The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 609

LOS ANGELES TIMES WASHINGTON EDITION FRIDAY, FEBRUARY '14, 1992 B9 COVERAGE: Drama Finnish Legend Comes to Town Continued from B8 King tape repetition. But Fishman said later that he was keenly aware of not wanting to exploit the footage. "The rationale for running it twice," he said, "was that it was such a brief clip that we didn't give full perspective, and I wanted to stress how fast it could happen and how difficult it was to make the rescue. "Some people in the booth at the end of our broadcast said, 'Shall we run that dramatic video and I said no that would be exploitation. It would be exploiting a very sad story." Unfortunately, KCAL Channel 9, which otherwise was superb in its daylong coverage as it continues to emerge as a local news force, took the exploitation route.

Shortly before it went off the air Wednesday evening before returning for its nightly three-hour newscast it broadcast what seemed to be a freeze-frame close-up of the boy's face. Many viewers may well have shuddered. "It wasn't a shot of the tape," said KCAL managing editor Sylvia Teague. "It was a still picture. A man brought us the picture.

He called us, told us he had this picture and we told him to come." Without naming KCAL, Fish-man, managing editor of KTLA, said he saw what appeared to be "some freeze-frame close-up, and I disapprove of it." As the storm's ferocity increased on Wednesday, local stations were all over the story with the kind of blockbuster, continuous coverage that has become all too rare because of costs. Not all viewers were thrilled with the multichannel saturation of the storm. An operator at KABC Channel 7 said the switchboard was flooded throughout the day with callers protesting the preemption of such soap operas as "All My Children" and "General Hospital." But the stations made the right decision. For viewers involved in nature's upheaval, which brought added rain Thursday and threatened to return with more downpours during the weekend, this was virtually the quintessential local story. It touched everyone.

Sitting in your car listening to such stations as KNX and KFWB, or watching TV, viewers shared the same concerns: Was your neighborhood flooded? Was your house still there? Your car? Could you get to work or home? Were your family and friends safe? It may not have been an earthquake, but as reports of deaths began to emerge Wednesday the couple buried in a Ventura mudslide, the RVs swept into the water at a Ventura Beach trailer park, that poor boy carried away in the Los Angeles River real concerns about life and safety surely intensified. In TV terms, it was precisely the kind of story that local stations can and do cover best. No controversy or issues or deep thinking or philosophyno Bill Clinton, no Mike Tyson, no Japan-bashing, no national economic problems to deal with. Instead, it was a transfixing viewer nightmare with the kind of visual images at which TV excels at covering: roaring flood waters, wrecked and damaged houses and trailers, human stories of suddenly homeless people discussing their fate not to mention the permanent homeless who also were stricken during the storm. Sarita Choudhury, Denzel Washington and Joe Seneca in "Mississippi Masala," directed by Mira Nair.

MOVIE REVIEW Interracial Affair Spices 'Masala' example, many of the Indians who, like Mina, grew up in Uganda have had little or no contact with India, and yet they remain intensely Indian. In Mississippi, they are. in a sense, exiles twice removed, and it is this sense of exile from a homeland they never really knew that connects them to the blacks. And yet the color-caste system is still an issue between them: The Indians, because they are a lighter shade than the blacks, abhor the idea that Mina is romantically involved with Demetrius, whose own family then turns on her. (As Demetrius' father, Joe Seneca has a lived-in richness.) Washington has a powerful, no-nonsense quality that works well in the role.

Because he has often been cast as a hero, his average-guy-struggling-to-get-by role here has a poignancy; we can see immediately that he has outgrown his situation, that he's primed for greater things. Mina recognizes this in him, she's flattered by his attentions, but mostly their attraction seems to be a matter of biological inevitability they are simply the two most beautiful people in Greenwood. CHOPPERS: Danger perhaps because Nair drew on a host of famous antecedents, including "Shoeshine," "Pixote," and the early films of Satyajit Ray. "Mississippi Masala" (rated for sensuality and language) is a less derivative work and, maybe for that reason, a more awkward one. It's not much like any other movie; it's trying to find its way, tentatively, and Nair introduces a great, new-to-movies subject the transplanted Indian population in the Deep South.

But, having set up this community, she doesn't quite know what to do with it. The dramatic opportunities are skimped. We never really get the sense of how these exiled Indians mix it up with each other or, even more, with the surrounding black and white populations. (There are virtually no white characters in the film. Nair, in an attempt, perhaps, to downplay the voyeuristic, ethnographic aspects of the material, is too cavalier about the audience's need to know.

She doesn't have the inclination, or, perhaps the technique, to really savor her hot-spiced masala. But such are the fascinations of her subject that the film is often enthralling anyway. Despite the awkwardness of much of the staging, and the unevenness of the script, the movie does give you a sense of real people living real lives. The romance between Mina and Demetrius, which is the film's "Romeo and centerpiece, is less resonant than the life that surrounds them. The ironies that pile up are astounding.

