"Much-heralded Star Deli slow-cooks
its own tender temptations"

a

— Danny Raskin

Order
Trays for
Your Summer
Picnics!

TAR Order your
ELI Holiday Trays &

•

Specialties today!

COMPARE OUR LOW PRICES WITH ANY DELICATESSEN IN TOWN!

MEAT TRAY

DAIRY TRAY

$10.49=.,,

$21.49

SALAD TRAY

iperson

$14.99

$11.49 =s.„

.

Potato Latkes * Handcut Lox
Our Regular Tuna & Fat-Free Tuna Can't Be Beat!
Vegetarian Chopped Liver

.

24555 W. 12 MILE ROAD:

Just west of Telegraph Road • Southfield I

248-352-7377

www.stardeli.net

.
,
,
L
.

.

HOURS: MON-SAT 7AM-9PM • SUN 7AM-8PM

I

person

OFF .

r

Homemade Potato Salad & Coleslaw

On Star's beautiful already,

low-priced trays

Expires 9/4/14. One Per Order. Not Good Holidays.1
I
10 Person Minimum. With this coupon.

DELIVERY AVAILABLE

1930300

CCESS
■

4:111 011
1W.
=7- HI 1\10 IL 0 GI

Remember in the 1990's when every business
realized it needed to get a website? Now,
twenty years later businesses
„ =
4,42
QPb..
/
are realizing they need to
/"#s o Asp
exploit the power of Social 10
rt.
Media Marketing. Let us
ISO,
■■ Ati!‘
help humanize your company.rc4WV 1
We specialize in small to
ba
mid-size businesses. Call us
today to achieve tangible results.

Web Design I Social Media Marketing I SEO I IT Solutions

Call Jason Miller at Access Computer Technology today
www.accesscomptech.com I 248.535.7090

Buy $100 worth of gift cards and get a $20.00 Complimentary gift card for yourself!!!

Kids

Eat Free
Monday -

Italian Cuisine

248.476.0044

Buy on- lunch or dinner entree
and get the second 1/2 off
Of equal or lesser value

Not good with any other coupons.
Not good on holidays. One coupon per couple. Up to $30
Expires 8/31/14

15% off
total food bill

Not good with any other coupon.
Not good on holidays. One coupon per couple. Up to $30
Expires 8/31/14

Farmington Hills • Corner of Grand River & Haggerty Road
Auburn Hills • 1 1/2 miles south of the Palace of Auburn Hills

56

August 14 • 2014

Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan in What If

SALAD TRAY W/ LOX & CREAM CHEESE

1898360

Filmmaker taps into family history.

Michael Fox

"The ones I love — and they're the
ones that most people love — have
something real and relatable to say
hen Elan Mastai's father
about human interaction:'
said hello to a pretty
Mastai's childhood was happily
stranger in a Jerusalem
marked by Shabbat dinners every
Friday night, where his
cafe some four decades ago,
it was the only English word
large family would convene
he knew.
and debate the issues of the
The object of his attraction
day. Everyone had strong
was born in Chicago, grew
ideas of right and wrong,
up in Vancouver and had
but there was plenty of gray
lived in London the previous
area to debate as well.
few years before trekking to
"In my personal heritage,
Israel to explore her Jewish
I have all the different ver-
heritage and teach English.
sions of the Jewish experi-
It worked out pretty well
ence in the 20th and 21st
Elan Mats al
for both of them. They
centuries:' Mastai explains.
relocated to Vancouver, got
"Whether it's American
married and started a family.
Jews, European Jewry, Sephardic, the
beginning of Israel, it was all literally
Now, their 39-year-old son has chan-
neled their youthful bravado into his
sitting around my dinner table when I
screenplay for What If a warm and
was growing up:'
refreshingly grounded romantic com-
Notably, the travails his grandpar-
edy opening Friday, Aug. 15.
ents had survived did not mitigate
"The idea of moving to a country
their sense of humor.
where I didn't speak the language, dif-
"To me, the sensibility at the core
ferent legal system, different everything of the film is very Jewish in terms of
and having to start my life from scratch, that legacy of Jewish humor, whether
it's almost impossible for me to imagine it's Billy Wilder or Woody Allen or
Nora Ephron or Charlie Kaufman or
doing that:' Elan Mastai says.
"But that's what my father did. And
William Goldman:' Mastai says.
he did it for love. That is a big part of
"Wit and humor as a tool to defuse
the kind of things I like to write. I think awkwardness and tension — and that
in my DNA are the things that people
prizing of intelligence and the prizing
do for love. And that's all over this
of ethical behavior — these are things
movie:'
that were part of my Jewish upbring-
What If imagines just-dumped Daniel ing, and I tried to bring those to the
Radcliffe (the Jewish actor who played
characters.
Harry Potter) meeting Zoe Kazan at a
All the way through it, I wanted to
party, only to learn that she's in a seri-
write what I thought of as an ethical
ous, long-term relationship. There's no
romantic comedy — a comedy where
reason they can't be friends, right? It
people aren't making these crazy, cock-
just requires a little honesty on his part
amamie schemes or twisting the truth
and a lot of clarity on her part.
or hiding things from each other:'
But if things were that simple, there'd
Mastai says.
be no movie. Originally called The
"Everybody's trying to do the right
F Word ("F” as in "Friend"), What If
thing. That feels very Jewish to me
pokes and prods the central characters
because of how I was raised, that you
until one of them takes a leap of faith.
can try to do the right thing, try to
"I love the romantic comedy, but it
make ethical decisions and still make
can sometimes be a bit of a debased
a total mess of your life. Because that's
genre because it's a very phony genre at
the way life is."
times:' Mastai says on the phone from
What If is scheduled to open on
Toronto, where he lives with his wife
Friday,
Aug. 15.
and children.

Special to the Jewish News

W

❑