Arts & Entertainment

Going For Laughs

Jeff Garlin and Rosanne Barr are among the performers
at a brand-new Michigan comedy arts festival.

Suzanne Chessler

Special to the Jewish News

T

he more comedian-actor-writer-
producer-director Jeff Garlin
— who appears as Larry David's
manager Jeff Greene on the HBO series
Curb Your Enthusiasm (which he also pro-
duces) — learned about Michael Moore's
annual Traverse City Film Festival, the
mc:e he wanted to host a comedy festival
in the Michigan town.
Garlin's idea is becoming a reality Feb.
19-21, when he and Moore host the Traverse
City Comedy Arts Festival, featuring stand-
up acts, films, special events and even fun
programs for children. Proceeds will sup-
port these nonprofit events in the future.
"I've worked all over Michigan — East
Lansing, Holly, Detroit, Traverse City and
Grand Rapids," says Garlin, "I've vaca-
tioned with my family in New Buffalo.
"Michael and I talked about who our
favorite comedians are and who was avail-
able. He called Roseanne Barr, star of the
Roseanne TV show for many years, and I
called everybody else."
Garlin will appear on the State Theatre
stage with a routine that pokes fun at his

own experiences and host free late-night
talk shows at Horizon Books.
Others on the lineup include filmmaker
John Waters, Curb Your Enthusiasm's J.B.
Smoove and rising comedy circuit stars
Whitney Cummings and Mike Birbiglia.
TJ & Dave, Second City veterans, will offer
long-form improv, while Chicago duo
Joe Avella and Tim Racine will showcase
sketch comedy.
"I'm a comedian who wings Garlin
says about his upcoming appearances. "I
never have anything planned, but I always
use specific material based on what I've
done that day. Whenever I'm in Traverse City,
I seem to make fun of the Great Wolf Lodge.
"I'm sure I mention Judaism almost
every time I perform. I talk about my life
and what's going on and somehow I know
that being Jewish always will come up.
Being Jewish can be funny."
Garlin, 48, first got the idea to be a
comedian when he was 8 years old and
living in Chicago. His parents took him to
see Jimmy Durante in a live show, and the
youngster later asked if telling jokes on
stage was a real job.
"A week after my 20th birthday, when I
was studying filmmaking at the University

of Miami, I went to a comedy
club, auditioned and passed:'
Garlin recalls. "I started with
Jeff Garlin
Second City in the 1980s and
worked hard for a long time."
Garlin, whose stints at comedy clubs
helped him polish his skills, has lots of
political opinions but does not use them
in his act. Current events often just make
him too angry.
"I can take anything personal and make
it funny,' says Garlin, whose younger broth-
er is executive director of a Chicago temple.
Transitioning into television also came
bit by bit with winning small parts on
shows, writing pilots and then getting
larger jobs.
"Standup comedy and Curb Your
Enthusiasm are pretty similar because
they're both very creative and allow me to
improvise Garlin says.
"I play my television character like me.
I think I'm a nice guy, and I play him like a
nice guy. Still, he's not about anything and
has no morals, and that's how we're different."
Garlin soon will be hitting the book-
tour circuit with his new release, My
Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World
(Simon & Schuster; $29.99), a humorous

Rosanne Barr

take on how he set out to reduce his waist-
line and carbon footprint.
"I'm losing weight and getting greener
every day': says Garlin, married to casting
director Marla Garlin and the father of
two sons, one who just celebrated his bar
mitzvah.
"I think of dieting as a waste of time so
I just changed the way I eat — no sugar,
meat, fast food, dairy or white flower. I'm
very conscious about being green — recy-
cling, making compost with garbage and
not wasting."
Another upcoming appearance is in
the film The Bounty Hunter with Jennifer
Aniston and Gerard Butler.
"I'm an improvisational writer with com-
edy," Garlin says. "When an idea strikes me,
I write it down and work it out on stage. E

Schedules and prices for the
Traverse City Comedy Arts Festival,
Feb.19-21, are available at
www.comedyartsfesttc.org .

ews

4t1

ion

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

New Flicks

ICI Garry Marshall's new film, Valentine's

(1) Day, opening Friday, Feb.12, follows
the intertwining lives of a group of
) Los Angelinos as they have romantic
encounters on the Feb.14 holiday. The
flick's star-laden cast includes Grey's
Anatomy hunky co-stars Eric Dane
(Dr. Sloan, a.k.a. "Dr.
McSteamy"), 37, and
Patrick Dempsey (Dr.
Shepherd, a.k.a. "Dr.
McDreamy").
My sources tell
me that Dane's late
father, an architect,
Eric Dane
was not born Jewish
(although he may
have converted to Judaism). Eric's
mother is Jewish and Eric was raised
Jewish. His brother's Jewish wife
worked, until recently, for the San
Francisco-area Jewish federation.
In Valentine's Day, Dane, married in
real life to actress Rebecca Gayheart

a

u

54

February 11 * 2010

(they are expectant
parents), plays a pro
football player who is
the "gay closet."
Also opening
Feb. 12 is Creation,
co-starring Paul
Bettany as Charles
Jennifer
Darwin and Jennifer
Connelly
Connelly as his
deeply religious wife, Emma. The
film follows the famous scientist as,
torn between faith and science, he
struggles to finish his famous book On
the Origin of the Species, which went
on to become the foundation for evo-
lutionary biology.
Connelly, 39, whose mother is
Jewish, is the real-life wife of Bettany.

Shmatta Success

HBO's new series How To Make It in
America follows two hustling young

Brooklyn guys as they try to succeed
in NYC's fashion scene. It premieres 10
p.m. Sunday, Feb.14.
Ben Epstein (Bryan Greenberg, 31)
and his Hispanic pal/business part-

ner Cam Calderon
(Victor Rasuk) use
their street smarts
and connections to
finance their clothing
lines. They tap Cam's
relative, a high-ener-
gy
drink mogul, and
Bryan
Ben's
childhood pal,
Greenberg
hedge fund manager
David Kaplan (Eddie
Kaye Thomas, 29).
Greenberg, who
grew up in a reli-
gious Jewish home,
mostly recently co-
starred on the TV
drama October Road.
Eddie Kaye
Thomas,
who also
Thomas
co-stars on the Fox
series Til Death, is still best known as
"Finch" in the American Pie movies.

Jewish Cheesecake

Each year, the mega-popular Web site
Askmen.com , posts a list of the "Top
99 Most Desirable Women." In theory,
this list is based on more than looks;

site visitors are asked to choose the
woman they would most want to have
as their wife or girlfriend.
I
Six million site
II I visitors voted, and 10
Jewish women are
among the 99.
The number pre-
ceding their name is
their ranking; their
age follows their
Emmanuelle
name: (1) actress

Chriqui

Emmanuelle Chriqui,

31; (13) model Bar
Refaeli, 24; (17) actress Natalie
Portman, 28; (23) actress Scarlett
Johansson, 25; (32) actress Mila
Kunis, 26; (47) model Brooke Burke,
38; (62) business exec and recent
convert to Judaism Ivanka Trump, 28;
(78) comedian Chelsea Handler, 34;
(81) former reality show star/fashion
designer Whitney Port, 24; and (99)
actress Jamie Lynn-Sigler, 28.
Chriqui co-stars in the HBO series
Entourage. She was born in Montreal,
and raised in Toronto, the daughter of
Moroccan Sephardi parents. Li