For By PETER RAINER TIMES STAFF WRITER The initial scenes in "Mississippi Masala" (selected theaters), set in Uganda in 1972 just before Idi Amin expelled its Asian population, have an ecstatic openness. We understand immediately why the middle-class Indian family being forced to leave is so heartbroken. The lushness of the countryside, the vibrancy of the colors, are overpoweringly sensual, and the sudden danger in the air only adds to the vibrancy. The power of these early scenes is like a mournful chord that resonates throughout the rest of the film, which jumps 18 years ahead to Greenwood, where the family has resettled after living in England. Jay (Roshan Seth), a lawyer in Uganda, and his wife Kinnu (Shar-mila Tagore) and daughter Mina (Sarita Choudhury) have joined the extended wave of Indian immigrants to the Deep South who have largely taken over the roadside motel business.

The movie is about the furor that erupts when Mina falls in love with Demetrius (Denzel Washington), a black man who runs his own carpet-cleaning company. Masala is an Indian word for hot, mixed spices, and director Mira Nair and her screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala are free-form chefs. Their last collaboration was the near-great "Salaam which drew much of its intensity from being filmed in the streets of Bombay. But, even with its documentary-like feel, "Salaam" was a slicker and more poised piece of work than "Mississippi Masala," By JOHN HENKEN TIMES STAFF WRITER Murders, incest, suicides, seductions and revenge, all driving a blood feud. Sounds like a miniseries, right? Well, it is also the stuff of myth, in particular the Finnish legend of Kullervo, which gets an unusual double exposure at the Music Center this month.

This weekend, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presents Sibelius' symphonic poem "Kullervo," 100 years after its premiere established the composer's career. On Feb. 25, Music Center Opera and the Finnish National Opera stage the world premiere of Aulis Sallinen's new opera, also titled "Kullervo." Both involve recordings as well the Philharmonic just beginning, the Finnish National Opera's "Kullervo" will be in stores by the premiere. Throw in a few peripheral events and you have the makings of a compact and serendipitous festival of Finnish music, promoted by the Finnish government to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Finnish independence. The cornerstone of this sudden explosion of Finnish music here is the opera.

"I knew something of the 'Kale-vala' the source of the Kullervo myth and felt it was quite suitable for opera," says Peter Hemmings, general director of Music Center Opera. "I also felt strongly that we should do a premiere as soon as possible." A bit of luck helped Hemmings' quest. A new home for the Finnish National Opera has been in the works at Helsinki for several decades. "Kullervo," commissioned by the company and completed in 1988, was to inaugurate the new $165-million theater and still will, although not until 1993. "This opera was planned for the opening of the new opera house," says baritone Jorma Hynninen, who will sing the title role in the symphony and opera, and was from 1984 to 1990 the artistic director of the Finnish National Opera.

"There are very many reasons, however, why we want to play it now. For one thing, Sallinen is already well along with his next opera," Hynninen notes. "We also have good memories of our visit to the Met in 1983). We did think about which house in the U.S. would be good we thought about Washington but then this lucky situation came up." The results are a co-production.

FNO brings the soloists, chorus, conductor, director, designers and the physical elements; MCO provides the orchestra, technical staff and some of the promotion. When the Philharmonic and its Finnish music director-in-waiting, Esa-Pekka Salonen, heard of the opera plans, it seemed a natural to program the Sibelius work. Salonen and the orchestra have recorded one Sibelius disc for Sony Classical, due out soon, and are recording "Kullervo" at Royce Hall Monday and Tuesday. The basic story in the symphony and opera is the same. Kuller-vo's family is wiped out in an attack by his uncle Unto, and Kullervo is seized and sold into slavery.

After a humiliating sexual encounter with the wife of his owner, Kullervo kills her and flees. During his wanderings, Kullervo is reunited with his family who survived Unto's remarkably inept fratricide after all all except one sister. Kullervo has met her as well, and unaware of the relationship, seduced her. When the lovers discover their identities, the sister throws herself into a river. Kullervo also commits suicide, after slaughtering Unto and his family.

This tale is presented relatively forthrightly by Sibelius, in the fashion of a dramatic oratorio. The opera is something else. "In Sallinen's opera," Hynninen says, "all of these bad things have already happened it's looking back on different levels and times. It makes some very interesting things for singers and actors." Sallinen has also added a reflective finale that is not in the Kale-vala or the 19th-century play, which forms the basis for the libretto, Hynninen says. The music, of course, is also very different, although Sallinen's is firmly rooted in Romantic tonal traditions.

