Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 23

DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE LIVIN SECTION FRIDAY 62405 IT UP! Your guide to movies, music and mixing it up FILM REVIEW FN) (SAT) (SUN) Mediocre ma gic 4 "i i i i 1 JT jti I 10 last-minute things to do this weekend See the majesty of downtown at the River of Light laser show in the High Falls Entertainment District at 60 Brown's Race at 10 p.m. today and Saturday. The 20-minute show is projected onto the Genesee River gorge and the 96-foot cascade of High Falls. The display is best viewed from the Pont de Rennes pedestrian bridge at Piatt Street, off State Street. It's free.

Watch a boat parade of lights at 8:30 p.m. today at the start of the three-day Rochester Harbor and Carousel Festival, which returns after a three-year hiatus at Ontario Beach Park. A free shuttle bus will run between the former Odenbach Ship Plant, 4800 Dewey and the festival site each day. Call (585) 865-3320. Need more for your festival fix? Try the Alexander Street Festival along one of Rochester's better-known entertainment streets.

It runs from 5 to 11 p.m. today. Call for details. (585) 943-0796. For a rockin' time, head to Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, Route 77, Darien Center on Saturday for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

The Black Crowes, led by Chris Robinson, will open the 7 p.m. concert. Tickets are $28.50 and $57.50. Call (585) 232-1900 or go to www. ticketmaster.com.

5fou can relive Rochester's past during A Circle of Friends: Abolitionists' Tour of Mt. Hope Cemetery in 1860. This guided tour of Rochester's famous cemetery starts at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the North Gate House, Mt. Hope Cemetery, 791 Mt.

Hope Ave. Cost is $10 ($5 for ages 3-18). Reservations required. Call (585) 697-1942. Enjoy an evening of laughter with comedian Lewis Black, who brings his humor to the Auditorium Theatre, 875 E.

Main at 8 p.m. Saturday. John Bowman will open. Tickets are $32.50. Call (585) 232-1900.

For a unique treat, try Barbecue at the Wineries. Events run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday along the Keuka Lake Wine Trail, 2375 Route 14A, Penn Yan.

Cost is $20. Call (800) 440-4898 or go to www.keukawinetrail.com. Columbia Pictures Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman play the lead roles in Nora Ephron's remake of Bewitched. Kidman shows her usual comedic talent and the story line is better than most remakes out of Hollywood, but the movie itself falls a bit flat. Show's loyal fan wrote the book 'Bewitched' remake with Nicole Kidman never quite casts its spell JACK GARNER STAFF FILM CRITIC The '60s TV sitcom Bewitched was never as good as the woman who played Samantha the witch the late actress Elizabeth Montgomery.

Ditto the new Bewitched, an only mildly entertaining sitcom enlivened by Nicole Kidman. Kidman is Isabel Bigelow, an inexperienced young woman hired as an unknown to play Samantha in a modern Hollywood remake of the TV series. She wins because of the cute way she twitches her nose in Montgomery fashion. But, unbeknownst to her co-star, Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell), and to the show's producers, Isabel really is a witch. Hollywood suffers from a disease called remake-itis, trying (usually in vain) to breathe new life into everything from The Honeymooners to The Dukes ofHazzard.

But director-co-writer Nora Ephron at least deserves kudos for an original concept: Instead of remaking the show, which might have been a disaster, Ephron generates a comedy about actors in modern Hollywood who attempt to remake the show. The retooled Bewitched is a sitcom-with-in-a-movie, but witchcraft manifests itself in and outside the show. The results are fresh, but not always hilarious, perhaps because the film comes at us in too many layers: Isabel is trying to be "normal" and give up casting spells. Jack has made two disastrous films and is trvine to revive a flagging career. Isabel and Jack attempt a romance, which is usually foiled by Jack's considerable ego.

The network is trying to get a show to work. And Isabel's wacky witch relatives keep appearing to muck up the works. Witchcraft or not, it's not easy to keep that many BEWITCHED, PAGE 6C Bewitched Starring: Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell. Director: Nora Ephron. Opens today: See movie listings, Page 5C.

Length: 98 minutes. Rated: PG-13, profanity, innuendo. Web: sony.combewitched. Jack's rating: With 10 as a must-see, this film rates INSIDE movies, etc, Zombies come to life (again) in George A. Romero's latest project: Land Of the Dead page Vxv ti-iii screen, he says he's allowed to use the term "consultant" in reference to the film.

