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CLASSICAL NOTES
In celebration of the 100th birthday of
Hill Auditorium, the University Musical
Society presents the Detroit Symphony
Orchestra at 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13, at
Hill Auditorium in a concert featuring the
Frieze Memorial Organ. Built in Detroit in
1893 and displayed at the Chicago World's
Fair, the organ was a centerpiece of Jewish
architect Albert Kahn's design when Hill
Auditorium was built. Leonard Slatkin
conducts works by composers including
Bach, Barber, Bolcom and more. Tickets
start at $10. (734) 764-2538; ums.org .
POP ROCK / JAZZ / FOLK
The Ark in Ann Arbor hosts two concerts
of note next week:
At 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 14, veteran pop
singer Marc Cohn takes the stage, with
special guest folk-pop singer-songwriter
Rebecca Pidgeon (she's married to play-
wright David Mamet); $45. (734) 761-
1451; theark.org.
is pianist-singer-composer
Then, at 8 p.m.
Gabriel Kahane. A ris-
Wednesday, Jan. 16,
ing star on the indie-pop
twin brothers San and
21st-century music scene,
Laz Slomovits, best
Kahane writes and performs
Naiad
Gail Zimmerman
known as children's
music with literary lyrics
A its Editor
and family entertain-
full of story-telling and emo-
ers through their duo
tion, with melodies tinged
Gemini, present an adult show — the
with rich classical elements (he is the
When I'm 64 Concert, celebrating their
son of classical pianist-conductor Jeffrey
64th birthday and start of their 40th year
Kahane).
of playing music. Born in Budapest in
He'll perform songs from his latest
1949, they left Hungary after the 1956
indie-pop album, Where are the Arms
revolution; in this show, they'll play music
(2011), along with material drawn from
and recall favorite memories from each of
his diverse songbook and musical the-
the four decades of their career, including
ater compositions, with yMusic, an
their own songs and those from many of
ensemble comprised of guitarist-violinist
the artists who've inspired them, including Rob Moose, violist Nadia Sirota, cellist
Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan,
Clarice Jensen, flutist Alex Sopp, clarinetist
Tom Paxton and the Beatles. $12. (734)
Hideaki Aomori and trumpet player C.J.
761-1451; theark.org .
Camerieri. Kahane's greatest asset, said the
Making his University Musical Society
New Yorker, is "his sonorous, mesmerizing
debut at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and 8 p.m.
baritone; he brings to mind Sinatra in his
Friday, Jan. 17-18, at the Arthur Miller
wee-small-hours moor General admis-
Theatre (1226 Murfin Ave.) in Ann Arbor
sion tickets: $35. (734) 764-2538; ums.org .
ON THE STAGE
Manhattan's famous Brill Building, located
at Broadway and 49th Street, was the
epicenter of the pop-music universe in
the late 1950s-'60s when composers/
performers like Burt Bacharach and Hal
David, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka and
Howard Greenfield, Paul Simon, Phil
Spector, Leslie Gore, Gary Goffin and
Carole King, Jerry Lieber and Mike
Stoller, Marvin Hamlisch and many oth-
ers created their enduring pop standards.
Performance Network in Ann Arbor
stages Brill, a world-premiere comedy by
David Wells, with music by Frank Allison,
Thursdays-Sundays, Jan. 10-Feb. 10. Set in
the Brill Building in 1959, the play tells the
story of a washed-up big band songwriter
(played by Phil Powers, a frequent per-
former at Jewish Ensemble Theatre) who
has to face the inevitability of rock 'n' roll.
120 E. Huron St. $22-$41. Show times and
tickets: (734) 663-7367;
performancenetwork.org .
Jews
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
New Flicks
Two violent movies, Zero Dark Thirty
and Gangster Squad, open on Friday,
Jan. 11.
Zero purports to tell the story of
how an elite team of intelligence and
military operatives, working in secret,
found and eliminated Osama Bin
Laden. The director, Kathryn Bigelow,
and the writer-producer, Mark Boal,
39, previously
•
made the critically
acclaimed 2010 Best
Picture Oscar win-
ner The Hurt Locker,
about the Iraq war.
The film earned Boal
an Oscar for Best
Screenplay.
