| OCR Text |
Show n m m m mmr C-4 77ie Park Record Wednesday, January 26, 2000 See the Curtis film at the Sundance Film Festival its Kirk A. Ruby ownerdirector ; , Featuring original photogravures, goldtones, platinums (530) 964-2966 M Web site: Edward S.Curus.com x Email: lurknidysnowcrest.com undance Film Festival UUUAnC3EmS RCHARDCaiD o mm mm Catch her if you can. Remember OUR MUSIC SELECTION! Over 2,000 CD's in stock Special orders available Conveniently Located Next to Payless Drug Open 7 days 10 am. to Midnight 645-9234 "Committed" () gives the initial impression that we're headed for a typical neurotic romantic comedy. Idealistic young New Yorker Joline (Heather Graham) believes that she embarked on her life's path when she marries Carl (spawn-of-James Caan-look-alike Luke Wilson) a news photographer w ho aches for something more than food assignments. assign-ments. The movie is scarcely 20 minutes old before Carl disappears into the hinterlands, leaving behind only a postcard that says he needs to "find himself." So are we left with a woebegone woe-begone heroine who will bounce around the city streets for the next hour or so, recovering from her "dumpee" status? Not hardly. Joline, who is fiercely fierce-ly committed to the idea that her word is her bond, especially a nuptial nup-tial vow (her wedding ring is a tattoo tat-too on her finger) isnt giving up on her husband. Tracking him down to O Paso, she surreptitiously immerses immers-es herself in his life, w hile the lumpish lump-ish Carl isn even aware she around. - At his new job, she presses his photo editor (Dylan Baker) to give -him better assignments. Although initially jealous, Joline winds up befriending Carte waitress girlfriend girl-friend (Patricia Velasquez) and the two engage in heart-to-heart chats at the latter s job, letting the customers cus-tomers wait for their Margaritas. Joline turns tigress to protect her husband from a thuggish truck driver driv-er (Goran Visnjic). And she stakes out Carl's trailer home for so long that she winds up befriending the whole neighborhood, especially a lecherous but oddly respectful artist next door (Summer Phoenix) who makes a romantic advance by passing pass-ing his hand over her body but never touching. The charm from directorwriter Lisa Murphy treatment is that you never quite know w here she will head with her characters or her situations. situ-ations. Casey Affleck gives a spacy, likable performance as Joline brother, and in a scene where the two fondly trade kisses, the picture intentionally wonders, are we headed head-ed for an incest sub-plot? Nah! Left move on. Heather Graham, playing a character who wins people over with her faith and resilience, may have a star-making role (think Sandra Bullock in "While You Were sleeping"). A uniformly-excellent uniformly-excellent cast is rounded out by old pro Alfonso Arau as a snake-handling shaman. You can rely on Sundance Midnight program to come up with at least one hip horror film. Last year. "Blair Witch Project" was the festival's break-out hit. Don't expect as much from "The Convent" () a more conventional conven-tional camp chiller, but still fua It begins in 1960, w hen an ammo-toting Catholic school girl, Christine, invades the title building, blowing away a priest and a gaggle of nuns. Years later, of course, the deserted desert-ed rumor-laden old convent is invaded by a collection of college-kid college-kid stereotypes a virginal heroine, the vapid cheerleader and her quarterback quar-terback boyfriend, a sassy-tongued Goth, the nerdy pledge and a self-assured, self-assured, horny frat boy. (Faced with any potential conquest, his refrain is. "Just give me fuive minutes!) It's no surprise that this bunch is quickly snuffed out and turned