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Sandler and the Zohan
As everyone knows by now, Adam Sandler's "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" dives in where few comedies have gone before: The Middle East conflict between Arabs and Jews. Hollywood has a long tradition of preferring onscreen Jews to be Semitic-lite (or even better, portrayed by non-Jews such as Gregory Peck in "Gentleman's Agreement"). Sandler, however, pulls no such punches in "Zohan" -- Israel is Israel and Zohan's nemesis is a Palestinian terrorist -- there is no attempt to create… -
Made in New Orleans
It's 2 a.m., and there's a crowd on St. Peter's Street in New Orleans' French Quarter; people are waiting to see the Stanton Moore Trio play Preservation Hall. Midnight and early morning shows during Jazzfest are part of a new tradition initiated by Benjamin Jaffe, Preservation Hall's creative director, the man charged with safeguarding New Orleans' musical traditions, managing the Preservation Hall Jazz band and preserving Preservation Hall itself. The weekend I was there, the hall featured midnight performances by… -
Post-Zionism in a diaspora world
What does it mean to be a Jew in a Post-Zionist world? For centuries, for Jews, the notion of living free in Zion was a dream. In Theodor Herzl's famous essay, "The Jewish State," the journalist and playwright transformed the dream of living in a Jewish state into a goal. "Next year in Jerusalem," the words we say at the end of every seder, was in those days a true aspiration for nationhood. Today, it is often treated as the… -
William Shatner gets a place at the Seder
William Shatner is God. And Pharaoh. And Moses, too. Just in time for Passover, the Jewish Music Group (a division of Shout Factory) has released "Exodus: An Oratorio in Three Parts," performed by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. It is conducted by David Itkin, who created and composed the Oratorio, sung by baritone Paul Rowe and includes dramatic readings from the Bible and from the haggadah, spoken by none other than Shatner. "It's perfect seder entertainment," Shatner said recently, but more… -
Where the booklovers are
Dutton's Brentwood Books, among the best-known and best-loved of Los Angeles' independent bookstores, will close on April 30. It is hard not to take this as a sign of the times. Over the past few years many local independent bookstores have gone the way of the local movie theater, the local hardware store and the local stationery shop -- disappearing -- as much victims of a changed retail and commercial real estate environment as a victim of our changing consumer… -
Gang of actors reaches a new stage
The Actors' Gang, now in residence at the historic Ivy Substation in Culver City, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The substation, constructed in 1907 by the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad, looks more like a Spanish mission than an electric power facility, strangely appropriate for The Actors' Gang, which is both a theater troupe with a strong sense of mission and a longtime source of power plays and electric performances (and that's as far as I'm willing to stretch this metaphor).… -
Elvis at the crossroads
Elvis is back in the building. On March 14 at the Cinerama Dome, Elvis will return, one more time, in a special 40th anniversary screening of the “Singer Presents Elvis†special from 1968, or “The Comeback Special†as it is more popularly known, as the kickoff event of the Paley Center for Media’s PaleyFest 2008. A panel discussion afterwards will feature Priscilla Presley, his widow; as well as Steve Binder the producer and director of the special – which is… -
The Great Wall of Bernstein
Over the course of a year, I collect books I should read and books I want to read, but -- should have/would have/could have -- many I never get around to reading. Over the last few months, as last year came to a close and this new one began, and as a side benefit of watching less TV during the strike, I decided to tackle a stack of them. As is often the case, the books I read could be… -
The Genesis of Early Dylan
When it comes to Bob Dylan, I think it's fair to say that I'm a fan of long standing -- my wife still teases me about the time, shortly after we'd moved to Los Angeles, when in her car, radio on, she was surprised to hear me as a call-in contestant to KSCA's "Lyrically Speaking" correctly identify the author of the verse in question as, "My man, Bob Dylan." So you might think that I would be excited to see… -
KCRW gives us 'The Business'
In an underground office on the campus of Santa Monica College, Claude Brodesser-Akner is working with his producer, Matt Holzman, and associate producer, Darby Maloney, to describe the current status of the Oscar broadcast -- and work in a pun. Finally, Brodesser-Akner says, with some satisfaction, "The Oscars are mired." Welcome to the world of "The Business," a half-hour syndicated radio program devoted to the nuts and bolts of the entertainment industry (pun intended), hosted by Brodesser-Akner each week since… -
LACMA gets Contemporary
In February, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will unveil the first phase of its renovation and expansion, including the opening of a new building devoted to contemporary art -- the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (that's Broad as in Eli and Edythe Broad, our local Medicis) or, as the acronymists at LACMA have dubbed it, BCAM. On a recent afternoon, I surveyed the new construction with Barbara Pflaumer, LACMA's associate vice president for press relations, as my Virgil. Given… -
Dreaming of a blue future (Roger Director)
Let me state, for the record, that I know nothing about sports. I don't watch them; I don't follow them. My parents didn't. I never did as a kid. I don't now with my family. Occasionally in the finals of a season, a few names flutter into my consciousness and then, just as quickly, disappear. I'm not proud of this. I watch, rather wistfully, as sports informs the conversations of a wide range of folks, as I watch families and…