It begins quietly and ominously in minor, with the chorus setting the stage with what Hynninen calls the "Kalevala sound" suggestive of both folk music and Eastern Orthodox chant. It ends quietly as well, with tragic minor brightening to major in benediction. Along the way, Sallinen introduces synthesizer washes for the orchestra, and a variety of vocal techniques. ROSENBERG: Lackluster Group work in the figure skating events with low-key journeyman Verne Lundquist and former Canadian champion Tracy Wilson. Although finding the good in everything is an admirable human trait, it's a hindrance when it comes to being an Olympic commentator.

Hamilton appears never to have met a skater's lutz or landing even when it's on two feet that he didn't love. During one stretch in the pairs skating competition, he gave one "great performance" tag after another to teams that went on to earn mediocre to bad marks from the judges. Wilson is much better, and at limes has had to step in and rescue Hamilton from his own exuber- Continued from B8 Compared with ABC's army of experts at previous Winter Olympiads, moreover, CBS has so far offered a rather lackluster group of announcers and analysts. In women's Alpine skiing, for example, CBS has set up a marvelous camera shot at the 19th position, showing competitors zooming by as if propelled by jets on their skis. Yet some of the announcers working this event Tim Ryan, Christin Cooper and Cindy Nelson are anything but jets, failing to convey the excitement that this competition has engendered in the past.

The biggest CBS disaster to date, however, has been former American gold medalist Scott Hamilton's Pop Album Chart age, aired over KCOP as the rescue took place, has led to questions from the Los Angeles Fire Department and the City Attorney's office about whether Tur was at the controls of the helicopter. Ironically, Tur said, he, Welk and Prewett were commended for their heroism by Los Angeles City Councilwom-an Joy Picus at the same time that he was being investigated for flying with a suspended license. Tur would neither confirm nor deny that he was piloting the helicopter. have no delusions over what I Ado." Tur said. "I've been a reporter and photographer for 15 years.

Channel 5 Tamburro hovered over a firefighter who may have drowned in Ventura County. We suspended our televised coverage to rescue the guy we saw." But the oft-repeated videotape of daring rescues implying that hordes of pilots range over flooded disaster vistas is mostly an illusion. There have actually been fewer of Southern California's 14,000 aircraft and 26,000 licensed pilots hovering over Los Angeles in recent days, and that includes helicopter pilots. "If you look at the TV stations who have, maybe, five helicopters up, and the Los Angeles Fire Department, which has a half-dozen helicopters, and Ventura County, which has only one, we're looking at no more than two dozen aircraft at disaster scenes," said Fred O'Donnell, assistant public affairs director for the Federal Aviation Administration on the West Coast. On any summer weekend, when skies are clear and all 19 airports are open, there are far more aircraft aloft and more chance of a mishap, he said.

FCC Continued from B8 a Los Angeles congressional scat, filed suits. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) introduced legislation in the early '80s that sought to exempt dramatic appearances from the equal-time rule. Some experts believed a candidate's appearance on an entertainment program boosted his or her popularity with voters.

But Takei, who portrayed Sulu on "Star Trek," said he doubted that episodes where he was "zapped by an alien force" or went crazy after contracting an alien disease would endear him to voters. And Rep. Fred Grandy (R-Iowa) humorously wondered if he should have filed for equal time to counter episodes of "The Love Boat," where he played the buf-foonish purser Gopher. Grandy called the past policy "kind of a dumb law," and "to some extent demeaning to the American viewing public thai they will watch somebody on TV and say ah, 'This is clearly a campaign I don't think anybody got that message when I was running around the Lido deck." Continued from B8 the KCAL crew captured the only footage of the man, Michael Ross, falling about 100 feet back into the water just before he was to be pulled to safety aboard another helicopter piloted by a Ventura County rescue crew. "They were up that first day in 'Sky 9' for three hours over the flood area," said KCAL spokeswoman Jennifer Barnett.

"He described what he was seeing while our cameraman shot it." That is the routine followed by virtually all of the leased helicopter services that have begun offering their services to every station in Los Angeles in recent years. They operate from Burbank, Santa Monica and Van Nuys airports, normally delivering traffic reports during morning and afternoon drivetime. During their non-TV time, they deliver transplant organs to hospitals, shuttle executives from airport to airport and fly for movie companies. But during times of disaster-such as earthquakes, fires or this recent spate of thunderstorms they become stars. Tamburro, who flew a leased West Coast Helicopter chopper in "The Last Boy Scout." piloted KTLA's Skycam helicopter during the storm.

He could have been a hero, a la Pettee, by aiding a stranded fire captain Wednesday morning in Ventura. But he chose not to. "We were close, but we didn't want to overstep our bounds," he said. Instead, he hovered nearby, reporting live for the KTLA morning news program while his cameraman recorded the nip-and-tuck action below. Two rescuers did show up in a raft and picked up the fire captain, he said.

