St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 81

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1994 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH REVIEWS FILM JAZZ A Human View From Inside The Bars Saxophonist Eddie Harris: A Flawless Execution i 1 J- 1 I l' 6 ir? -v -w s. mm "THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION" Rating: violence, language. Running time: 2:23. By Harper Barnes Post-Dispatch Critic at Large THIS is not a propitious time for a movie that evokes sympathy for men in a maximum security prison.

"Lock 'em up (but not in my back yard) and throw away the key" seems to be the prevailing sentiment. "The Shawshank Redemption" gets around that problem in several ways. It's set in the past (1946 to 1967) in a rural state (Maine), so there are few reminders of contemporary urban terror, although there is plenty of old-fashioned brutality. And the movie is blessed with powerful performances in the prisoner roles, not just from the stars (Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman), but from such fine actors in smaller parts as James Whitmore, William Sadler and newcomer Gil Bellows. The script does not lie to us about what these men did.

Although the question of whether Andy Dufresne (Robbins) really killed his wife and her lover is not answered until near the end, his friend Red Redding (Freeman) is an admitted murderer. In fact, Red laughingly tells "I'm the only man in Shawshank prison who is not innocent," ironically suggesting that the walls enclose a lot of guilty liars. "Shawshank Redemption," based on a Stephen King story, is at heart a study of character and friendship, and it is a generally compelling (if overlong) one. Andy is a small-town banker who learns to survive for more than two decades in a tough prison, partly through his own wits, and By Steve Pick songs I play tonight will A all be originals," announced tenor saxophonist Eddie Harris at the beginning of his first of two sets Wednesday night at Just Jazz. "There are plenty of recordings you can buy which prove I can play songs you already know.

But I was thinking that if I played songs I had written, you would get to know them, and in the future, you could request them from other jazz artists." It wasn't a bad plan, except that Harris never once introduced any of the six songs he played during his hour-long performance. The tunes were indeed catchy enough, though many seemed to be variations on vaguely familiar chord progressions and melodies. Harris was accompanied by local musicians Reggie Thomas on piano, Tom Kennedy on bass, and Kevin Gianino on drums. Though these players had never played with Harris, and though it was clear he was feeling out their capabilities as the night wore on, they proved perfectly suited for the task. Harris wasn't calling tunes of extraordinary complexity, but they were rich enough hielodically to offer plenty of room for improvisation.

The quartet reached their greatest heights on the second song of the night, a number rooted in bebop styles played at a particularly rapid tempo. During Harris' solo, he began to alternate lower and upper register flurries, producing a call and response effect with himself that was stunning. In the lower register, Harris blew a hard-driving riff that echoed the role of full-scale reed sections in jazz big bands; in the upper register, he tore off quick and insightful answers before bouncing back down to the bottom. Thomas picked up on piano where Harris left off, holding the riff in his left hand and pounding a corresponding chord with his right. Eventually, he resolved the tension with a rapid burst of notes in the higher range of the piano, then settled in for a nice, extended round of heavy chordal melodies.

Kennedy, as he did whenever Thomas took a solo, had been commenting on his piano-playing part ner's ideas, and he picked up on them neatly for his turn. Kennedy simply tore his way around the changes on the bass, spitting out hails of low-end, bouncing notes in every direction, picking up threads from both Harris and Thomas. He never duplicated himself. One song might depend on long, elegantly structured melodic lines, and another might feature short, sudden" bursts surrounded by long rests. Harris and his quartet will perform tonight and Saturday at Just Jazz in the Hotel Majestic.

Tim Robbins (left) and Morgan Freeman share life and woes in prison in "The Shawshank Redemption." partly through the friendship of Red, a long-term Frank Darabont, who also wrote the script, is inmate who has figured out how to live fairly well helped greatly by the lucid, darkly majestic cine- within the system. Indeed, by the end the main matography of Roger Deakins Fink," question about Red is whether he can survive "Sid and They tell a tough, complex story outside prison. with clarity, compassion and considerable dramatic The movie gets a bit melodramatic toward the force, end, but not objectionably so. First-time director (Des Peres, Esquire) Quirky Is Operative Word Here 'ED WOOD" Hunt apartment in Los Angeles. "We would love it if we could spend all our time in the Midwest; that's where our hearts are," she said.

