Show B8— The Herald Journal Logan Utah Saturday March 9 2002 SHERMANS LAGOON mHmdYo& iNremenpiNm films coming True-lif-e uwHirmi NUP? AMNCT WTBXMKUttrm scmuttvom CIR? under close scrutiny LOS ANGELES (AP) — Oscar chances for movies based on true stories can be damaged if the films stray too far from the tmth Many in Hollywood think that’s what derailed Denzel Washington in “The Hurricane" two years ago So the makers of this year’s “A Beautiful Mind" “Iris” “Ali" and “Black Hawk Down” have tried to acknowlstories edge the changes they made to real-lif- e and use praise from die people they depict to blunt criticism The scrutiny seems to lessen if thq subject has been dead for many years — like “Patton” (1970) “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) Oskar Schindler of “Schindler’s List’’ (1993) or William Wallace in “Braveheait” (1993) who died some 700 years before the movie When the subject is alive however past transgressions can come back to haunt their celluloid biographies “A Beautiful Mind” has weathered the most scrutiny for its account of John Forbes Nash a mathematician who won a Nobel Prize after battling schizophrenia for decades “I think Nash believes it faithfully captured the spirit of his life” said director Ron Howard who Communicates with Nash through “He’s seen the film several times and doesn’t feel betrayedby it” “A Beautiful Mind’’ has eight Academy Award nominations including best picture director for Howard and actor for star Russell Crowe Although Nash and his wife are shown as a devoted couple throughout his years of psychosis in reality he had an affair fathered an illegitimate child and his wife divorced him They remarried yean later Some critics attacked the film for omitting references to Nash’s bisexuality Howard who also directed the true-lif- e “Apollo 1 3” said unflattering details Were excised because they distracted from the story of Nash's struggle for sanity “I think that yields a fresher more compelling and more valuable stpry than a docud-ram- a biopic about all the other aspects of his life” Howard said ' is a lesConfronting such scrutiny head-oson taken from the 1999 drain “The Huni- - CATHY DINNER : ASMIGM FREE RDM ICE Aft CRM SWALLOW THE 6RUMBUN6 lb NOTHING STOMACH SUPPORT CROUP BEETLE BAILEY inspirational true story of a champion” Washington even praised Carterwhile claiming a Golden Globe for the performance “This man is love” he said But angry relatives of the murder victims — who maintain Carter’s guilt — lobbied Oscar voters to disregard the movie because of its various falsehoods The movie they said omitted critical witness testimony implicating Carter ignored his previous mugging convictions and added a fictional racist police detective who falsified evidence Support for Washington eroded and Kevin Spacey won die' Oscar for “American Beauty” For “Ali” director Michael Mam — who was criticized about die characterization of tobacco-scandMike Wallace in his 1999 true-li— said: “We drama “The Insider” tried to keep it real” The film has two Oscar nominations: best actor for Smith and best supporting actor for Jon Voight who played sportscaster Howard Cosell And ithas die endorsement of Ali himself and Ali’s close friend Howard Bingham whom Mann enlisted as an executive producer for the film Although “Iris” about die late novelist Iris "Murdoch’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease takes many liberties with her story Miramax Films included praise for die movie from her husband John Bayley in press notes “I shed more tears over die film than I did in life in a way just because it represented so well what it was like” Bayley said nomination for Judi Dench has a playing Murdoch and die movie has two supporting performance nominations: Jim Broad-beas Bayley and Kate Winslet as a young Murdoch The makers of “Black Hawk Down” which has four nominations changed die name of one of the movie’s characters because he’s now a convicted child molester Ewan McGregor as Ranger John Grimes a toldier involved in a botched 1993 military mission in Mogadishu Somalia in which 18 US soldiers died and 73 others were injured But Grimes is an alias for John Stebbins who’s serving 30 years in a military prison for raping his young daughter Mark Bowden who wrote die book“Black'riawk Down" Said Pentagon officials asked die filmmakers to change die name to avoid tainting the heroism of the fe ail HAGAR THE HORRIBLE best-actre-ss nt HE3! povou know uwit!5 uke rap TOL05EABALL6AMEW0NE RUN IN THE NINTH INNING?! ? Many considered Washington a lock as best actor for his performance as boxer Ruin “Hurricane” Carter a former middleweight who was imprisoned nearly 20 