Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 4

jf -wr -ts IN EL fl a I I CI. CostSieasoJoSnso crowing Hst11E l3V7 W66K6nCl now hssr this! Screaming i --r'--- Jazz awards to focus on music, musicians 19E I t-" Comics 1 6-1 7E Cros3word19E LQ)cSlX 11 A review BEST BETS Compiled by Patty Pryor-Nolan READING Loft brings award-winning author The Loft's Mentor Series continues tonight with a reading by critically acclaimed author Karen Tei Yamashita. Yamashita received a fellowship to study Japanese immigration in Brazil, where she lived for nine years. Her first novel, "Through the Arc of the Rain Forest," received the 1991 American Book Award and the 1 992 Janet Hei-dinger Kafka Award. Her second novel, "Brazil-Maru," was selected as one of the Village Voice's 25 favorite books of 1992.

Also reading will be Dennis Cass and Ana Ortiz de Montellano, lo- cal participants in the mentor program. The program begins at 8 p.m. in the Student Center Ball-room at Hamline University, St. Paul. Admission is $5, $3 for seniors and students, free to Loft members.

Call 379-8999. Sequel funnier than original, but jess clever By Jeff StricklerStaff Writer pwwiiiiiiiniiwiPii Bimiiiin ii in mm nwim imjiiimihw i.iipji n.wpii.nijETii-piiipipri UMini in i I I jT ddams Family Val- ues" is funnier than 1991 predeces- sor but not nearly clever. Anjelica Huston reprises her role as Morticia Addams and has great fun with ft it i iimnimrrr iwniimiw wn nil mro yiin COMEDY Dental work is funny? fi Minnesota's own Paul Kelleher II knows how to make people laugh. The comedian brought the house down with his bone-chilling impression of a sadistic dentist and won $1 0,000 in the "America's Funniest People" competition. He's also entertained audiences on "Evening at the Improv" and "Star Search." He's headlining through Saturday' at the Acme Comedy Co.

in the Itasca Building, 708 N. 1st Minneapolis. Showtimes are 8 and 10:30 p.m.; tickets are $10, $19.95 with dinner. Call 338-6391 Trie first movie about America's most-beloved dysfunctional family was closer in tone to the sarcastically ghoulish cartoons of Charles Addams, while the sequel is more in keeping with the 1 960s TV se- ries. The original featured smartly styled satire in an inside-out twist on Norman Rockwell's vision of Americana.

The sequel is a sitcom farce that stresses snappy one-liners. They're great for amusing your fiends, but they're not necessarily The movie doesn't avoid social commentary entirely, but its target Is easy fodder: the snobbish upper-crust that looks down their (plastic surgery-sculpted) noses at the rest of the world. Most of the cast is back from the original: Raul Julia as Gomez, Anje-lica Huston as Morticia, Christopher Lloyd as Fester, Jimmy Work-. man as Pugsley, Christina Ricci as Wednesday and Carel Struycken as Lurch. Joining the group are Carol Kane (replacing Judith Malina as Granny) and Joan Cusack as a new character, Debbie the nanny.

Another simjlarity between original and sequel is a weak plot. The movie relies more on a zany spirit than careful scripting. Gomez and Morticia have a baby 'ADDAMS' Continued on page 2E Fester (Christopher Lloyd) takes a bride who's after the family fortune. Photos Paramount Pictures Gomez Addams (played by Raul Julia) has his hands full with new baby Pubert in the sitcom-style farce "Addams Family Values," the sequel to the 1991 film "The Addams Family." Miller brings abandonment, freedom to classical ballet FILM DISCUSSION. Brazilian trailblazers In the late 1 960s, a group of Brazilian filmmakers decided that it was time to stop regurgitating Tinseltown tales and start creating films true to indigenous Bra-' zilian culture and spirit.

The result was the Cinema Marginal movement, which celebrated contemporary urban life and political themes. A leader In the movement was Helio Oiticica, filmmaker, somba master and painter. Tonight Walker Art Center will present a panel discussion about the movement and Oiticica's influence. Fabiano Canosa, a leading specialist in Brazilian film, will lead the discussion with Cinema Marginal filmmakers Julio Bres-sane and Neville d'Almeida. The program starts at 8 p.m.

at the Walker, 725 Vineland Minneapolis. Admission is $6, $5 for Walker members. Rosalind Bentley MOVIE Nothing to fear i i rjearless" practices what it preaches: It not only tells the story of a spiritual Odyssey, it becomes one itself. Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez play the survivors of a plane crash. They are buffeted by guilt over the cruelty of fate that allowed them to live while their loved ones died.