Boal
While all agree
Zero is an exciting, well-made film, it
has created a storm of controversy;
most believe it endorses the view
that torture was critical to obtaining
information that leads to Bin Laden's
location. Michigan Sen. Carl Levin and
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California
have weighed in, saying the classified
info they've seen shows that torture
was actually counterproductive in
finding Bin Laden.
Boal's response is that critics are
misinterpreting his script regarding
the value and morality of info obtained
via torture.
50 January 10 • 2013
Jr,
Gangster Squad stars Sean Penn,
52, as real-life gangster Mickey
Cohen (1913-76). In the late '30s,
when Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel came
to Los Angeles to make money (most-
ly from gambling) for the East Coast
Jewish mafia, Cohen was his chief
enforcer. When Siegel was murdered
in 1947, Cohen took over his rackets.
In the late '40s, the LAPD assem-
bled the "Gangster Squad," a small
group of officers who tried to stop
Cohen and others. The movie is loose-
ly based on a 2008 series of articles
in the LA Times about the squad.
The film centers on two squad
members, played by Josh Brolin
and Ryan Gosling, who try and get
Cohen "by any means necessary." In
real life, they never got Cohen. The
feds got him: In 1961, he was sent to
Alcatraz prison for
tax evasion.
Squad is directed
by Ruben Fleischer
(Zombieland),
38. Emma Stone,
who co-starred in
Zombieland, plays
Cohen's "moll."
FILM NOMINATIONS:
Acting categories: Best Actor (drama):
Joaquin Phoenix, 38, The Master; and,
with an asterisk, Daniel Day-Lewis,
55, Lincoln (while now secular, Day-
Lewis was baptized; his late mother
was Jewish); Best Actress (drama):
Rachel Weisz, 42,
The Deep Blue Sea;
Best Actor (comedy/
musical): Jack Black,
43, Bernie; Best
Supporting Actor (any
film): Alan Arkin, 78,
Argo; Best Supporting
•
Weisz
Actress (any film):
Helen Hunt, whose
paternal grandmother was Jewish,
for playing therapist Cheryl Cohen-
Greene in The Sessions.
OTHER CATEGORIES:
Best Director: Steven Spielberg, 66,
Lincoln; Best Screenplay: Tony Kushner,
56, Lincoln; David 0. Russell, 54, Silver
Linings Playbook; and Mark Boal, 39,
Zero Dark Thirty; Best Original Song:
Claude-Michel Schonberg, 68, Alain
Boublil, 71, and Herbert Kretzmer,
87, for "Suddenly,"
a new song for Les
Miserables; Best
Animated Film: Hotel
Transylvania, co-writ-
ten by Robert Smigel,
52, and directed by
And The Winner Is
The Golden Globes, awarding the best
in film and TV, will be broadcast at 8-11
p.m. Sunday, Jan.13, on NBC. Here are
the Jewish nominees and a few others
of "Jewish interest."
Schonberg
Genndy Tartakovsky,
42.
Best Film: The award goes to the
producers; the following films have
at least one Jewish producer that I
am aware of: Drama: Lincoln (Steven
Spielberg), Argo (Grant Heslov)
and Zero Dark Thirty (Mark Boal);
Comedy/Musical: Les Miserables (Eric
Feltner) and Moonrise Kingdom (Scott
Rudin).
TV NOMINATIONS:
Best Lead Actress (drama): Julianna
Margulies, 46, The Good Wife; Best
Lead Actress (com-
edy): Lena Dunham,
26, Girls; Best
Supporting Actor
(series, miniseries or
made-for-TV movie):
Max Greenfield,
32, New Girl; and
Mandy Patinkin, 60,
Homeland.
Greenfield
FOOTNOTES: Ewan McGregor, nomi-
nated for Best Actor (comedy/musi-
cal) for Salmon Fishing in Yemen, has
a Jewish wife, and his children are
being raised Jewish. Best Supporting
Actor nominee Christoph Walz (Django
Unchained) has a Jewish ex-wife and
a son studying to be a rabbi. The
newcomer star of Moonrise Kingdom,
Jared Gilman, recently celebrated his
bar mitzvah.
❑
Contact Nate Bloom at
middleoftheroadl@aoLcom.