "She's
repairing the world, except she's doing it on a
grand scale, one curse at a time." ❑
Darklight debuts 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 18, on
the Sci-Fi Channel.