The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 23

A 0 0 Beacon Journal Fridaii August 14, 1908 rt II. titt -r-n -tv Inside 1 Comics, crossword, bridge column, astrology forecast and television listings. C4-6 jlILJUIJM CJ1 PolyGram Vince Vaughn hears about the Malaysian imprisonment from Anne Heche in Return to Paradise. Review 'Paradise' turns into big letdown Aimless direction sinks good premise, performances Shaking with sickness and fear, a good friend sits in a filthy, rat-infested prison cell. The Malaysian authorities say he is a drug dealer.

They have sentenced your friend to death by hanging. So he sits and waits for help that may never come. He waits in the shadow of the executioner. He waits, never daring to count too much on his last slim hope. You are that last hope.

You can V. 1 0 Message UX- til iK save him. Ail it will cost you is six years of your life -six years sitting in a cell identical to his. Would you do it? That's the intriguing and disturbing question posed by Return to Paradise, an ambitious drama Ti i a rings MARK Dawidziak Money Mark's musical day is just getting started when he opens for the Beastie Boys. In the fall of 1989, 1 was unemployed, wit only a couple of part-time gigs to keep me from complete insanity.

Armed with too little money Details Event: Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Money Mark Where: Cleveland State University Convocation Center, 2000 Prospect Ave. When: 7:30 tonight Cost: Sold out Information: 216-687-9292 Event: Mixmaster Mike, Money Mark, DJ Kid Koala Where: Grog Shop, 1765 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights When: Midnight tonight Cost: $9 Information: 216-321-5588 and too much free time, I went to a lot of clubs -returning nearly night after night to one in particular. On a good night, the club's DJ would play Fight the Power by Public Enemy 'Hello Nasty Boys' newest, is yet another assist to get through these Beastie times GLENN Gamboa starring Vince Vaughn (Swingers, The Lost World: Jurassic Park), Anne Heche (this summer's Six Days, Seven Nights) and Joaquin Phoenix (To Die For, Parenthood). Would you put aside comfort, security and six years of your life? It's difficult not to ask yourself this question while watching Return to Paradise (based on Force Majeure, a 1990 French movie). The film, after all, wants to put you into these characters' uncomfortable shoes.

You can't help applauding the worthy intentions. You also can't help wishing that these worthy intentions were packaged in a better-crafted movie. Indeed, this heartfelt exploration of friendship and responsibility runs so emotionally deep, you're often left bewildered and frustrated by Joseph Ruben's plodding direction. It's almost as if the director was intentionally trying to sap the life from the powerful story and performances: A degree of understatement certainly is expected and desirable, but nothing this lackluster, this labored, this lifeless. Low-key does not mean low energy.

Yet, like too much of Ruben's work (The Good Son, True Believer, Sleeping With the Enemy), Return to Paradise is a case of ambition overrunning ability wonderful themes buried under woeful direction. You really like the story; you really hate the way it's being told. What doesn't get buried are the passionate portrayals by Vaughn, Phoenix and Heche (who proves to nervous Hollywood studios once again See FILM, Page C2 When you say Mark eats, breathes and sleeps his music, you're on the Money By Glenn Gamboa Beaam Journal pop musk writer Money Mark loves music. And it shows. Not only does Mark (a a Mark Ramos-Nishita) open for the Beastie Boys on their current tour and play keyboards for the band, but after most shows, he will play a full set of his own music at a smaller club.

And when he isn't performing, he's probably trying to work out one of the wonderful songs he's hearing in his head in the studio or even in his hotel room. "For me, the music comes from doing it a lot, from listening to other pop songs and other music," said Mark, calling from a tour stop in Minneapolis after a long night in the studio. "That's my school. I don't know that you can teach that. It's really a cumulative thing.

I use my ears like painters use their eyes." And Mark uses his tools welL His current album, Push the Button, is an amazing collection of musical ideas, ranging from straightforward, piano-based pop like Too Like You to the Elvis Costello-sounding Tomorrow Will Be See Mark, Page C6 followed by Hey Ladies by the Beastie Boys. On a great flight, the Beasties' Shake Your Rump would follow Hey Ladies. And all the party people would say along with the Beasties. That was when I first understood what the Beastie Boys Michael Diair iond, Adam Horovitz and Ai lam Yauch were all about. They were rapping about the party and your right to fight for it, sure.

But they were also rapping about life. And how to live it It's not all about the Benjamins, baby. It's about chillin' with your friends and being cool. You may be stuck in a veal-fattening cubicle by day. But at night, you've gotta get your groove on.

If you don't, you're wasting your time. That message has stuck with the Beasties through the hip-hopping Check Your Head and the punk-influenced III Communication. And it still rolls through the mishmosh of musical styles on the latest Hello Nasty. That message is no timelier than today, as everyone works harder and harder to keep moving forward. And that may well explain why Hello Nasty will likely be the biggest album of the year, hanging tight near the top of the albums chart, after going platinum in less than a month.

The tour See Boys Page C6 Family of TV channels about to increase far less likely to sit down to watch a show assuming a home has a mom, a dad and kids. More likely is that the children are watching Nickelodeon on one set, the teens have another set tuned to the WB, and Mom and Dad are arguing about whether to watch Monday Night Football or something on that self-professed network for women. Although commercial broadcast networks pay occasional lip service to family viewing, they are for the most part niche programmers putting on programs that appeal only to part of the audience, See TV, Page C2 Fox, Pax target families, but what is family viewing in '90s? If TV has a Norman Rockwell image, it's of a family gathered around a television set to watch TV together. Family viewing "is what built network television," says longtime TV executive Jeff Sagansky. But Norman Rockwell is dead.

So is the idea of making a hit show for the entire family. In the age of homes with more than one television, with networks and cable entities catering to specific segments of the audience, mom, dad and the kids are R.D. Heldenfels Pee-Wee's Playhouse (above) and the original series Mr. Bill Presents (right) will be among the Fox Family Channel offerings. Pox.