She met Murphy while she was working at Second City. "He had met my sister-in-law, and she thought we would have fun together. He came backstage one tial American booster who will go to any lengths to get his movies financed, including having his oddball cast dunked in a baptismal pool to wheedle money out of a fundamentalist church group. The sweet center of the movie is Wood's resurrection of horror actor Bela Lugosi, a despairing drug addict who is played brilliantly by Martin Landau (look for his name again at Oscar-nomination time.) The fine supporting cast includes Bill Murray as a marginal show-biz character who keeps talking about a sex-change operation; Jeffrey Jones as Criswell, a flamboyantly phony psychic, and Patricia Arquette as Kathy O'Hara, the love of Wood's peculiar life. Burton, as he proved with such movies as "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and "Edward Scissor-hands," as well as his focus on freakish minor characters in the "Batman" movies, loves odd, damaged loners.

So did Ed Wood. The difference, of course, is that Burton has talent and vision. (Clarkson, Crestwood, Galleria, Regency, Northwest Plaza) Harper Barnes night. He had this little rip in his Rating: language. Running time: 2:07: SUCCESS in any artistic field requires at least two qualities: talent and an almost obsessive need to create.

A movie director needs a third trait self-confidence that communicates itself to others, since it is almost impossible to make a feature film without other people, and their money. "Ed Wood," an entertainingly quirky, oddly sweet little film, presents an interesting question. What would happen if a director came along with two of those qualities, but without any talent? (Director Tim Burton has argued that Wood had unappreciated talent, but such clunky Wood flicks of the '50s as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "Glen or Glenda," reproduced lovingly in "Ed Wood," suggest he is blowing smoke.) Johnny Depp, in another fine offbeat performance, is excellent as Wood, a relentlessly upbeat salesman (and transvestite) who probably should be working with pre-owned Chevys, not schlock movies. As played by Depp, Wood is a quintessen awccuci, duu i uiuugui, yuuur guy, nobody's sewing for him good sign. "He was a really nice guy, which MM lea initially to my naving no interest in him at all.

If he had had a drug problem, or stabbed me or some-', thing, I would have been madly in love with him. vou know. Then, six Johnny Depp as Ed Wood. months later we got married." Hunt and Murphy have no chil-''" dren, but they do have a dog. The dog is a mutt that wandered onto1' Like Love, This Flick Is Sappy But Hard To Resist ven movie.

"My mother was with me," Hurif "ONLY YOU" From page one working mothers? Some of them felt slighted by the first "Beethoven" movie, in which her character reluctantly takes a job. The first day she is away from her children, one of them almost drowns. She nodded. "Women bring it up all the time," she said. "They'll come up to me at restaurants, and say they liked the movie, but that one scene really bothered them.

"I can understand that. I didn't realize the way it would be taken at the time we made the movie. I was playing a part, and the main thing I was thinking about in that scene was that she was mad at her husband. I certainly don't want women to feel guilty about having a baby sitter. God knows, some women have to work.

All I can say is, I feel bad if women took the scene that way." Hunt grew up in a large, traditional family two adults, seven children in a neighborhood of small homes near Wrigley Field in Chicago. Fairly early, she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up. "My dad said, 'You want to be an actress, go to nursing And I'm really glad I did. I worked as a nurse in a cancer hospital from 1983 to 1986, and that has provided a great foundation for my life. I go back to Chicago every year over Christmas and New Year's and work in a hospital.

"At heart, I'm still a nurse. I hated to quit, but during my Second City days, working all day at the hospital, too, finally got to be just too much." Hunt and her husband, an investment banker named John Murphy, have a house in Chicago and an recaiiea. you know, St. rrancis ot Assissi? The dog was skinny and Rating: PG. Running time: 1:51.

lookea sick, ana sne saia, wen, you and apt, since Norman Jewison directed both mov-. ies (and since in "Only You" he keeps shooting up into the twinkling night sky.) Perhaps more relevant is that, early in his career, he also directed a couple of Doris Day romantic comedies, "Send Me No Flowers" and "The Thrill of It All." Doris Day would have been comfortable with "Only You." (Clarkson, Des Peres, Eureka, Galleria, Halls Ferry, Kenrick, Mid Rivers, Northwest Square, Ronnies, St. Charles, St. Clair, Union Station) Harper Barnes bit ashamed of myself for being so easy. Marisa Tomei travels to Italy in search of a man she has never seen but -thinks she is fated to marry.

