Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 62

SUSAN ACER TELEVISION I 'TURN BEN STEIN ON' New talk show isn't bad, but the main attraction is a hyperactive dog named Puppy Wuppy. review, page se. THURSDAY Ike. 2. 1999 Radio TV 4-5 Cat's death was hard; so is aftermath r''-niiir(iiTftiiiiy7ii-niiiMMiiiiiiiiiriiiiiiiifii The List! 6 Names Faces 6 Comics 7-8 ON THE WEB www.tVeep.com if III WHO CARES what happens to a dead, stray cat? Dennis Palmer cares, because he loved one.

I MID lln mivjd phone 313-222-6610 Section -j- Jk 1 JtJM.yu I uTF, -v 'I Vvsir jf- 1 'The Apple' is a simple treasure Odd story from Iran blends narrative, documentary styles it AJjT JT' 1J O0t 4..,. vT A By JOHN MONAGHAN FULL I'KI SS I CIA WRI "The Apple" is based on an Iranian newspaper report about a father who kept his 12-year-old twin daughters locked away from the world. Prompted by a neighborhood petition, a social service agency removed the girls from their home, bathed them for the first time since birth, cut their 'The Apple' hp 1 i VI matted hair, and then returned them with the stipulation that they be let out regularly. What' became frontpage news across the His girlfriend named the gray cat Butch, because his scars and the look in his eye made him look like a scrapper. For three winters, and the warm seasons in between, Dennis fed Butch twice each evening, setting out on the concrete back stoop of his Royal Oak apartment an aluminum plate of Sheba cat food or, sometimes, albacore tuna from a can.

Dennis is a sales manager for an automotive supplier who has always fed stray animals, even possums, because they're all God's creatures. But Butch became special. "Most strays, you feed 'em for a week or a month and you never see 'em again," Dennis says. "But Butch always came back for me." Dennis decided he couldn't stand the thought of Butch braving another winter on the streets. From his kitchen window he had seen the cat squeal in the cold.

"He deserved better than the life he had." Bad news It took Dennis four days, and a cage he bought at Meijer for $50, but a couple months ago he finally caught Butch. Within hours he delivered Butch to a vet for neutering, shots and a flea bath. That afternoon, the vet called Dennis with bad news: Butch had FIV, commonly known as feline AIDS, an incurable disease that is easily transmitted to other cats like his own three at home. Dennis stood in his kitchen and sobbed. At the VCA Animal Hospital in Southfield, where he took Butch for a second opinion, no one could offer hope.

For hours Dennis sat at VCA with Butch and cried, begging for any reasonable alternative than the one he dreaded: putting Butch down, for the good of every other cat, tame or stray. Suzi Gagnier, a technician, remembers Dennis was far more upset than most clients, "especially since his cat was a stray, a gnarled old tomcat, basically. Underweight. The cat looked bad." Says Dennis, who is 42: "There's no way on earth this wasn't the hardest thing I've done in my life" sending to death a cat to whom he had hoped to give a better life. out of 4 stars Unrated: nothing objectionable 85 minutes 7 9:30 Friday; 7 9:30 Saturday; 4 7 p.m.

Sunday Detroit Film Theatre at Detroit Institute ot Arts, 5200 Woodward Ave. 1-313-833-2323 TOM PIDGEONDelroil Free Press David Syner makes up stars on ABC's "The Practice" and the upcoming movie "Galaxy Quest." Best suppo ILJLiL ottyfvodd makeup artist David Syner, a Southfield native, is putting the finishing touches on an awards show for his craft HOW TO PUT YOUR BEST FACE FORWARD By JULIE HINDS FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER country was an inspiration for 17-year-old Samira Makhmalbaf. She gained access to the poor, Tehran family, worked with the father under the agreement that he could tell his side of the story and created a movie that uses the participants in a successful blend of narrative and documentary storytelling. The resulting "The Apple" is a little wisp of a movie that makes "The Bicycle Thief" look like "The Matrix" in terms of production and pacing, but also hits upon simple, yet all-important human emotions that movies rarely capture. Makhmalbaf knew she had to work on a strict timetable.

The sisters, Massoumeh and Zahra, barely socialized but growing every day, needed to be captured in their relative innocence for the story to work. Quickly securing film stock and cameras through the connections of her father, Mo-shen Makhmalbaf, director of the critically acclaimed "Gabbeh," she shot her debut feature in just 11 days. The movie opens with the image of a small cup of water trickling on a potted plant. As a representation of the girls and their newfound nourishment, it becomes one of two key symbols in the film. The other, an apple, represents the life that the girls grab wholeheartedly after 12 years have passed them by.

Change doesn't come so easily for their elderly father, who reluctantly takes the girls out into a tiny courtyard to sweep and cook. He insists that the girls were locked up for the sake of their blind mother and also to keep them away from prowling boys. And while we don't have to agree with him, it's difficult not to be moved by his seemingly heartfelt intentions. When a social worker arrives at the house and finds the girls again imprisoned, she locks the father behind the home's thick metal bars, gives him a hacksaw, LIPS: "I love gloss. It's So sexy, If you don't need a liner, don't wear Dne.

