rt- & Fntertainment
Girlfriends
In his latest bestselling book, West Bloomfield's Jeffrey Zaslow writes
about the special 40-year-long bond between 11 childhood friends.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
effrey Zaslow, Wall Street Journal
columnist and best-selling author,
has learned a lot about girls and
young women by carpooling his three
daughters and their friends around West
Bloomfield. He has made a point of listening.
Zaslow also has learned a lot about
women by observing the friendships
shared by his wife, Fox 2 News anchor
Sherry Margolis, and he has come to
believe that women are better than men at
connecting emotionally.
With that personal background, and
ideas stemming from a column on friend-
ship, Zaslow, 50, has written a new book,
The Girls From Ames: A Story of Women
and a Forty-Year Friendship (Gotham;
$26). He ,,vill discuss it 7 p.m. Friday, May
29, at Borders in Birmingham.
The text follows a group of real women
who met as youngsters living in Iowa and
continued their friendships into their 40s,
after moving on to different adulthoods in
distant places.
j
The writing of the book was inter-
rupted for The Last Lecture, the bestselling
book Zaslow co-authored with Randy
Paucsh about the perpetually optimistic
professor's battle with terminal pancreatic
cancer.
Zaslow's next project is
an autobiography of Capt.
Chesley"Sully" Sullenberger,
the commercial pilot who
successfully landed his dam-
aged jetliner in the Hudson
River in January.
Zaslow, active at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek,
discussed his latest release
with the JN:
IN: Why did you decide to
IN: Why did you pick these 11 women
IN: Did the women get to approve what
as your subjects?
JZ: When I went through my e-mails,
the one from Jenny (Jennifer Benson
Litchman) touched me. She said how
much they laughed togeth-
er, but she also said how
they were rallying around
one friend whose daughter
had leukemia. I liked that
they were in their 40s, an
age group that could relate
to women from their 20s
to 70s. I also liked that one
(Jane Gradwohl Nash) was
r-r-
,
Jewish.
went into the book?
JZ: They did not get final edit, but I let
them read it for fact-checking and mean-
ingful discussion beforehand. I didn't want
to hurt anyone.
A S;ory. of Women &-
, Forty-Year Friend&hip
write this book?
JZ: As the father of three daughters, I'm
always interested in how they're going
to get through life; and I realize that
female friendships are going to be vital
for them. I don't fully understand them,
and that's what made me think to do the
book.
IN: How do your friendships compare
to women's friendships?
JZ: Men's relationships with other men
don't seem as deep. I couldn't bring myself
to be as emotionally giving. I've played
poker with guys in Michigan for 15 years,
but we don't really share much. We just
talk about the cards.
Jeffrey Zaslow
will discuss his
new book and
sign copies 7
p.m. Friday, May
29, at Borders,
34300 Woodward,
in Birmingham.
(248) 203-0005.
JN: What did you learn
about being Jewish in Ames?
JZ: Jane's dad told me that
a person really had to decide to be Jewish
in that city because there were so few of
them. They had to do their own services
and become very knowledgeable because
of that. Jane didn't feel anybody treated
her differently. The girls were curious, and
they all came to her confirmation.
Jeffrey Zaslow
Jews
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
Brother Act
Writer-director Rian Johnson had an
indie hit in 2005 with Brick, a quirky
story about a bright young man
(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who suffers
a brain injury in a car accident and, in
his mentally impaired state, is lured
into aiding a bank robbery. Brick was
reminiscent of classic 1940s film
noir, while Johnson's new flick, The
Brothers Bloom, opening Friday, May
29, is more sunny and comedic. Again,
crime is involved, but the rogue char-
acters are drawn in a farcical, light
way — similar to Wes Anderson's The
Royal Tennebaums.
Playing the flick's con men broth-
ers are Mark Ruffalo and Oscar win-
ner Adrien Brody,
36. The Bloom broth-
ers are identified as
Jewish in the flick,
but nothing is really
made of that fact.
The brothers spe-
cialize in swindling
Adrien Brody
the rich. They hope
B10
May 28 • 2009
their last con job
will be their greatest
— taking a pile from
Penelope (Oscar win-
ner Rachel Weisz,
39), an eccentric
heiress. They con-
coct an elaborate
Rachel Weisz
scheme that has
Penelope and the
brothers travel around the world
and, along the way, they have many
thrilling adventures; Brody's charac-
ter finds himself falling in love with
Penelope and tries, in a way, to warn
her off. She doesn't take the hint, and
he comes to realize his brother may
have set up a very dangerous con
indeed.
Raimi Redux
Director-writer Sam
Raimi, 49, is now
most famous as the
director of the Spider
Man trilogy. But his
roots are in the hor-
ror-film genre (The
Sam Raimi
Evil Dead), and he
returns there with Drag Me to Hell, an
original tale of a young woman's quest
to break an evil curse.
Alison Lohman plays Christine, an
ambitious bank loan officer with a
charming boyfriend (Justin Long).
She hopes to impress her tough boss
(David Paymer, 54) by refusing a
loan extension to an old woman who
literally begs Christine for help. The
woman puts a curse on Christine.
The curse turns Christine's life into a
nightmare, and her only hope is that
a gifted psychic can help her.
Raimi grew up in Birmingham. His
brother Ivan Raimi, 52, an emer-
gency room doctor, sometimes
contributes to the screenplays of
his brother's films and had a hand in
writing Drag Me to Hell.
By the way, Sam Raimi has been
married since 1993 to Gillian Dania
Greene, and they have five kids.
Gillian is the daughter of the late
actor Lorne Greene of Bonanza fame,
and the late Nancy Deal Greene, a
political activist. Both are buried
in a Los Angeles Jewish cemetery,
near the grave of Michael Landon,
who played Lorne's son on Bonanza.
Landon's first wife was Jewish, and
he adopted her son from a previous
marriage. Sadly, Mark Landon died
earlier this month, at age 60.
Shecky Returns
Comedian Shecky
Greene, now 83,
was a legend in Las
Vegas. He first played
the town in 1953; by
the early '60s, he
was packing them in
Shecky
and drawing down a
Greene
six-figure salary. But
things went sour for Shecky in the
late '70s. He threw most of his money
away on gambling, drank too much
and , ,vent through a tough divorce.
Suffering from depression and anxi-
ety attacks, he left Vegas in 1981 and
returned for two limited engagements
in the 1990s. Now, after getting his
bearings again with Florida club dates,
he was set to return to Vegas for
some gigs this month.
Greene says the state of the stock
market and his portfolio had a lot to
do with his decision to return to a
town that has some good — and many
bad — memories for him.