"And I got a check." Apparently, he also sold quite a few more copies of his book, because Ephron bought books for all the cast and crew members. (Two copies are visible on screen during the film.) Bewitched has long been Pilato's favorite TV show, and original star Montgomery is a favorite actress. (He was thrilled to interview her four times for his book.) He published Be witched Forever (Tapestry Press, $18.95) in 1996. Since then, Pilato has been bicoastal, spending time in Rochester with family and friends, and jetting to the coast to work on various projects, including the screenplay for a TV movie, currently being discussed. Pilato will be at Barnes Noble, story contains an error.

Morgan which will handle the production. Tickets went on sale Thursday for the first two shows, Morgan and July 24 with Mark Chesnutt. A varietyinterview television show called Nashville Country Connection is in the talking stages, and may production at the Inn in October, says Mark Cashman, who will host the show. He would like to sell the show in syndication, or perhaps buy air time for it on cable. At the moment, the only tangible sign of Nashville Country Connection are T-shirts and caps printed with the logo, a JSPEVAKtaiDemocratandChronicle.com Montgomery JACK GARNER STAFF FILM CRITIC For Rochester native Herbie Pilato, the new Bewitched isn't just a movie.

It's a paean to a show he's long loved, and it means a few new paragraphs in a new edition of his book, Bewitched Forever, the story of the original Elizabeth Montgomery TV series. The book led Pilato to a meeting with director- screenwriter Nora Ephron as she began planning the production. "I wanted to be sure the movie would Pilato be true to the mythology of Bewitched," Pilato says. "I thought the script was awesome, but there were things that needed to be fixed. Some things in it were more sci-fi than fantasy." He reminded them, "they don't use gadgets, they use magic." Though Pilato isn't credited on the The following Correction page follows.

Amphitheater iffy; Morgan 12 i Rochester native and author Herbie Pilato was a consultant on the film. 330 Greece Ridge Center Drive, for a book signing beginning at 7 p.m. July 8. JGARNER(S'DemocratandChronic le.com a sure thing If you go The schedule is as follows: July 16: Lorrie Morgan and Connie Smith, 6 p.m. July 24: Mark Chesnutt and Chalee Tennison, 6 p.m.

July 30: "Colgate Country Showdown," a regional talent show, 2 p.m. Sept. 9: John Berry, 6 p.m. Sept. 16: John Michael Montgomery, 6 p.m.

Sept. 30: "Honky Tonk Tailgate Party" with Daryl Singletary, Chad Brock, Rhett Akins, Jeff Carson and Joe Diffie. October dates pending: Blake Shelton and Rebecca Lynn Howard; Jamie O'Neal. Dec. 3: Bryan White and Miranda Lambert, Dec.

3. Where: Apple Orchard Inn, 11004 Route 3 IF, Ridgeway, Orleans County. Tickets: $16 advance, $20, available at Tops Friendly Markets, or on line at www.tickets.com. Call (585) 329-3296. TELEVISION 1 ONLINE Watch out for low-flying I airplanes this weekend at Northampton Park when the Radio Control Club of Rochester holds its annual Ray Edmunds Memorial Air Show and Fun Fly.

The model airplane flight demonstrations and shows will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.

The Northampton Park's Model Airplane Field is on Loop Road, off Sweden-Walker Road (Route 260), Sweden. There is no admission fee. Call (585) 352-6463. The town of Gates hosts its Summer Celebration Sunday at Gates Chili High School, 910 Wegman Road. Activities include games, food, fireworks and children's fun.

Events run from 6 to 10:30 p.m., with a fireworks display set for 10 p.m. Admission is free. Call (585) 247-6100, ext. 234. The preservation group A Historic Brighton will IJtV offer 45-minute trolley rides from noon to 5 p.m.

Sunday to mark Gideon Cobb Days. The tours start from Stone-Tolan House, 2370 East Brighton, and cost $4 per person. Reservations requested. Go to www. historic brighton.org.

FOR MORE things to do today, turn to Page 6C AT DemocratandChronicle.com JEFF SPEVAK STAFF MUSIC CRITIC Remember the plans for a to amphitheater out in Orleans County that a couple of country-music promoters were announcing Thursday morning? Uh never mind. But the shows, including a July 16 date featuring Lorrie Morgan, will go on. "The mention of an amphitheater is a little premature," says John Goe-bert, proprietor of the Apple Orchard Inn, which will host the shows. "At this time, that is not in our immediate plans." The immediate plans, a mere three weeks away, call for a stage to be set up behind the building, in the town of Ridgeway, just outside Medina. A parking lot will be repaved, concession stands set up and shuttles established from parking areas on nearby Salt Works Road.

"This will do 2,500 people comfortably," says Anthony Ottaviani of Rochester's Platinum Entertainment, 3 I COLUMNS lY COMICS 1- MOVIE TIMES 1 COMICS.