Rudolph takes a trip
“Away We Go,” directed by Sam Mendes, 43, is much lighter than his last movie, “Revolutionary Road.” (Opens in wide release Friday, June 12). Former “SNL” cast member Maya Rudolph, 36, stars as Verona, an introspective woman who is married to Burt, a goofy guy (John Krasinski of “The Office”).
Burt and Verona live in Colorado to be near Burt’s parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara). But the parents decide, practically on a whim, to move to Europe. This prompts Burt and Verona (who is six months pregnant) to travel around and look for a new place to set down roots. They visit friends and family across America and Canada, some of whom are wacky and/or insufferable. The excellent supporting cast includes Maggie Gyllenhaal, 31, as an old friend who has turned into a smugly superior women’s studies professor.
Maya Rudolph is the daughter of Jewish music producer Dick Rudolph and the late singer Minnie Riperton (“Lovin’ You”), who died of cancer in 1979.
Ginsberg on film
Gus Van Sant (“Milk”) is set to direct “Howl,” a film whose title is taken from the famous 1956 poem of the same name, written by Allen Ginsberg (1927-1997). In 1957, poet and owner of San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore Lawrence Ferlinghetti, now 90, was charged with obscenity for selling “Howl.” (Ferlinghetti’s mother was Jewish.) Major literary figures appeared as defense witnesses. Famous San Francisco attorney Jake Ehrlich (1900-1971), reputed to be the model for Perry Mason, represented the defense for free and he persuaded a San Francisco judge to rule that “Howl” wasn’t obscene.
Former Palo Alto resident James Franco (“Milk”), 31, is set to play Ginsberg and Jon Hamm, the star of TV’s “Mad Men,” will play Ehrlich. ”Howl” will open next year.
Also set to open in 2010 is “Kill Your Darlings,” based on another real-life dramatic event in Ginsberg’s life. In 1944, Ginsberg was a New York college student. His friends included then-unknown writer Jack Kerouac. The pair were caught up in a big mess when their young friend, Lucien Carr, killed a much older man who had stalked Carr for years. Carr claimed the killing followed an unwanted sexual advance and physical attack. Playing Ginsberg is Jesse Eisenberg, 25. He had a recent hit with “Adventureland” and Rolling Stone magazine just named Jesse its “hot nerd of the year.”
Doctors and nurses
“Hawthorne” is a new, original TNT cable series that premieres Tuesday, June 16 at 8 p.m. Actress Jada Pinkett Smith (the wife of Will Smith) plays Christina Hawthorne, a compassionate but tough chief nurse at a major hospital. She is a close friend (and maybe more) with Dr. Tom Wakefield, an oncologist who treated her late husband.
Playing Wakefield is hunky actor Michael Vartan, 40, who is best known for his co-starring role on TV’s “Alias.” Vartan, who has referred to himself as Jewish, grew up in France and America — the son of a French Jewish mother of Polish Jewish background and a non-Jewish father who is part Armenian.
Canadian Jewish actor David Julian Hirsh, 36, plays Ray Stein, a nurse. Stein is described as “trying to fit in a profession dominated by women.” In 2007, Hirsh starred as the central Jewish character in “St. Urbain’s Horsemen,” a Canadian Broadcasting Company miniseries based on the novel by the late Mordechai Richler. The series will come out on DVD this September.
Columnist Nate Bloom, an Oaklander, can be reached at [email protected].