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Show Friday, December 11. 1992 The Daily Utah Chronicle - Page Twelve Pioneer Theatre Company brings in 'Benefactors' Interns' work instrumental in the success of PTC's yearly production BY KATIE SCRIVNER-WAYMEN- T Chronicle Entertainment Writer Michael Frayn's comic drama Benefactors opened last night as this year's showcase of the Pioneer Theatre Company's interns. Every year, four University of Utah acting students are awarded internships with the Pioneer Theatre Company. They audition in the spring, and then the work they do throughout the year culminates in a December production in the Lab Theatre. Benefactors, a story told through flashbacks, revolves around two couples, but zeros in particularly on David, a young architect with high ideals. David believes in giving people good places to live and work. He believes that if you give people good environments, they will become good people. David is finally given a chance to fulfill this noble calling when he takes a job converting South London slums into a large housing project. But his idealism begins to erode as the planners persuade him to create a couple of skyscrapers instead. As David's enthusiasm for the compromised project starts to grow, he finds himself up against popular opinion in a battle that even makes enemies out of his closest friends. In fact, David's best buddy. Colin, heads the group that opposes David's plans for the depressed neighborhood. Benefactors quickly develops into an exploration of complex motives and emotions, especially between friends. The characters d describe themselves as people by events and their hoodwinked by feelings." Disillusionment, invariably jealousy, independence, and other feelings that come into play in marriages and other relationships, shift and change, and the four characters, despite their daily intimacies, are left like distant strangers before the end. Richard Mathews is the play's director. The four interns that form the cast are Ja'Nelle J. Dixon, Willard Knox, Mark Larson, and Wendy Wilde. Benefactors runs Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m. with a matinee on Friday, Dec. 11, at 5 p.m. The Lab Theatre is located in the Performing Arts Building just west of the bookstore on the campus of the University of Utah. For ticket information call i " "out-pace- 581-696- A film a karate Finally, few good men in one bad. flick kick with a are arrested and brought to Washington, D.C., for court martial. It turns out that the base commancfer, played by Jack Nicholson, ordered the beating of the soldier as a punishment, a Chronicle Film Critic A Few Good Men Directed by Rob Reiner Produced by David Brown, Rob Reiner, and Andrew Scheinman Starring: Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Pollack, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Code Red treatment. I'm not spoiling this for you, because we are given this information in the first twenty minutes of this two hour film. That fact, and the resulting investigation of the case by Sutherland. lawyers for the defense, navy officers Kaffee and Galloway A Few Good Men is the type of film which isn't hard to do, yet Rob Reiner makes it look hard. Courtroom dramas don't often fall flat on their face Paul Newman in The Verdict, being a prime example of a courtroom drama which works well. A Few Good Men, on the other hand, just doesn't hang together. It begins with the accidental killing of a U.S. Marine private at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The marines who killed him f The stars of Benefactors from left to right: Willard Knox, Wendy Wilde, Mark Larson, and Ja'Nelle J. Dixon. 1. BY JEFFREY D. JONSSON A M lr''v;. J , : ; (Cruise and Moore respectively), leave this film without much of a suspense factor. The plot is by the and numbers Unfortunately the add any interest simple. sub-plo- ts don't Cruise and Moore, the obvious choice for romantic possibilities, the develop passionate relationship of two tubs of yogurt, as their vanilla characters flounder away at overly insipid and smartass dialogue. Nicholson, normally boorish, profane, and stupid, bordering on insane. Also, a scattered scenes. All is not bad with this film. It has a few good performances from , Pollack as Cruise's partner, Kevin Bacon, as a ed prosecuting attorney, first time actor Wolfgang Bodison as the accused Cpl. Dawson, and Kiefer Sutherland as a gung-h- o marine lieutenant are all quite good, but not enough to save this film from the doldrums. Few Good Men is by all a serious Oscar contender, but it doesn't deserve to be. The characters are all and the drama is never fully developed. It was ultimately predictable, with the final scene lacking the punch that it should have had. Rob Reiner has A accounts al, done much better. with which these men controlled the J puppet left me to believe that of the they were BY SEAN McBRIDE Chronicle Assistant Entertainment Editor supporting characters. Kevin self-assur- aboard a ship. The grace and ease sub- plot about Kaffee andjiis dead father gets lost in a very few vv: L) really big brilliantly devilish, only seems . Once Upon a Time in China Produced by Raymond Chow Written and Directed by Tsui Hark Starring Jet Li, Yuen Biao, Kent Cheng, and Jacky Chueng (Spoken in Mandarin with Chinese and English subtitles.) actors relied upon the magic and beauty of a circus aerial act than the showoff force that Bruce Lee used. I kept finding myself wondering if the actors were flying on wires, or if they were just physically able to do multiple leaping flips along Good karate flicks are few and high-wir- e fighting. Credit the Chinese with having far between. In fact, ever since Bruce Lee went to that big pagoda in the sky, I haven't seen a memorable karate scene, let alone a whole film. Even the better ones, like Enfer the Dragon, have to be taken with a grain of salt (or a bottle of Bad acting, bad tequila). cinematography and only the most mediocre of storylines put most karate films in the "so campy you gotta love 'em" genre. So imagine my surprise when I saw the well acted, beautifully shot and. spectacularly choreographed karate film. Once Upon a Time in China. Talk about m .an early Christmas, I was in cinematic heaven. China follows the trials of Master Wong in ry Hong Kong. He is faced with challenges to his honor and reputation by a gang of strong-arme- d thugs, a rival martial arts master, a naive Chinese bureaucrat and the power hungry American, British and Russian navies. Naturally, all of Wong's foes are beaten eventually through the use of honorable conduct' and a little bit of a quick kick to the face and a cross punch to the stomach. Honestly, China doesn't have a e actors, Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Rob Reiner's newest flick, A Few Good Men has the the the and but lacks to a Demi Moore just name few) power punch. big-nam- Shanghi circus turned actors. Indeed, each of the principal great plot, but then a story would only get in the way of the fight scenes. The same holds true for the love story. The film opens up with two men performing a dragon dance with their learned a thing or two about movie magic from Steven Spielberg. They've also learned a thing or two about offering up tangible, vicious characters as villains instead of the standard cardboard cutouts. Give them credit for having seen some MTV as well. Between striking cinematography and the faster-pace- d editing than I have ever seen in any. Asian film, China will satisfy even the most restless of American film viewers. Finally, China has some real funny moments in it that's funny, mind you, not campy. Wong has four disciplesidekicks who kept the scenes the fighting truly enjoyable. Perhaps the best moment occurs when one of them, who cannot speak Chinese without stuttering, suddenly turns around en and offers up an amazing monologue of perfectly enunciated and worded English. The only problem I had with the film is that the female lead is still stuck in the Chinese tradition of Oh yeah, there are a few scenes the sub-titl- e guy just forgot to do. Of course, dialogue over-actin- g. never was essential in karate films. All I know is that finals week is now upon us. If you're like me, need some pure entertainment to ease out of this you'll quarter. And Once Upon a Time in China is the most enjoyable film I've seen in months. |