Arts & Entertainment

BEST BETS

Gail Zimmerman
Arts Editor

Big John

another's company.
The Birmingham Temple's Vivace
John McCutcheon has been a
Series invites listeners to hear
favorite of folk music fans
McCutcheon when he performs a
for what seems like eons —
folk music family concert, including
and he still hasn't lost his
Jewish music and melodies, 3 p.m.
appeal to audiences who
Sunday, Nov. 13, at the temple, locat-
enjoy songs that find the
John McCutcheon
ed in Farmington Hills. Tickets are
strings that tie all of us
$18 members; $21 nonmembers,
together. His more than 20 record albums
with special prices for seniors and students.
have been greeted with critical and popular
Call Joyce Cheresh at (248) 788-9338 or Ann
acclaim, and his storytelling parallels his
Sipher at (248) 661-1348.
musical performances.
"One of the first things I ever learned
about music was how much fun it was:'
MuscleBound is a documentary-
McCutcheon has said. "Shortly thereafter, I
inspired, multimedia, solo per-
learned how potent it was. Almost immedi-
formance about men who have
ately I found that combining the two was
body-image
issues written and
downright lethal. Mentors like Tom Paxton,
performed
by
Michael Feldman, a
Malvina Reynolds, Phil Ochs and Tom
New
York
artist
and playwright
Michael
Lehrer all showed me that skilled insight,
who
also
works
for
The
Daily
Show
honed by a rapier wit, could accomplish
with Jon Stewart. In the production,
things truth and sincerity often missed.
Feldman,
also the creator of the one-man
Plus, you could get people who disagreed
show
Jew
Pain,
an exploration of his ethnici-
with one another to sit down and enjoy one

Body Issues

ty and sexual identity, follows the lives of
three men on a downward spiral over the
course of one year.
Feldman, whose comedy heroes are Robin
Williams, John Leguizamo and Lily Tomlin,
interviewed more than 30 men for
MuscleBound, which mixes film and per-
formance. Characters include Josh, a 20-
something gay man who works in an ice
cream store and suffers from binge eating
and exercise bulimia; Jim, a personal trainer
who is proud of his muscular
physique but takes steroids to
bolster his size; and Nicholas, a
newly married documentary
filmmaker who fanatically
makes a documentary on male
body image by diving into the
gym culture.
Feldman brings a free per-
Feldman
formance of MuscleBound to
Ann Arbor 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 16, in the Rackham
Amphitheater (Fourth Floor), 915 E.
Washington. For more information, go to

www.uhs.umich.edu/wellnessiedbi/care.html.

Talkin' About Tevye

The Ann Arbor District Library will host a
discussion, co-sponsored by the Jewish
Community Center of Washtenaw County
and Border's Express, of Sholem Aleichem's
classic Tevye the Dairyman 7-8:30 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 17, at the Mallets Creek
Branch, 3090 E.
Eisenhower
Parkway, in Ann
Arbor.
One of the most
beloved characters
in modern Jewish
literature, Tevye the
Dairyman is, of
Sholem Aleichem
course, a pious
Jewish milkman
whose life embodies the precarious exis-
tence of a Jew in czarist Russia. Made
famous by stage and film adaptations,
including the Broadway musical Fiddler on

FYI: For Arts and Life related events that you wish to have considered for Out & About, please send the item, with a detailed description of the event, times, dates, place, ticket prices and publishable phone number, to:
Gail Zimmerman, JN Out & About, The Jewish News, 29200 Northwestern Highway, Suite 110, Southfield, MI 48034; fax us at (248) 304-8885; or e-mail to gzimmerman@thejewishnews.com Notice must be received
at least three weeks before the scheduled event. Photos are appreciated but cannot be returned. All events and dates listed in the Out & About column are subject to change.

je ws

NateBloom
Special to the Jewish News

Moranis The Mentsh
Comic actor Rick Moranis, 51, was all over
the movies from the early 1980s to the mid-
1990s. His co-starring roles included Little
Shop of Horrors, Ghostbusters, and the
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
series of films.
Recently, Moranis told
USA Today why he has-
n't taken a movie role in
almost 10 years: "I'm a
single parent, and I just
found that it was too dif-
ficult to manage raising Moranis
my kids and doing the
traveling involved in making movies. So I
took a little bit of a break. And the little bit
of a break turned into a longer break, and
then I found that I really didn't miss it ... I
don't know whether I'll go back to it or not.

I've been doing a lot of writing and a lot of
parenting"
Moranis spoke to USA Today to promote
his first music album, The Agoraphobic
Cowboy. Its a fun country-style CD that the
actor is selling though his own Web site
(rickmoranis.com )
Moranis, a practicing Jew, grew up in
Toronto and currently lives with his son and
daughter in New York City. His wife, Ann
Belsky Moranis, died of cancer in the early
1990s. She was a painter as well as a
Hollywood makeup artist. Rick Moranis
and Ann's parents have helped fund the
Ann Belsky Moranis School of Arts in
Israel. It is part of the modern Orthodox
Ohr Torah Stone high schools in Israel.

.

Veterans' Day

Last week, the big-budget flick Jarhead,
about U.S. Marines in the 1991 Gulf War,
opened to mixed reviews. The flick stars
Jake Gyllenhaal and is directed by Sam

Mendes (American
Beauty), each Jewish on
his mother's side but
not religious).
I think Jarhead will
financially flop. Right
after 9-11, any movie
about the American
Gyllenhaal
military would have
done OK. Jarhead, however, has no point of
view about either the Gulf War or the pres-
ent conflict. It's just a story about men at
war without a whole lot of riveting action
sequences.
I doubt most filmgoers want a meander-
ing war story set in the Gulf — not after
2000-plus American service personnel have
been killed in Iraq (including at least 14
American Jewish service personnel). What
audiences might want is an exciting drama,
with some point of view, that is "torn from
the headlines" and says something about
what our soldiers are now facing in Iraq.

`Zathura'
Opening Friday is Zathura, a magical
adventure kids film directed by Jon
Favreau. The film and Favreau's direction
got an absolute rave in a pre-release review
by The Hollywood Reporter: "Favreau again
delivers that rare beast — a family film that
even childless adults can enjoy — and does
it ... without a charismatic star."
The reviewer was referring to Favreau's
2003 film, Elf, which became a critical and
box office smash despite the lack of really
big names. The Reporter also singled out
Zathura co-star Jonah Bobo for praise.
Jonah is a cute 8-year-old who, according to
co-star and Michigan
native Dax Shepard, does-
n't work on Rosh
Hashanah. (Jonah's grand-
mother lives in Michigan).
Favreau, 39, was raised
in his Jewish mother's
faith and is married to a

Favreau

November 10 - 2005

m