Photo by Alex Cohn i1 2007 Real Peace Productions Inc courtesy Sony Pictures Classics. All Rights Reserved. Arts & Entertainment Plains Speaking Documentary riffles through pages of Carter book tour. Michael Fox Special to the Jewish News A ccording to Jimmy Carter, extreme frustration provided the impetus for his 21st book, 2006's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Not a single day of peace talks took place between Israel and the Palestinians in the first six years after Bill Clinton left office, he says with a mix of incredulity and anger in director Jonathan Demme's (Philadelphia, Silence of the Lambs) straightforward docu- mentary Jimmy Carter Man From Plains. So, essentially, the former president felt com- pelled to single-handedly push the issue into the national consciousness. That same frustration likely drove him to give his tome an attention-grabbing title. But we get the sense, as Man From Plains follows the author on his book tour through the fall and winter of 2006-07, that Carter comes to regret his provocative choice. The media hones in on the controversy generated by Carter's sensationalist use of the word "apartheid" and avoids deeper questions about the urgency of the Israeli- Palestinian situation. Indeed, while Carter comes off as scornful of the Bush administration and disappointed with the Israeli government, the film subtly holds two other semi-interested parties accountable for the sad state of affairs in the Mideast: a simplistic American media and an uninformed, apathetic American public. "The issue isn't debated here:' Carter laments at one stop. "It's debated nonstop in Israel:' The film will likely not win back for Carter the affection of the Jewish estab- lishment that spoke out against his book. But it does set the record a bit straighter by clarifying where he stands: He con- demns Palestinian terrorism repeatedly, but flatly asserts that only Israel is respon- sible for the lack of political progress. The former president dismisses sugges- tions that he is anti-Israel, and the film backs him up with a sequence revisiting the events surrounding his negotiation of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978. As journalist Yaron Deckel tells Carter as they sit down for an interview in Los Angeles for Israel's Channel 1, "You forever will be an important part of Israeli history." That doesn't stop Deckel from asking hard questions, and Carter from pushing back against what he sees as misinterpretations President Jimmy Carter, left, and Director Jonathan Demme or misrepresentations of what he wrote. The same is true for his satellite inter- view with Al-Jazeera TV. These dialogues with correspondents who know the issue backward and forward cast into sharp relief the shallow, smiley-face exchanges that the likes of Terry Gross, Wolf Blitzer and Tavis Smiley have with Carter. Carter's talk at Brandeis comprises the juiciest section of Man From Plains. The filmmaker first visits Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who fruitlessly attempted to debate Carter. Dershowitz is presented as surprisingly fair; informed that somewhere Carter referred to "the so-called Holocaust" he seeks out the video clip online to ascer- tain the exact context and wording, then dis- misses the remark as an unfortunate choice of words devoid of any malevolent intent. At Brandeis, Carter quickly has the stu- dents eating out of his hand. He describes the pain of personal attacks that the book engendered against him and his family, and he encourages students to visit the West Bank for themselves and see what life is like for the Palestinians. The most frustrating passage in the film is an evening meeting between Carter and the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix fol- lowing a book signing notable for the vocif- erous Jewish and Palestinian rallies outside. We are primed for a lively give-and-take, but the rabbis declined to give permission to be included in the film. Demme uses this ill-advised decision to make them look bad but, more importantly, viewers are deprived of a conversation between Carter and a group of American Jewish leaders. ❑ Man From Plains screens 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 4 and 7 p.m. Sundays, Jan.11-13 and 18-20, at the Detroit Film Theatre in the Detroit Institute of Arts. For tickets and a complete schedule of this season's films, go to www.dia.org/dft or call (313) 833-4005. ews Protestant family. He first became well known as the star of the sur- prise 1996 hit Trainspotting. Since 1:11 Film Notes then, McGregor has co-starred in Woody Allen's latest film, quite a few good films, including Cassandra's Dream (which opened the musical Moulin Rouge, but his in select theaters in New York and international fame emanated from 41, L.A. on Dec. 28) is, like playing the young Obi-Wan his previous two films, Kenobi in the three Star set in England. It's a sort Wars prequel films. of black comedy about McGregor, 36, has been two working-class English married to Eve Makvaris brothers: Ian, played by since 1995. She is a French Ewan McGregor, and Terry, Jew of Greek Jewish played by Colin Farrell. descent and a prominent Ian is a fairly solid film production designer. Eve Makva ris and citizen while Terry is a Last September, Ewan McG regor chronic drinker and gam- McGregor told a Scottish bler. For a time, however, newspaper that he and his things go well for both brothers. The wife are raising their three daugh- good times end when Terry runs up a ters in their mother's Jewish faith. serious gambling debt. His rich uncle Ewan and Eve have two biological may step in and rescue him, but the daughters, ages 5 and 11; in April uncle demands a very difficult favor 2006, they adopted a 4-year-old girl from the brothers in return. from Mongolia. McGregor is a handsome McGregor told the same paper Scotsman who was born into a that he has been to Israel several Nate Bloom Ors Special to the Jewish News times: "My family is Jewish, and we went there because of that." The Small Screen Veteran actor Tom Bosley, 80, co-stars in the original Hallmark Channel film When You Listen. It premieres Saturday, Jan. 5, at 9 p.m. Bosley, who is best known for playing the dad on TV's Happy Days, plays the beloved grandfather of a young teenage girl in the Hallmark film. After a near-fatal heart attack, Bosley's character decides to turn his attention to repairing the "bro- ken hearts" in his own family. Producer-writer Darren Star had a huge success with Sex and the City, but he is still looking for a second hit. (His romantic comedy series Miss Match, starring Alicia Silverstone, was a flop.) Star's new ABC-TV show, which he executive produces with creator Kevin Wade, is Cashmere Mafia. The quasi-clone of Sex and the City pre- mieres this month. Cashmere follows the lives of four ambitious and sexy New York City women, who have been best friends since their days in business school, as they try — what else is new? — to balance their careers and love lives. University of Michigan grad Lucy Liu is the most famous cast mem- ber. The first episode airs 10-11 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 6, before the series moves to its regular time slot of 10- 11 p.m. Wednesdays as a mid-season replacement for Dirty Sexy Money. See psychic intuitive and Michigan native Char Margolis Thursday, Jan.10, on both the Today show on NBC and Entertainment Tonight on ABC. She'll be promoting her new book, Discover Your Inner Wisdom: Using Intuition, Logic and Common Sense to Make Your Best Choices, before a planned 2 p.m. Saturday, Jan.12, appearance at Borders in Novi (wristbands will be handed out beginning at 8 a.m. that day.) For an in-depth interview with Char, see next week's Jewish News. ❑ January 3 2008 C3