TV pilots fly a thin line during disaster, trying for the kind of dramatic footage that brought Pierce and Pettee national recognition while, at the same time, staying out of the way of the authorities. KCOP's Bob Tur, who had his pilot's license suspended two months ago following a dispute with the Federal Aviation Administration over alleged recklessness, has become the chief example of overstepping bounds. While being lauded for heroism, he has also been criticized by his fellow TV helicopter competition and by city and county authorities for sometimes being too daring. He has continued to fly while he appeals the FAA suspension, but only as a passenger, delivering news and traffic reports to KNX-AM (1070) as well as KCOP. Robert Prewett, another pilot, controls the helicopter.

With the overflow of the Sepul -veda dam on Monday, Tur once more found himself in hot water. In dramatic footage aired over KCOP, KABC, KCBS and "Inside Edition," Tur's helicopter dropped cameraman Larry Welk Into the water where a man appeared to be drowning. Welk subsequently drifted to a point where two lifeguards were able to rescue both men. According to Tur, the live cover 'Mississippi Masala' DMUtfWuNnftM MmatMuowry mat flMAMSttfl Ul SharrnllaTegMt KJufiu A Samuel Goldwyn Co. release of a Cinecom Entertainment Group presentation in association with Odys-seyCmecom International of a Mirabr Films production in association wilh MovieworVs Director Mira Nair.

Producers Nair. Michael Nonk, Co-producer Mitch Epstein. Executive producer Chene Rodgers. Screenplay Sooni Taraporevala. Onematograpner Ed Lachman.

Editor Roberto Silw. Costumes Ellen Lutter. Susan Lyall. Km-nan Pamkar. Production design Epstein.

Ad director Jefferson Sage. Set decorator Jeannette Scotl. Running time: 1 hour. 58 minutes. Rttad (Miutujftty and languafa).

ance. All in all, not a great performance. What a curious, almost surreal ceremony it was this week, meanwhile, when the teams of Mishku-tienok-Dmitriev and Elena Bechke-Denis Petrov now representing the tenuous, fractionalized and flagless Commonwealth of Independent States instead of the old Soviet Union stood on the podium to be honored for winning their figure skating medals. The flag they saw raised on their behalf was not a national one, but the banner of the Olympics. It was a deeply symbolic moment.

It's obvious, though, that more than just a flag has been missing from the 1992 Winter Olympics. 'WAYNE'S' Continued from B8 breaking into a back-seat chorus of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" or Garth doing a passionate doughnut shop pantomime to Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady," "Wayne's World" catches comedic fire and becomes genuinely funny. More often, however, one is conscious of how unimaginatively padded this movie feels, how little the filmmakers have found for Wayne and Garth to do. The Wayne's World concept, which, egged on by a rabid studio audience, works so beautifully in skit format, ends up feeling dragged out and energy-less at feature length. 'Wayne's World' MkaMyara WayrwCameoall DauCamy SarttiMgar RobLowt TlaCarrm Cassandra ftlMDevtoWirpri) lVaadarMI LaraFrrmrjayla Stacy Released by Paramount Pictures.

Director Penelope Spheens. Producer Lome Michaels. Eiecutrve producer Howard W. Koch Jr, Screenplay Mike Meyers and Bonnie Turner and Terry Turner, based on characters created by Mike Meyers. Cinematographer Theo Van de Sande.

Edrtor Malcolm Campbell. Music J. Peter Robinson. Production design Gregg Fonseca. An director Bruce Miller.

Set decorator Jay Hart. Running time: I hour. 35 minutes. MPAA-ratedPG-13. Rank Rank 2 Weeks Title (tabel) Last Week Weeks Ago on Chart 1.

"Ropln'the Wind" i i 22 Garth Brooks (LibertyCapitol) 2. "Dangerous" 4 4 II Michael Jackson (Epic) 3. "Nevermind" 2 2 20 Nirvana (DGCGeffen) 4. "No Fences" 3 3 75 Garth Brooks (LibertyCapitol) 5. "C.M.B." 6 11 29 Color Me Badd (Giant) "Mack Daddy" 1 Sir Mix-a-Lot (Del American) Badd Makes Good With Boosted by Color Me Badd's latest hit single, "Thinkin' Back" No.

30), the group's album "C.M.B." is back in the Billboard magazine's pop Top Five, inching up a notch to No. 5. The album by the Oklahoma City vocal quartet, which has had consecutive No. 1 pop singles, has been as high as No. 3.

If the new single, which moved up eight rungs, makes it to the Top 10, the album may challenge Garth Brooks' "Ropin' the Wind" for the lop spot. Fast-rising albums; Mr. Big's "Lean Into It" (No. 23) and Blacksheep's "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" (No. 43).

Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" is still the No. 1 pop single. Rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Mack Daddy" is making a sudden splash on the pop chart, debuting at an impressive No. 38. -DENNIS HUNT.