into shambling zombies (dressed in religious reli-gious habits and spewing phosphorescent phospho-rescent blood and gore, yet!). But director Mike Mendez and writer Chaton Anderson aren't done yet, in cheerfully bloodthirsty fashion. They also throw in TWO virgin sacrifices (one gay, one straight): a hot -tempered night cop played by Coobo; a satanist w annabe who works daytime at Dairy Queen: a guest appearance by a popular horror hor-ror heroine of the "80s (Its not Jamie Lee!); a comically bug-eyed little dog: and a lot of violent scenes of demonic nuns being shot up, burnt up, and decapitated (Someone's working out a lot of hostility toward their parochial-school parochial-school education.) You all remember Tammy Faye Bakker, the chirpy televangelist who laid on her make-up with a trowel belted out gospel tunes and cried at the drop of a hat while her husband Jim's religious empire sank amid sexual peccadilloes and financial finan-cial fraud? What could be stranger? Well how about a documentary, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" ( 12), that refuses to treat her as a cartoon? car-toon? Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and. Randy Barbato, as a matter of ' fact, portray Tammy Faye as more victim than sinner, and admire her as a survivor, even while relishing her over-the-top personality. This is the kind of film where hand puppets introduce the chapter he idings of Tammy's life reflective reflec-tive of the fact that Jim and Tammy Faye started on TV doing a kid's program a Christian version of "Kukla.Fran and Ollie." The documentary may surprise you, as it credits the Bakkers with establishing a lot of the infrastructure infrastruc-ture and the conventions of modem TV religion, setting up building blocks like "The 700 Club" to be taken over by Pat Robertson and others. Most surprisingly, it notes that Tammy Faye, alone of the TV preachers in the '80s, extended tolerance tol-erance and compassion to homosexuals homo-sexuals and AIDS victims (which may explain w hy RuPaui is narrating narrat-ing the film.) The film is even fairly sympathetic sympa-thetic to Jim Bakker. While contending con-tending that he w as guilty of his famous dalliance with Jessica Hahn, and was too occupied with empire-building, empire-building, the filmmakers suggest that Bakker was unfairly convicted of financial misdealings. (A muckraking muck-raking reporter for the Charlotte Observer is portrayed as being a little lit-tle vain about his exposes of the Bakker empire. When confronted in present days by Tammy Faye, he tongue-tied and winds up ask ing for her autograph.) The real villain of the flick, though, is Jerry FalwelL who swooped in to "rescue" the scandal-plagued scandal-plagued Bakkers by demonizing them on TV and taking over their organization a coup heralded by Fa I we lis famous fully-clothed trip down a water slide at the Bakkers' Disneyland, Heritage U.S.A. The film slows down a bit, following fol-lowing its subject through her less-stormy less-stormy current life (here's Tammy Faye getting a makeover, appearing appear-ing on "Roseanne," etc.). "Eyes of Tammy Faye" may not convince ' you that she's a heroine, but certainly cer-tainly renders her as human, sympathetic, sym-pathetic, and certainly not a caricature. carica-ture. At the audience Q and A for Gkttgfcf () director , Karyn Kusama said she was looking look-ing for her lead character to be "Brando as a teenage girl" It's a tribute to her skill, and to lead actress Michelle Rodriguez, that that's exactly the image I thought about w hen watching the film. Rodriguez, w ho has a glowering look that could penetrate steel, ; plays angry young Diana Guzman, w ho gets into way too many fights at school until she decides to channel