If you dp, me. one that's close Want your skin to look more like a new baby's than Time's on New Year's Eye? Then go easy on the ivj youc up cuhh. wjiy wear a mum actvkes Hollywood makeup-artist. Reaching into hickpickyjrJavigl, Synei grabs a stack of Polaroids of celebrities Tie's' met on the job: Lara Flyhn Boyle, Paul Reiser, Matt Dillon, Reba McEntire, one of the guys i from 'N Sync. He's been inside Charlton Heston's bathroom, where he tried fake beards on the former Moses.

Earlier this year, he gave Michael Douglas broken capillaries, bad teeth and a hairpiece for a character role. That's his routine. It's stars, stars, stars, 18 hours a day. "I have no life," says Syner, who's sipping a cup of coffee in Birmingham's Townsend Hotel and wearing a black scarf that was a gift from Douglas. Actually, Syner has a Hollywood life, a grueling, glamorous treadmill he's been on for nearly a decade.

The Southfield native puts in long hours as a makeup artist for films Birdcage," the upcoming "Galaxy Quest" with Tim Allen) and television (ABC's "The Practice" and the miniseries Syner's next project could be his biggest yet. He's deeply involved in developing tbe, new Georgia ardsiBiandf V4keua jbrowniip Uner'with light pink FOUNDATION: "If you need a liquid foundation, use it. But don't necessarily cover your whole face up. Let your skin breathe." COLOR: "Don't make a deep, deep color your only focus. Red lipstick works in the right situation, but I hate things that pop out like that.

You're walking down the street and all you see are the red lips coming at you. I want to see the beauty of someone." MAKEUP TOOLS: "Use a sponge, don't use your fingers. If you use a sponge, you'll always grab less makeup. "And use makeup brushes. Those stypid little applicators they give you, what good are those' By Julie Hinds David Syner.

"You don't need gobs of makeup," he canlt ex press enough that I want to see you. I don't want to stare at your blue eye shadow." In other words, it's OK to party like it's 1999, but don't apply 2,000 different creams, foundations and lipsticks before you go out. You'll look fresher and more contemporary if you use the less-is-more approach, Syner says. Here are more of his tips: eyes: "Mascara is the most important thing a woman can wear. What's the focus of everything? Eye contact! Learn your eyes.

Not everybody is 16 and can wear shimmer eye shadow. Go soft. Earth tones, a little sheer pink." 1 bROWS: "I'm anti waxing "Tweeze a few, pull back and look. If you sit and you go and go, you're going to pull too much." Please see MAKEUP, Page 4E A final request Before he said good-bye to his back-stoop buddy, he took a picture of him, and asked the vet for Butch's ashes. The photo turned out blurry.

And Dennis never got Butch's remains. He never will. After many phone calls, questions and tears, employees at VCA admitted they lost Butch. Suzi Gagnier, now office manager, told me the tag on Butch's body was marked "HOLD," for private cremation; a choice fewer than one in 10 pet owners make. But the guy who picks up animals for mass cremation and disposal scooped up Butch, too.

When Dennis was asked what could be done to placate him, he told VCA to send a big check to the Michigan Humane Society, in Butch's name. "Put my last name on, too," he said, "because Butch was part of my family." Later Dennis learned that VCA, for some unknown reason, instead intended to send $200 to a foundation he never heard of. That was the last straw. What started simple, food for a scrappy cat, is messy now. Attorneys are involved.

Dennis still cries when he talks about Butch. He bought i a frame for his photo, but can't bear to put it out yet. But he still feeds whatever comes to his door, investing in life and hope. SUSAN ACER can be reached at 313-222-6862 or agerfreepress.com. Please see "THE APPLE," Page 4E tants from noon to 8 p.m.

Saturday at the Star Theatre at Great Lakes Crossing. You must be 21, a U.S. citizen and in good physical and mental health. FEAST YOUR EYES I PBS enlists top cooks Some of the best Public Broadcasting System chefs of looking for contestants for a new show called Trivia will do you no good here. The network will place 16 people on a remote island off the coast of Borneo for 16 weeks.

Presumably, everyone will survive. But one person will walk away with $1 million. Folks from the show will be interviewing potential contes the last 25 years cook up a banquet at 3 p.m. Saturday on "An American Feast" on WTVS-TV (Channel 56). It's part of the station's pledge drive.

Julia Child and Burt Wolf host the program, which features Martin Yan making appetizers, Lidia Bastianich doing pasta, Paul Prudhomme and Jacques Pepin preparing entrees, and Nathalie Dupree baking pie for dessert. Now that 's a cooking show. Compiled by David Lyman from staff and news reports ilVl MV.f GET A LEG VP Plush caterpillars are cute and cuddly Caterpillars aren't usually regarded as cid4J4 5 Lots-a-Leggggggs variety. These brightly colored plush toys are a character-filled bunch, sporting jazzy hats and names like Hocus and Razz. They come in a variety of sizes, from 100 legs down to cutesy tykes with'only eight.

1 1 Prices vary. The 100-legger is 10-legged ones with flashing feet are $14.99. They're trnrm- I WILL SURVIVE Do it and earn $1 million Want to make a million bucks without Regis Philbin? CBS is A..