The movie, directed by Peter Weir, raises lots of difficult philo-'. sophical questions but doesn't pretend to have any simple answers. The viewers are left to draw their own conclusions. Rat- ed it's playing at Centennial Lakes, Highland, Knollwood and -St Anthony Main. Jeff Strickler 0 town dance clubs in New York, "trying to break out of the ballet world, trying to be a natural young woman." But ballet remained a lure.

In 1982, Miller ventured to Europe and danced for two years with the Deutsche Oper in Berlin before being discovered by another American expatriate: William Forsythe, the head of the Frankfurt Ballet and, arguably, the most influential choreographer of the last generation. She quickly became both a dancer and resident choreographer, the only other choreographer besides Forsythe to make dances for what soon became Europe's hottest contemporary ballet company. So successful and popular have her ballets become that she's hard- DANCE Continued on page 3E By Mike SteeleStaff Writer manda Miller, at 32, is the latest A young choreographer to have arnA rocketed to. the top of the international ballet world, trumpeted as the visionary who will kick classical ballet into the next generation. The North Carolina-born dancer and choreographer already has a reputation for unpredictability.

Trained in the George Balanchine neoclassical style, she has danced in the big classics like "Swan Lake," and she loves them, "just beautiful when danced by wonderful ballerinas," she said recently, At the same time, however, her life has been one of resisting ballet. She quit for a while, got a job with a rock 'n' roll agency and hung around the hip down Amanda Miller's Pretty Ugly dancers are on their first tour of the United States, which brings them Jo Northrop Auditorium Saturday as part of the Northrop-Walker Art Center Discover Series. Rock and soul give a twist to the blues of Robert Cray By Calvin Wilson Kansas City Star hen Robert Cray sings the blues, that's not all you hear. i INSIDE Guare's 'Six Degrees' puts him among elite By Peter VaughanStaff Writer Iinfy hen talk turns to the best contemporary American playwrights, it Isn't long before ki John Guare's name is mentioned. It's an odd inclusion because, although Guare has been writing plays for 30 years, he has had only two widely accepted stage successes: "The House of Blue Leaves" in 1 971 and "Six Degrees of Separation," which will have Its Twin Cities premiere Sunday at Mixed Blood Theatre.

That's not much of a track record, and certainly doesn't place him on an equal footing with David Mamet, August Wilson or Neil Simon, all winners of the Pulitzer Prize, which has eluded Guare. But Guare continues to write, drawing almost universal' praise for the beauty of his writing, but often confounding critics with his unconventional mix of tragedy and comedy and the elusiveness of his stories. That's the fate that befell such Guare works as "Lydie Breeze," "Bosoms and Neglect," "The Landscape of the Body" and his most recent play, "Four Baboons Adoring the Sun." But even Guare's GUARE Continued on page 15E Singer-guitarist Robert Cray will sing the blues in Minneapolis tonight 39, said in a recent phone interview. "That voice just jumped right out of the speakers and scared me." But it didn't scare him off. Sure, he did come under the influence of the Beatles for a while.

Growing up in the '60s in Tacoma, and starting his first band, he had the tastes of his fellow teenagers to consider. "I got a guitar because the Beatles were out, and it was the 'in' thing to do. Everybody wanted to be in a band." But soon enough the blues wooed him back. All it took was an Albert Collins concert to make him realize its impor- tance to his musical expression. And the blues served him well.

Cray's early albums earned him a strong following, and his first for a major label, Rock and soul also figure in the sound of the singer-guitarist who has been called 1 the most innovative blues artist of the past 20 years. In the blues tradition, Cray who returns to the Historic State Theater in Minneapolis tonight sings of yearning, discarded love and desolate hearts. His mingling of musical genres gives those immortal themes a modern twist. Still, the blues dominate. Cray has been in awe of its standard-bearers teg-ends such as Robert Johnson and How-lin' Wolf since he discovered the music as a child.

"I found this Howlin' Wolf record," Cray, "Strong Persuader" in 1986, catapulted him onto the pop charts. This falL he released his eighth album, "Shame A Sin." With fame has come the inevitable accusations of selling out But Cray's pas- CRAY Continued on page 2E Hunter, Keitel star in 'The Page 3E V- i.