chan-nel her angst by asking a local coach to train her as a boxer. Directing a low-key. kitchen sink-style drama, Kusama gently sketches in Diana's relationships with the other characters a reluctant, than supportive coach; an artistic younger brother w ho doesn't quite know what to think of his sister going into a masculine sport; and a father who spends his time playing cards and assuming his kids will turn out to be losers like him. The picture hypes its drama a little bit with a climactic bout for the championship, w here Diana's opponent is the boy she s fallen in love with. (His name is Adrian, but the film is so serious you cant believe it's indulging in "Rocky" in-jokes.) Slamdance: Healthy, nutritious film test alternative by Josh Chin s "The hype is bagg:-"' 5 Once simply a SurflSance spin-off that spent every January inconspicuously inconspic-uously tucked away at the top of Park City 's Main Street in the The L.A. Times Crossword Puzzle "Who and Why" by Randolph Ross Edited by Joyce Nichols Lewis i 6 10 15 19 20 21 " 23 25 27 28 29 30 31 32 34 36 39 41 44 45 46 47 ACROSS Milquetoasts Mary's pet Mightv mount Muff-.' Pend Olympic weapon Vacation island Delete Thin costar of "It s a Wonderful Life"'' Soiled newsman'' news-man'' Derisively Bravo or Grande Mimic France Driving area Aquarium Whole Kuvtaiii princes Redford role Catches flies Folk history Jam ingredients Afternoon socials Discussion groups 49 Match made in heaven 51 Pivoting device 52 Get the job done 53 Hindu honorific 54 Donkey's uncle 55 Something to shoot for 56 Boone, familiarly famil-iarly 57 Genetic stuff 58 Entre 60 Afternoon entertainments 63 Maggie's mate 65 Actress Samantha 67 Storage addresses 68 Just made 69 Marshall's men 70 Caught 71 Leopold's co-defendant 72 Big business , Itrs. 73 Brickellof poprock 75 Children's card game 76 -Friend" Courteney 77 Sal! Lake athlete ath-lete 80 Ushered 82 Greek letters 84 Trinidad tunes 86 Northern neigh bor 87 Mucho 88 Bright star 89 Inventor's cnes 90 Last words of Kipling's "If" 91 RSVP response 93 " 112 94 97 98 101 103 104 108 110 Remember": "Fantasticks" song Sylvester's nemesis Quotable catcher catch-er Shelley's " Skylark" Tear Film holder Mich, capital Tall ships celebration cele-bration Swollen rap singer? Accused Communist in a snit? Baseball family name On : spreeing God. to Gaius Observe Yom Kippur 116 Blackbird "Death Be Not Proud" poet Nile nippers Camping gear 113 114 15 117 118 119 " 12 DOWN Bankrolls Victor's boast Lion's pride The State: Maine Looks intently See 10 Down Opening Road dividers W ay out there Big name in cheesecake Describing a heat wave Ormandy and O Neill ' 13 Roger the reviewer 14 es Salaam 15 Jubilant 16 Tijpk the train 17 Hughes of news 18 Eye sore 24 Bar choice 26 Sly actor? 33 Clever skater? 35 Skiing mecca 36 Pipe joints 37 Othello, e.g. 38 Unsmiling author'' 39 HS hurdles 40 Novel 42 Hirsute president? presi-dent? 43 First aid items 45 Mama of the '60s 48 Hide away 50 Shabby NY Times columnist? colum-nist? 51 Host holder in church 52 Lip 55 Buddies 56 Accomplishme nt 59 W. Hemisphere alliance 60 Hole in the ground 61 Grammy org. 62 ER part 64 Bad temper 65 Prot. sect 66 Batman's turf: City 67 Ireland's Sinn 71 Broadway vamp 74 LancorLadd 76 Spelunking spot 78 Perfectly 79 Exxon in the '50s 81 Unfrugal 82 "And the Band 83 Sweetie 84 Next 85 Hanger-ou 87 Took measures 88 Arizona border town 92 Pina 93 AstaireRogers movie 95 Poet's inspiration inspira-tion 97 Rocky crag 98 Computer junk 99 Whimper 100 effort 102 Electro suffix 105 "I'll be of a gun!" 106 Ain't, corrected 107 Caustic chemicals chemi-cals 109 June honoree 1 1 1 Count conclusion 1 2 I5 4 5 PT6 p S 9 I llO 11 112 113 114 I lis Il6 Il7 lit 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 " 26 27 21 5 " j 31 32 33 " 34 35" 36 137 138 39 40 " 41 kT 44 " 45 46 47 i- ; . J ; 49 SO 51 52 53 54 j"" " 57 i 58 59" 60 nTTai" " 63 vT" 65 166 "Vf : 61 69 70 71 72 " 73 74 75 rC W TChf "r rH" j-r " j s jf"r - J- - y-- - Sr " f !