There she meets Robert Downey who is so smitten with her that he pretends to be the man of destiny. Bonnie Hunt, playing Tomei's quippy best friend, is along to add a touch of palate-cleansing comedy to a sometimes syrupy mix. And Billy Zane is fun as a phony dreamboat. Comparisons to "Moonstruck" are inevitable can leave it here, so I ended up" taking it back to the apartment and li utj: A NYTHING with this much formula in it usually fed to babies. And yet, if you accept "Only You" for what it is an old-fashioned romantic comedy that pushes the same buttons that Hollywood has pushed a thousand times before you might find yourself rather charmed by it.

I was, after resisting for about 15 minutes, although I'm a staying up du iuiu iiuiuing want? it cried. "I took her to the vet, and she was supposed to die of cancer withr in six months, but I still have her. She's all fluffv now." Hunt left Second City to Crime Movie Has Some Very Prominent Ancestors recently "The Building," about young adults (including several oth- 'KILLING ZOE" pr Serond Citv rnlleacniesl livinu 0 ---0 an ajfli iiiiiiii Luiiuiug ill Ql-io moAo lif mrtitY mfwiio Aoti 5e "i uic luuuiun.ii-uiuuuniu wdiiiess dark irony that runs like an antic thread through those two films comes mainly from Tarantino, since there is much less of it in "Killing Zoe," a competent but hardly exhilarating crime flick that is definitely not for the squeamish. (Kirkwood) Harper Barnes "Rain Man" and did a funny little" i. tt 1 luin da vinie nuusc iuui Kuiue in ago, "Killing Zoe" often feels familiar and even predictable another bloody botched holdup by a group of misfits led by a psychopath.

It is, however, considerably more violent than its cinematic ancestors. The psychopath is Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade), a Frenchman who recruits a childhood friend from America (Eric Stoltz) to crack the vault in a large Paris bank. Stoltz's character is the old crime-fiction standby, the semi-honorable profes sional crook who tries to do his job without killing anyone. The third main character is another stock figure, one that is perhaps more believable in France the hooker with a heart (Julie Delpy, the star of "Killing Zoe" is the directorial debut of Roger Roberts Avary, who collaborated with Quentin Tarantino on the scripts of "True Romance" and the upcoming "Pulp Fiction." I gather that the sometimes hilarious Rating: violence, sex, language. Running time: 1:35.

ZOE" is a tough, sexy, entertaining feature that is sort of an American updating of the crime movies of the French New Wave. Since those films of 30-odd years ago were a Gallic take on the American crime movies of 50 and 60 years 17dVC, UUL IU dClUSS L11C ttr .1 country, sne is rseetnoven S' i mother." The Boss's Bionic Balloon Basket from $45.00 "Thanks to you all for making everyone feel so special." Diane Goodman Ratner "The world is a nicer place with people like you. We admire and respect your genuine love and care. Po Lin Ko's Family 771-9600 i sensed your extreme kindness and sensitivity to everyone. The excellence of your facility gave a feeling -of comfort." Anna Shainbain's Family or Mom needed physical therapy and Delmar Gardens West was highly recommended.

The therapy has lived up to its reputation. Donald W. Reck The words of our residents and our families are simply wonderful. They reflect the kind of quality care Delmar Gardens West has provided for the past 24 years. Saturday, October 8, 8PM Replay: CGHlnsvIlle, 11GateWay GorrtV Sat.

Oct. 2:00 fc 6:30 with a visual solufe fo Roy Rogers Kahok Dancers Stagecoach Rides Cowboy Poet Martin Bergfn Western I Southwestern Jewelry Crafh Pottery Cofhing Cowboy Gear Boob I More INFORMATION 314-355-1236 Gafeway Cenfer (Hwy 157-neor 1-5570) 618-345-91271 Call and Oraar Today: American Cablevision (314)524880 Continental Cablevision Overland (314) 428)202 Jennings (314)389-0808 Belleville (618) 277-2288 Scott Air Force Base 1-800-642-5423 or (618) 234-1060 Lake St. Louis (314)561-1611 Crown Cable MO (314) 997-1700 IL 1-800-332-1707 TO Cablevision St. Charles 4 Jefferson County 1-800-653-7781 St. Louis City 1-800-949-7703 United Video Cablevision (314) 576-6868 NURSING AND REHABILITATION CENTER 13550 South Outer 40 Road Chesterfield, MO 63017 878-1330 i.

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