years for three 1966 slayings before a judge overturned the convictions Universal Pictures touted the film as “die PEANUTS r & best-selli- ng vidooPVb Mow on :MSi By David Germain AP Movie Writer response from Cusack to a fan wound up in die script of Crowe’i “Almost Famous” years later) The DVD has tons of deleted and alternate scenes including different takes on Cusack’s signature pose hoisting a boombox blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” DVD $1998 (20th Century Fox) “AJ Artificial Intelligence” The one and only Spielbrick production comes to home video Stanley Kubrick’s estate bequeathed to Steven Spielberg this sci-- fi tale of a boy robot longing to be human Love or hate the movie (or fed totally baffled by it) die double-DVset is worth the price just for the details it offers on that posthumous collaboration There’s also a long string of concise minidocumentaries about robot effects computer animation set miniatures animatronic puppets and other subjects Haley Joel Osment snd MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM : co-sta-rs n cane” al “The Evil Dead” Director Sam Raimi (“Spider-Manlaunched his career with this gore fest about ancient spirits possessing visitors to the woods Commentary tracks— one with Raimi and producing partner Robert Tkpert the other with star Bruce Campbell — are gems for indie-filtechnique and some humorous asides Hard-corfans of the cult classic might want to shell out for a limited edition 20th anniversary DVD that includes a documentary tyCampbeU and a background featurette and comes packaged in a simulated “Book erf die Dead” (made of rubber not human skin like in die movie) Standard DVD $1998 “Bode of die Dead” DVD $4998 (Anchor Bay) D ") low-budg- et m formances to simulate robot behavior Spielberg says this was the one project Kubrick was willing to discuss with him saying “for some reason on ' AJ’ he felt that I was a little to that subject "DVD set $2899 ' (DreamWorks) e sim-pati-co FOXTROT UNLftS TRADITIONAL PERFUMES THAT FEATURE FLOWERY SCENTS IMS ONE DEMNEDTO WORK ON A MORE FROML LEVEL “Say Anything” Cameron Crowe’s directing debut remains a Hollywood rarity: a smart witty teen romance John Cusack lone Skye and John Mahoney star in the story of a wooing a brainy but aloof beauty Audio commentary by Cusack and Skye is a wonderful Com- panion to the film with the three conveying genuine camaraderie as they share recoUec- dons (the director recalls how a clever ' “The Last Castle” — Robert Bedford is a disgraced general who leada inmates in a revolt against an oppressive warden (James Ganddfi-Crow- e semi-slack- er mJL m)atamilitiuy prisonTheDVDhasanHBO - REAL LIFE ADVENTURES Win CLOSE TO HOME ® HEALTH INSURANCE (ft1 lb end the week here is an excellent example of how “easy” bridge can be if you are willing and able to count out a deal Most of us would fail (9 collect nine tricks in then gnimbleabout all the tal breaks and qut lack of hick However Subhashv Gupta who represented Canada in the 1983 Bermuda Bowl wasn’t willing to complain until he had expkaedevery i avenue North couldn’t open me because it would have shown onlyl2-1- 4 points However my style is to reid in not one heart with such a strong balanced hand'' VVV yi ’ West led die spade three: rr‘ six kinp 10 East returned tide spade eight jack queen: seven West exited with the spade five: acc four heart six ace:' no-trm- np 1- ''to- - 4 l '-- A V (DreamWorks) G20Q2NEA North A A 7 6 A°V 7 s 10 Vi - ' : then eight thep four made it highly likelythat West began with five spades And ' as West had fivg diamonds he could hold only three cardsin heart and chibs Also! Gupta needed seven tricks from those suits1— a tall order Declarer started with a low chib to dummy’s ace When Wbafcontributed the jack Gupta continued with a low ‘dub tb his rune — whirerVfvv Nbw cRme the club king heart to the ace and the heart s jack— whew again Finally exited from die duimny with 1- i'''y - :h: the dub 10 East took two tricks in the suit but then had to lead from his 10--7 of hearts into dummy's Q-- 8 Brilliant! ' East’s spade plays —king no-tru- V- ' s The logical first step was to attack diamonds but when declarer started with dummy's 10 East luckily discarded a heart (If East!had had a low singleton Gupta would have gone down) Now though Gupta won with foe diamond no-tru- J special and commentary from director Rod Lurie DVD $2699 behind-fte-scene- at brldgo By PtiBlp Alder GLOBAL COMMUNITJ Other new releases: : i V"-- ’ A10 WbN"'':-Q 9 5 3 J 2 K 9 3 4 2 4 ¥ 24 K84 ¥ '4 4J v AQ J 6 ' 6 4: Eaat ' T-V I 75 ' 10 4 3 — Q 8 7 3 2 4 J10T ¥-9 :: 4 6 r i ?? 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