-T - 94 as- i " r - J i TTs"TToo " 101 10a " ioT ioT igfTiwfhvf ir ""w " W" iif - iiT" TIT W Jii " . j. y Treasure Mountain Inn. Slamdance, the alternative to the alternative : among film ftMie Vffcpow one of the more presltgluUsatherings of ' Elm fans arid movie' makers in the United States. This year, the supposedly small festival garnered more film submissions submis-sions more than 2,000 than -Robert Redford's big event. Trade magazines like The Hollywood Reporter and national publications like Variety have decided to send reporters and cameras to cover the event, and the crowds have been literally lit-erally spilling out of the Treasure Mountain Inn doors all week. So what's the big deal? One possible explanation is that, to some is the fact that, unlike Sundance, it in the world of independent cine- is still accessible and lightheaded. ma. the more obscure the better la other words, it has yat taaaor a sentiment echoed by a Nfwnfc vmtAi to the hype that haa Times Magazine review that " claimed Slamdance was "More indie than thou." As happened with alternative musk in the early '90s, there is currently an undeniable, undeni-able, if possibly dubious, cultural currency that goes along with being able to cite films no one else knows and going to Slamdance offers no shortage of ammunition in this realm. But not every film fan thinks this way, and to most regular movie goers, the attraction of Slamdance (P n m r rvp ffl I HOLIDAY VILLAGE CINEMA 6.1 for SuHMvvce Rim FesHv! - rounded it. John Veiner, star of the Slamdance feature "Road tp Park Gty," seems to agree that the festival festi-val has kept its feet on the ground and responds to the issue by saying, "It doesnl really seem 'indkr than thou' It seems like everyone is pretty casual and that they're just doing it because they like it" Bret Stern, writerdirector of "Road to Park City." adds, "It actually does seem kind of casual, w hch is cool. It a lot of fun. The res not all this pressure." And Biagio Messina, producer of the popular Slamdance "Star Wars" documentary "A Galaxy Far Far Away," also agrees. "Its a shame Sundance has become so impossible to get into to," he says. "Slamdance is nice because it gives fundkss filmmakers like me a chance." Slamdance audiences tend to share the same sentiment Michelle Abramson, a Minnesota native w hose brother is in the film business busi-ness and who has been to Sundance five years in a row. remarks, "I'm not going to say one is better than the other - but Slamdance is a little lit-tle less commercial, a little more low key." She adds. "Of course, there is a business aspect and people peo-ple are trying to sell films, but they seem to be in it for the art of if San Franciscan Jennifer Jones, in Ptoase see SJamdanclng. C4 Answers for January 22, 2000 k A J? Ail J hem P S.JLJL OE e l i s M-JiT pee AJiJlA - A oI JL W E D S N A P P E R W A I !! Q.M AJ Q8 U I TZ sxAlXAZ8 u c c ittlF 1 C L EM SLE E T 8 II EH U N WlH OLE DERATWA WlilR NEE Wl N QmTa 8 X-f-AA 8 TO VI i w I a 8 'e.lL.I.Z MAAJ3.Z e MJLA T 1 E R A R O XII D TcIe" R 8 8 H 8) W A 8 L 1 I NQtMSHAWP 8i I N K 8 I IN 1 IN Y I l8 U 1 A wl I j I Q I Q O L Q8 8 A I U Pi f T A W tli ANT Z O O L E0 U E T ""x V A N MOO 8 Z H AilililliO T XT O aInIO U t W I D I I HlOlf O U N"C A W lIeIo N 8 STILE E T A Q ErE ! 1 D C L 8 CAM rJII, L X M j AlRlE A R U O Z A 8 I A N 8 Z E P TTil A X A X P A A X AAAA""AAAXA O A 1 R E8 t P E E 8KED QRETE DaAjtar4tB auafcia lajajnitanai WahDiaMjri Strcyit Stcry CO iMIWt 126VM CHW Lm AagttBi Vmm SynltnH Poor j |
