Arts & Entertainment
Happy Anniversary, Israel
Yom HaAtzmaut program at the Max celebrates Israel's 60th.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
A
concert featuring an Israeli-
based international singer-
composer with the Detroit
Symphony Orchestra, a short film by a
local Academy Award winner and a party
planned to follow the formal program are
at the heart of an upcoming celebration of
the 60th anniversary of the establishment
of Israel.
IsraelSixty showcases American and
Israeli songs performed by singer-com-
poser Noa, who appears as part of a
seven-city U.S. tour to introduce her new
Decca album, Genes and Jeans. The event
also screens Detroit & Israel: In Harmony
for 60 Years, a documentary completed
by Sue Marx Films to capture the special
relationships shared by Detroit-area Jews
and Israelis.
IsraelSixty begins at 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, May 7, at the Max M. Fisher
Music Center in Detroit.
"People should know that Israel is a
young, vital, modern country with a lot of
hip music, just like so many other places
in the world:' Noa, 38,
songs like a long coat in
told the Detroit Jewish
winter."
News as she planned for
The songs reach from
one of her earlier con-
the dark and jazzy "Dala
certs in the area.
Dala" to the dreamy "The
The new CD, in
Eyes of Love!' The title
keeping with the
track is a tribute to Noa's
Independence Day
mother and plays on the
observance that looks
theme of heritage (genes)
back and forward, mixes
and personal style (jeans).
sounds that reflect Noa's
Filmmaker Sue Marx
\ \ presents some firsthand
heritage as well as atten-
tion to the times.
stories through the film
"I started [working
she made with Allyson
on the album] with
Fink Rockwell, associate
the idea of researching
producer, and Bob Berg,
Israeli singer Noa will headline
and reviving Yemenite
director of photography.
IsraelSixty.
songs I'd heard from my
"Detroit has done a tre-
grandmother," says the
mendous amount to secure
singer-songwriter, born in Israel, raised in
Israel so I wanted this film to make the
New York and relocated to Israel while still community feel proud:' says Marx, who
in her teens.
searched through books and archival foot-
"I listened to endless amazing sing-
age to enhance the message. "It had to be
ers, and I meditated on the old Hebrew/
more than talking heads."
Yemenite lyrics, full of love and longing,
The film explains the Detroit-Israel rela-
of dreams unfulfilled, of pain, heat, dust
tionship through the words of Americans
and wind. I wrote new English lyrics and
and Israelis of various ages. It's as serious
music and wrapped them around the old
as American students being taught by an
Israeli teacher and as light as a young-
ster enjoying a kosher hamburger at a
McDonald's in Israel.
Scott Kaufman, director of IsraelSixty
programming, thinks having the celebra-
tion at the Max M. Fisher Music Center
is especially appropriate because of the
vast American-Israeli initiatives led by the
center's late namesake.
"Detroit has a history of leadership vest-
ed in Israel," Kaufman says. "We wanted an
event that would show that." ❑
IsraelSixty begins at 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, May 7, at the Max M.
Fisher Music Center, 3711 Woodward,
in Detroit. $18-$500. Patron tickets
($500) include valet parking and
a pre-glow, in addition to an after-
glow (for all ticket holders) held in
the Music Box and sponsored by
Federation's Young Adult Division
following the program. (313) 576-
5111 or www.detroitsymphony.com .
For more information, contact Dale
Alpert Rubin at (248) 203-1520 or
rubin@jfmd.org .
Jews
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
Love, Actually
The romantic comedy Made of Honor
opens Friday, May 2, starring Grey's
Anatomy's Patrick Dempsey as Tom,
a ladies man whose
best friend, Hannah
(Michelle Monaghan),
goes to Scotland
for a six-week trip.
It's then Tom real-
izes he's in love with
Hannah. But when
she
returns, Hannah
Jaime Ray
announces she's
Newman
engaged to a hand-
some Scotsman. She asks Tom to be
her "maid of honor," and he agrees,
hoping that by staying close to
Hannah he can win her heart before
the wedding.
Oscar-winning director Sydney
Pollack plays Tom's father.
Farmington Hills native Jaime Ray
Newman, 30, plays one of Hannah's
best friends (the actress and jazz
singer most recently had a recurring
C6 may
l •
2008
role on TV's Veronica Mars). Director
Paul Weiland, a British Jew, directed
the 2006 English feature film Sixty-
Six, based loosely on the events sur-
rounding Weiland's own bar mitzvah
in 1966.
Probing Tragedy
Director Vadim Perelman, 44, scored
a critical hit with his 2003 debut film
House of Sand and Fog, which earned
three Oscar nomina-
tions. Perelman's
second film, The Life
Before Her Eyes,
also probes how a
tragedy can alter
the life of a family. It
opens Friday, May 2.
Diana (Uma
Vadim
Thurman) is haunted
Perelman
by the memory of a
Columbine-like school shooting she
experienced when in high school.
Playing the younger Diana is actress
Evan Rachel Wood,19, whose mother
converted to Judaism before Evan
was born.
It's understandable that Perelman
would be drawn to scripts about trag-
ic events effecting families. He was
born in Kiev and grew up in a commu-
nal apartment housing 40 people.
His Jewish parents, he says, suf-
fered from constant anti-Semitic
harassment. His father made a mea-
ger living as an engineer until he
was killed in an accident in 1973.
Vadim and his mother left Kiev for
Italy in 1977, almost penniless. They
moved to Canada in 1979. Vadim put
himself through college and was a top
TV ad director before making his first
feature.
Strong As Iron
Iron Man, also opening Friday, May
2, stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony
Stark, a rich industrialist who is cap-
tured by terrorists in Afghanistan.
Ordered to build a missile, Stark
instead builds a power armor suit
and escapes to America, where he
improves the suit and emerges as the
tech-superhero Iron Man.
Gwyneth Paltrow, whose late
father was Jewish, plays Stark's sec-
retary. Shaun Toub, a Persian-Jewish
actor, has a support-
ing role as a doctor
who aids Stark.
The Iron Man char-
acter was created
by Marvel Comics'
founder Stan Lee,
his brother Larry
Susan Levin
Lieber (Stan Lee was
and Robert
born Stan Lieber)
Downey Jr.
and the late graphic
artist Jack Kirby.
Iron Man is directed by Jon
Favreau (Elf, Hellboy), who says he
cast Downey because of the actor's
past history of drug abuse: "The best
and worst moments of Robert's life
have been in the public eye. He had
to find an inner balance to overcome
obstacles that went far beyond his
career. That's Tony Stark."
Downey, whose paternal grandfa-
ther was Jewish, has emphasized his
own Jewish ties since he married film
producer Susan Levin in 2005 in a
Jewish ceremony. Downey credits
Levin as critical to his personal and
career recovery.
❑